ROME: A former Italian environment minister is under investigation over whether any illegality was involved in his handling of up to €200m of public funds earmarked for green energy projects in China in the years leading up to the financial crisis.
Corrado Clini, who served as director-general of Italy’s environment ministry for two decades before becoming environment minister in the government led by Mario Monti between 2011 and 2013, is being investigated over whether he awarded the work on these projects to a small group of contractors in exchange for money or other favours, an Italian prosecutor and police report say.
Mr Clini has strongly denied any wrongdoing, calling the allegations “false” and “ridiculous”. Although the investigation has been running for more than a year, Italian prosecutors have not filed any charges against Mr Clini as they scrutinise the Chinese projects.
He is however facing trial — due to begin in September — in a separate case over his role in green energy projects in Iraq funded by the Italian government through which he allegedly earned a €1m kickback. Similar projects in Montenegro have also come under scrutiny. Mr Clini has denied any wrongdoing over those allegations as well.
The Italian investigation comes as Beijing is engaged in a sweeping anti-graft campaign targeting corrupt government officials and wasteful spending of state funds. Mr Clini had high-level contacts within the Chinese government relating to the projects under scrutiny, including Zhou Shengxiang, the former minister of environment protection, and Wan Gang, the minister of science and technology, according to an internal report by investigators of the Guardia di Finanza, Italy’s tax and border police.
The Chinese ministry of environmental protection and the Chinese ministry of science and technology did not reply to requests for comment.
At the heart of the investigation against Mr Clini are up to €200m worth of grants directed to some of China’s wealthiest ministries, local authorities and think-tanks over the course of 14 years through the Sino-Italian Collaboration Programme for Environmental Protection.
Alberto Galanti, the prosecutor in Rome in charge of the probe, told the FT he believes funds were corruptly diverted and that there were no “accounting checks or public bids for these projects”. “This is our hypothesis,” said Mr Galanti.
