Salvini, Santanchè face no-confidence motions

(ANSA) - ROME, APR 3 - Deputy Premier and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini and Tourism Minister Daniela Santanchè faced separate no-confidence motions that were expected to be defeated on Wednesday.
    Ahead of the vote on Salvini, where he is accused of links with and sympathies for Russian President Vladimir Putin, his League party said that the agreement it had with the Russian president's United Russia party is no longer valid following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
    The Lower House is voting on an opposition no-confidence motion in Salvini over the League's links with the ruling party in Russia.
    "The war totally changed opinions and political relations with Russia, which, before the invasion, was an important interlocutor for all Italian governments," the League said.
    "As previously reiterated, the 2017 proposed collaboration between the League and United Russia is no longer valid after the invasion of Ukraine.
    "Even before that, there were no joint initiatives.
    "The League's position is confirmed by votes in Parliament.
    "It is regrettable that the House has to waste time on pointless polemics triggered by the opposition".
    Salvini has been under fire for saying that "a people is always right when it votes" following Putin's recent landslide re-election and for failing to blame Putin for the death in a Siberian prison of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
    Salvini has expressed admiration for Putin several times in the past, but he has also condemned Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
    Tourism Minister Santanchè also faces a no-confidence motion on Wednesday amid several criminal probes over her business activities.
    Santanchè has said she would quit if she were prosecuted.
    In the most serious case, she could face charges of aggravated fraud against the Italian national pensions and social security institute INPS over alleged irregular management of funds made available for redundancy payments during the Covid-19 pandemic, following a probe into allegedly improper business practices related to her former Visibilia publishing empire.
    News of the investigation emerged last summer after investigative journalism programme Report on Rai 3 reported that businesses linked to Santanche' , a leading member of Premier Giorgia Meloni's right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, allegedly failed to pay suppliers and dismissed workers without giving them redundancy payments, as well as allegedly improperly receiving COVID aid, prompting calls for her to quit.
    The 62-year-old minister, who sold her stake in Visibilia when she became minister, has denied all wrongdoing.
    She has said she is innocent and has vowed to clear her name if the cases come to court.
    The other cases involve alleged false accounting, alleged fraudulent bankruptcy, and alleged money laundering. (ANSA).