Former M5s Manlio Di Stefano has a contract he could not have
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Despite having had space proxies for years, the Di Maio loyalist obtained a contract with Axiom Space, the American giant of the space industry, a few months after the end of his mandate. But the Frattini law says it’s forbidden, and there’s a reason
For a couple of months the former Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Manlio DiStefano, an iron pentastellato then transformed into an iron atlantist, has a new job. Palermitan, born in 1981, elected to Parliament for the first time in 2013 in the Five Star Movement group, according to al Foglio, which consulted three different qualified sources, Di Stefano it would be time senior adviser of Axiom Space, an aerospace giant headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Yet it is difficult to find anything online about his new role. On February 22, the Vietnam News Agency reported on a meeting of the ASEAN Countries Committee in Rome attended by Di Stefano as Axiom’s senior consultant. On his Twitter profile, very little updated since he is no longer in government, there are a couple of retweets to the official profile of Axiom Space. And there’s probably a reason for this confidentiality. It is article 2, paragraph 4, of law number 215 of 20 July 2004, the so-called “Frattini law” which regulates conflicts of interest. For the twelve months following the end of the government office, it is in fact considered “incompatible” “to exercise professional or self-employment activities in matters connected with the government office, of any nature, even if free of charge, in favor of public entities or private”. Di Stefano’s tenure as undersecretary ended on 21 October last year, with the end of the Draghi government. And during his mandate, Di Stefano had the powers to “matters relating to space and aerospace”. A mandate that the undersecretary had taken very seriously: conferences, site inspections, promises and visits. Not even a year ago, on May 3, 2022, during a mission to the United States as Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, Di Stefano had even visited the headquarters of Axiom Space together with Colonel Walter Villadei, and there was much talk of the Italian contribution to gigantic project by Axiom for the construction of the first commercial orbiting space station in history with the contribution of Thales Alenia Space.
The Frattini law on conflicts of interest provides that it is mandatory to notify the Antitrust of any roles incompatible with a government post before the start of one’s mandate. For positions that are assumed after the end of one’s mandate in the executive, however, formally there is no obligation to notify, but the Antitrust is always the authority that supervises this type of incompatibility, which are in any case prohibited as a guarantee that the activities carried out during the period in government were carried out in the national interest, and not personal.
Very loyal to the former Minister of Economic Development and Foreign Affairs, Luigi Di Maio, Di Stefano on June 27, 2022 had left the Five Star Movement to join the splinters of Together for the Future – one of the shortest-lived political parties in history – which in the political elections of 25 September last year had not exceeded the threshold of 3 per cent.
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