An Italian wealth management fund controlled by the Pallavicini family, best known for owning one of Italy’s most extensive private art collections, is planning a major expansion into Europe’s renewable energy sector through its controlling shareholding in Denmark’s Greentech, a wind farm operator. Read more…
An octogenarian cancer surgeon controversially chosen by Silvio Berlusconi to lead the relaunch of Italy’s nuclear industry says he did not really want the job and that his appointment may yet be stalled by the possible collapse of the prime minister’s centre-right government. Read more…
by Eleonora de Sabata and Guy Dinmore in Rome, published: October 22 2010
Edison, an Italian-French energy company, has been accused in court of severely polluting the Mediterranean seabed through disposal of oil waste products from drilling operations in Italy’s biggest offshore oilfield.
Italy’s environment ministry brought the case against Edison, accusing it of discharging more than 300,000 tonnes of oil sludge and bilge waters resulting from production at the Vega field off southern Sicily in contravention of international conventions on marine pollution.
The waste was injected 2,500 meters under the sea floor over a period of nearly 20 years, as well as almost 150,000 tonnes of “produced water” – water extracted with the oil – saving the company €67m ($93m) that would have been spent in waste treatment. Read more…
by Guy Dinmore in Rome, published: September 14 2010
Italian anti-mafia police have made their largest seizure of assets as part of an investigation into windfarm contracts in Sicily. Officers confiscated property and accounts valued at €1.5bn belonging to a businessman suspected of having links with the mafia (Read past FT reports here and here)
Roberto Maroni, interior minister, on Tuesday accused the businessman – identified by police as Vito Nicastri and known as the island’s “lord of the winds” – of being close to a fugitive mafia boss, Matteo Messina Denaro. Read more…
By Eleonora de Sabata and Guy Dinmore in Rome, published: August 9 2010
“No drilling” posters have appeared on Sicily’s tourist-packed beaches as activists and politicians start mobilising against plans by international companies to explore for oil in the island’s waters.
With concerns heightened by BP’s disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and its plans to start deep-sea drilling off nearby Libya, Sicily’s parliament and regional authority have voiced strong objections to Italy’s central government, while a dozen mayors are to meet this week to prepare a joint protest to Rome.
Some mayors only learnt from the media that rigs might soon be coming – although BP is not among the companies involved – and that one Australian company has already started deepwater drilling near a planned marine reserve off the volcanic island of Pantelleria. Read more…
By Guy Dinmore and Eleonora de Sabata in Rome Published: August 1 2010
Plans by BP to start drilling for oil and gas off Libya within weeks has prompted growing calls, joined by an Italian minister, for a moratorium on deepwater operations while Mediterranean states assess the environmental impact in light of the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
Senior Italian officials in the environmental protection sector, who asked not to be named, warn that Mediterranean states are not equipped to deal with an oil spill of that magnitude.
Stefania Prestigiacomo, Italy’s environment minister, has become the first senior official within the European Union to suggest that a moratorium might be appropriate while the Mediterranean’s 21 littoral states find a “common voice“. Read more…
By Guy Dinmore in Rome, July 8
An investigation into suspected corruption surrounding contracts for wind farms in Sardinia led to the arrests of three suspects on Thursday, including Flavio Carboni, a businessman with alleged ties to a leading politician in Italy’s ruling People of Liberty party. Read more…
by Guy Dinmore, published June 18 2010
Greenpeace is calling on the European Union to implement its own toxic waste prevention measures and on the United Nations to carry out an investigation into suspected dumping of toxic and radioactive materials in Somalia.
In a report, “Toxic Ships”, released on Friday, the international environment group releases previously unpublished documents and photographs from an inconclusive investigation by the Italian authorities into the suspected burying of shipping containers filled with toxic waste inside the foundations of a Somali port built at Eel Ma’aan, north of Mogadishu, in the 1990s. Read more…
ByGuy Dinmore and Giulia Segreti Published: May 25 2010
Italy’s centre-right government last night approved an emergency 24bn euro deficit-cutting budget over the next two years, including an immediate freeze on public sector wages, in an effort to shore up market confidence in Rome’s ability to sustain Europe’s highest level of public debt.
The austerity package, which a senior official said would entail “tough sacrifices”, was the most stringent put in place since Italy tightened its belt in the late 1990s to enter the euro. It follows similar cutbacks announced in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Germany and the UK. Read more…
Silvio Berlusconi’s ruling coalition was on course last night to capture possibly four regions from the centre-left opposition in fiercely contested elections marked by a low turnout and big gains for the anti-immigration Northern League allied to the centre-right prime minister.
After two days of voting for 13 of Italy’s 20 regions, partial results showed Mr Berlusconi’s coalition heading for victory in possibly six regions, with the centre-left hanging on to seven.
The outcome in Lazio, the central region containing Rome, was extremely close but the centre-right candidate, Renata Polverini, was claiming victory shortly before midnight over the opposition’s Emma Bonino, former EU commissioner. Read more…
