Career
A long-time Christian Democrat, he was mayor of Imperia in the Eighties, as his father and his brother had been. When Christian Democracy disbanded, he joined Forza Italia in 1995. He was then elected deputy in 1996 and was national coordinator of the party from 1996 to 2001 (and again in 2003). Minister Scajola has been a strong advocate for the Italian re-entry into commercial use of Nuclear power for the generation of electricity.
He was Minister of the Interior from 2001 to 2002 and later Minister of Productive Activities, under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. In 2006 he was elected President of committee for control on Secret Service of Italian Parliament.
He has been nicknamed SkyOla because allegedly has been using Alitalia airplanes for private use. An unnecessary air route has been created from Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport to Villanova d'Albenga International Airport which he uses regularly for traveling from and to his parliamentary job, rarely it is used by other passengers. This scandal was exposed in 2008 by the RAI television program AnnoZero.
After the elections of 2008, Scajola was the minister of economic development.
In April 2010 Italian newspapers wrote that Scajola, in July 2004, reportedly used €1,100,000 in slush funds to buy a flat in Rome near the Colosseum At least €900,000 of those funds where reportedly traced as coming from Diego Anemone, a real estate developer under accusation of public servants bribing. In May 2010, Scajola resigned from his position as minister.
Read more about this topic: Claudio Scajola
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