Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

Professional experience

1. Please list your professional experience in public finance be it in budgetary planning, budget implementation or management or budget control or auditing.

Answer:

My professional experience covers all such areas. More in details:

I have 27 years of experience in budget control and in auditing:

Since 1997, I am a magistrate of the Italian Court of Auditors, selected through a national merit-based highly selective competition.

I reached the senior leadership level of President of the Chamber and Regional Head Public Prosecutor. I headed the Regional Public Prosecutor Offices for the region of Molise (from 2013 to 2016 and in 2023), for the region of Emilia-Romagna (from 2016 to 2021) and for the region of Apulia (from 2021 to 2023).

In its constitutionally enshrined role of public sector budget controller and rapporteur to the Parliament, the Italian Court of Auditors entrusted me, as a delegated controller, with the budget control of the most complex bodies and entities, including:

- “Cassa Depositi e Prestiti S.p.A.”, from 2021 to 2023, the holding company of Italy’s largest equity investment group with a consolidated balance sheet of 478 bn EUR;

- “ENEL S.p.A.”, from 2017 to 2020, the largest Italian energy company and a global market player, listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, with 32.000+ employees and a consolidated balance sheet of 206 bn EUR;

- The “Società Italiana per le Imprese all’Estero S.p.A. - SIMEST”, from 2013 to 2016, a state-owned company providing services to promote and support Italian firms based abroad.

From 2011 to 2013, I was the Court’s Coordinator for the budget control report to the Parliament concerning the National Group of Economic Services Producers and Regulators, which included “ENI S.p.A.”, the largest Italian oil company and a global market player, listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, with close to 32.000 employees and a consolidated balance sheet of 137 bn EUR.

I served as Chairman of the Board of Auditors for:

- The Regulatory Authority for Transport, since 2023;

- The University of Salento, 2013-2015;

- The University of Molise, 2012-2013;

- The National Authority for Mountain Municipalities, 2009-2010

I served as Member of the Board of Auditors for:

- The Administrative Justice Council, 2016-2020, appointed by the President of the Court of Auditors;

- The Fiscal Justice Council, 2014-2020, appointed by the President of the Court of Auditors.

As for my experience in budgetary planning:

Since 2023, I serve as Member of the Technical Commission for budgetary thresholds at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance, in charge of analysing and evaluating the activities, methodologies and processes relating to the determination of the standard budgetary needs of local authorities.

In 2013, I served as Member of the Committee for Investments Evaluation and Planning and Management of Environmental Interventions at the Ministry of the Environment.

From 2009 to 2011, I was a Member of the Superior Council of Public Works, in charge of the budgetary planning concerning the construction of major national infrastructures.

Regarding my experience in budget implementation or management:

Since 2021, I am the Chairman of the Supervisory Committee for the temporary early intervention and management recovery procedure regarding “Conbipel S.p.A.”, in charge of supervising the manufacturing company’s 87 m EUR budget implementation and management, carried out by the tribunal appointed temporary administrator.

In 2013, I served as Member of the Technical and Scientific Committee of the national governmental Agency for Agriculture ‘AGEA’, in charge of supporting the Agency’s executive management in ensuring regularity and efficiency in the use and allocation of funds, including European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF).

2. What have been your most significant achievements in your professional career?

Answer:

In 1997, I became the youngest magistrate of Italy’s Court of Auditors, selected through a national merit-based highly selective competition.

In 2013 I was promoted, through a rigorous merit-based competition among Court’s magistrates, to the senior leadership level of Regional Head Public Prosecutor and then, in 2021, to that of President of the Chamber (becoming the youngest President of the Chamber of Italy’s Court of Auditors). Such promotions were decided by the Council of Presidency of the Court of Auditors, its governing body, entrusted by law with the competence to decide on magistrates’ promotions and assignments, to guarantee them being merit-based and shielded from any government interference.

Since May 2023, I am the Coordinator of the Mission Structure of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, in charge of coordinating and overseeing the implementation of the 194 bn EUR Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP). In this capacity, I am also responsible for the relations with the European Commission, including those with the Task Force RECOVER and DG ECFIN, concerning the implementation of the measures set out by the NRRP, as well for the inherent reporting to the EU Commission. In this respect, I am proud to say that under my mandate the fulfilment of the ambitious milestones and targets set out by the plan was positively assessed and acknowledged twice by the European Commission and subsequently the disbursement of the related EU funds was approved.

3. What has been your professional experience of international multicultural and multilinguistic organisations or institutions based outside your home country?

Answer:

Over the course of my career at the Italian Court of Auditors I have always engaged in the international and multicultural dimension of our work and represented the institution internationally. I have been working closely with our European and international partners, such as serving as the contact person for the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) as well as member of the committee serving as national point of contact for the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). In 2020 and 2021, I took part in the C.A.T.O.N.E. (Cooperation Agreements and Training on Objectives and New Experiences) project, created by OLAF and aimed at an information exchange between the national anti-fraud coordination offices and the magistrates of the Court of Auditors of Italy, Portugal, Spain, France, and Greece.

Most recently, since 2023, I have been working closely with the European Commission, especially the Task Force RECOVER and DG ECFIN, on the implementation of the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan in my role as coordinator for the government office overseeing its implementation.

From 2017 to 2020, as delegated controller of ENEL, I had relationship with and controlled on site its foreign subsidiaries, such as Enel America or Endesa in Spain.

In 2013 and 2014, I served as Member of the Committee for the Evaluation of Investments and Support for Planning within the Ministry of Environment and Member of the Technical and Scientific Committee of the national governmental Agency for Agriculture, where I addressed matters of EU funded projects for environmental protection.

In 2009 I served as the Head of the Italian Delegation to the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union at the High-Level Meeting on Governance and EU held in Solna, Stockholm (Sweden), as well as the Head of the Italian Delegation to the Council of Europe for the 16th Conference of European Ministers held in Utrecht (The Netherlands). The following year I served as the Head of the Italian Delegation to the Spanish Presidency of the EU at the Regional Affairs Ministers conference held in Malaga (Spain).

4. Have you been granted discharge for the management duties you carried out previously, if such a procedure applies?

Answer:

No such discharge procedure has ever been applicable to any management duty I have carried out as a civil servant, and I have never received any objection or complaint again my performance.

5. Which of your previous professional positions were a result of a political nomination?

Answer:

None. Following my academic studies, I entered the civil service in 1990 working for the State police. After winning a national, merit-based, highly selective competition, I joined the Italian Court of Auditors in 1997 as a magistrate. I am a civil servant in this institution ever since, and I have reached the senior leadership level position of President of the Chamber and Regional Head Public Prosecutor, solely through merit-based promotions. As a magistrate of the Court of Auditors, and thereby as part of the judiciary branch, my independence from the executive government is guaranteed by the Constitution of the Italian Republic.

During my track record of 27 years of service at the Italian Court of Auditors, being a high- ranking magistrate of the Court of Auditors, a lecturer and author of several scientific publications in EU and national law regarding budget control and public accounting and administration, as detailed in my CV, I have been requested on different occasions by governments and ministries to temporarily provide my expertise and experience. These temporary assignments were decided upon by the Presidency of the Italian Court of Auditors and sometimes subject to a detachment while maintaining my role as magistrate in the institution.

Such temporary assignments include, e.g., since May 2023 the role of coordinator for the government office in charge of the oversight of the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan, following my participation in the working group on the impact assessment on the public administration of the NRRP in 2022 with the Secretariat General of the preceding government.

6. What are the three most important decisions to which you have been party in your professional life?

Answer:

I would like to recall and provide the following three instances of challenging and important decisions that I have encountered and taken part of in my professional life:

Firstly, while I was a member of the Council of the Presidency of the Court of Auditors, the utmost painful and difficult decision to dismiss a magistrate guilty of corruption.

Secondly, equally difficult, and complex in nature, while I was Regional Head Public Prosecutor of the Court of Auditors, the ruling of sequestration measures of private assets totalling over 15 m EUR against the “Parmacotto S.p.A.” company, one of the largest Italian food suppliers active on the global market, and its directors, as they were held responsible for fraud.

Lastly, I have contributed to a ground-breaking decision of the Italian Constitutional Court: While I was Regional Head Public Prosecutor of the Court of Auditors, politically exposed persons of interest in the Emilia-Romagna Region have been accused of treasury damage and have invoked constitutional immunity to evade prosecution. In its decision no. 43 of 2019, the Constitutional Court has ruled in my favour as prosecutor, that, for the first time, a magistrate of the Court of Auditors (in this case myself), has the right to attend and intervene in a Constitutional Court hearing to present his case and prosecute his accusation.

Independence

7. The Treaty stipulates that the Members of the Court of Auditors must be ‘completely independent’ in the performance of their duties. How would you act on this obligation in the discharge of your prospective duties?

Answer:

The complete independence is a principle that is not only enshrined by the Treaty to Members of the Court of Auditors but is a universal professional standard applicable to the auditor. As, e.g., one professional standard (PCAOB AS 1005) states: “To be independent, the auditor must be intellectually honest; to be recognized as independent, he must be free from any obligation to or interest in the client, its management, or its owners.” I wish to underline the importance of the distinction between “being” and “being recognized” as independent.

It is crucial for the public, including stakeholders such as the Members of this Committee, to maintain confidence in this complete independence. Public confidence can be impaired not only by actual evidence that independence was lacking, but it might already be tainted by the existence of circumstances which people could believe to influence this independence.

Being completely independent in the performance of my duties has been my professional core value throughout my professional life. I have been an auditor at the Italian supreme audit institution for over a quarter century. As magistrate of the Court of Auditors, I am bound to independence by Article 108 of the Constitution of the Italian Republic, and I have always acted in compliance with such constitutional duty. At no point in my career have I ever let any circumstance cast even the slightest doubt on my professional integrity and independence. I most rigorously uphold and ensure that my independence as an auditor is not only free from any influence, but free from any circumstance that could be perceived as an influence.