Boccia case, Sangiuliano speaks: "never discussed security with her and never paid for her." Boccia immediately retorts

Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano is speaking out for the first time on the Boccia case, after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni intervened in recent hours to vouch for him. The minister chooses to speak through a letter sent to the daily La Stampa, and which the Turin newspaper published on the night of Sept. 3. The missive is addressed to the newspaper’s editor, Andrea Malaguti, and starts from the occasion of the photo of the meeting at the Ministry of Culture last August 15 (where, according to Sangiuliano, a director general of the ministry was mistaken for Maria Rosaria Boccia, the businesswoman at the center of the case: here is a summary of the affair), to “shed light” by providing his own version of the facts.

“I met Dr. Boccia in the middle of May during the campaign for the European elections (and not in the 2022 election campaign, in which I did not participate as I was the director of TG2 at the time), finding an identity of views,” Sangiuliano began. “Subsequently, I matured the intention of giving Dr. Boccia the position, free of charge, of advisor to the minister for major events. During this period, in fact, I was able to see her professional and organizational skills also through her participation in public initiatives in which I took part. An assignment, I reiterate, always prospected free of charge.”

“After the first preliminary phase, accepting some perplexities of the Cabinet on the possibility, even if merely potential, of situations of conflict of interest, I decided not to proceed with the appointment and formally communicated it,” the minister continued. “This is not the first time that the Ministry of Culture, like other institutions, does not proceed with appointments that had been instructed. It happened in this case as in others, and Dr. Boccia’s curricular requirements are not in question, and they existed and exist.”

“In this time,” says Sangiuliano, “Dr. Boccia has never taken part in administrative proceedings. I think it is important to stress that never a euro from the ministry, not even for a coffee, was used for Dr. Boccia’s travels and stays. Even with respect to the organization of the G7 Culture I find some clarifications necessary.”

The minister also intervenes on the topic of G7 Culture , which will not be held in Pompeii, where the program included, for September 20, a meeting of the culture ministers of the G7 countries, with a visit to the archaeological park, a concert in the Amphitheater and dinner in the Palestra Grande, according to leaks in the press in recent days. “The G7 Culture,” says Sangiuliano, “will be held in Naples, at the Royal Palace. At first it was actually planned to hold the international event in the enchanting Positano, but already in the first months of the year, as the ministry’s correspondence shows, prior to my acquaintance with Dr. Boccia, it was decided to move it to Naples for logistical-organizational and cost-containment reasons. Pompeii was involved, from the beginning, only for the organization of a cultural event: a classical music concert with an attached visit to the excavations.”

“On June 3,” Sangiuliano reconstructs, “I went to the Pompeii Archaeological Park to visit the metal scaffolding that allows visitors to watch restorers and archaeologists at work. It was not an inspection having to do with the G7, so much so that the ministry executives working on its organization were not present. And in any case, the occasions on which she was present were not at all institutional in nature or even in the broader sense of G7 preliminary investigation. Never were security issues discussed, which by the way do not pertain to the ministry of culture, but to the institutions in charge, prefecture and police headquarters.” Sangiuliano also points out that the mayor of the Campania city, Carmine Lo Sapio, of the center-left, also made it known that Boccia would never take part in the meetings in which the details of the G7 culture were discussed.

However, entrepreneur Maria Rosaria Boccia is not having it and has already responded point by point to the minister, again through Instagram stories as she has done so far.

To the assertion that the Cabinet raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest, Boccia replied, “When would she have encountered them? During the summer vacation? The Cabinet Chief was remotely present at the August 15 meeting because he was on vacation. Under the umbrella did he check my potential conflicts of interest? More importantly, what are they?” On whether the minister decided not to follow up on the appointment, Boccia writes, “Are we sure the appointment was not there? To me, the voice calling for tearing up the nomination sounded feminine-are we listening to it again together?” And again, on the fact that Boccia never took part in operational meetings on the G7, the businesswoman retorts, “So we never had operational meetings? We never made site visits? We never exchanged information?” And finally, on Sangiuliano’s assertion that the Ministry never spent a euro on Dr. Boccia’s travels, the person directly involved responds, “I never paid anything. I was always told that the Ministry reimbursed the expenses of the advisors so much so that all trips were always organized by the Chief Secretary of the Minister.” Boccia then concludes with a full-screen phrase (“After 8 days of silence a patch worse than the hole!”) and hopes to receive an apology from journalists and from those who “unfairly involved her in this unpleasant situation.”

Boccia case, Sangiuliano speaks: "never discussed security with her and never paid for her." Boccia immediately retorts

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