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Friday, August 19, 2005

Secret deals rock Italian and Spanish media

There's a brewing scandal in Italy which hasn't received a huge amount attention in the English language press, but has already dragged in the Italian prime minister and the son in law of the former Spanish prime minister.

Silvio Berlusconi has denied being part of a secret consortium which is attempting to takeover the RCS media group, publishers of the Italian daily Corriere della Sera. The name of Alejandro Agag, son in law to former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar has also been mentioned in connection with the takeover bid. RCS are also the main shareholders of the Spanish paper, El Mundo.

This editorial in El Pais neatly sums up what's been revealed to date. It all started with attempts by Stefano Ricucci, a young and hitherto little known property developer, to buy the RCS group. Simultaneously he was locked in battles with ABN Amro and Spanish bank BBVA for the control of Italian banks Banca Nazionale del Lavoro and Banca Antonveneta. Suspicions arose in Italy as to where exactly Ricucci was getting the cash to finance all of these moves. Public prosecutors in Rome and Milan and the Italian stock market opened an investigation into suspected irregularities on the part of Ricucci, his bankers Banca Popolare Italiana and various other parties. As part of the investigation, telephone taps were authorised on suspected parties, Ricucci included.

Everything came to a head when transcripts from the telephone taps were released to the press. From these the involvement of Antonio Fazio, the governor of the Bank of Italy, was revealed, who it emerged was liasing closely with the managing director of Banca Popolare Italiana during its attempt to takeover the two Italian banks.

From these recordings, Italian police also found contacts between Ricucci and Agag, who was apparently acting as a middleman for an as yet unidentified financial group. Even more sensationally, Ricucci was linked to Aldo Livolsi, a board member of Berlusconi's company Fininvest.

Berlusconi has announced that the reports amount to a "castle of fantasies and lies" and denied rumours of his participation in the attempted takeover of RCS. Up until he made this statement, the only comment he made on the matter was criticising the use of telephone tapping in this case and the announcement of a proposed law restricting judges in their use of telephone taps.

Berlusconi controls three national television stations, amounting to roughly 45% of the national viewing audience along with Mondadori, the largest Italian publishing firm. Family members control the newspapers Il Giornale and Il Foglio. At present in Italy, only Corriere della Sera and fellow daily newspapers La Repubblica and La Stampa are the only major private media outlets not controlled by Berlusconi's group. Berlusconi has also attracted criticism over allegations that his government has been attempting to influence operations at the state owned television station RAI.

Italy is due to have a general election in May 2006 and, should this one run, it may put another dent in the chances of Berlucsconi being elected. Then again, it certainly isn't the first time he's been accused of nefarious dealings and, god knows, it probably won't be the last.
Categories: Europe , Italy, Spain, Media

posted by Dick O'Brien at 4:23 PM | link |

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