Who is Roscioli, the treasurer of Forza Italia with close ties to the Berlusconi family?

He was the expected winner. And it will be Fabio Roscioli, treasurer of Forza Italia, who will take the seat in the Chamber of Deputies vacated by the resigning Francesco Cannizzaro (Forza Italia’s regional coordinator in Calabria), who was elected mayor of the city last May by a landslide (65.7 per cent of the vote). He prevailed, despite the candidacy of Domenico Giannetta, a supporter of Roberto Vannacci (former Forza Italia group leader in the regional council, who defected to the General’s side on the eve of the vote), it was, in short, the ‘outsider’ – the Roman lawyer whom Roberto Vannacci accused during the election campaign of ‘never having seen the Strait, propelled to prominence by the Berlusconi family’.

Roscioli has held the post of treasurer of Forza Italia since 2023. A civil lawyer, he graduated in Law from Sapienza University with a thesis on banking law – ‘Banking secrecy and money laundering’ – and also served as liquidator-chairman of the Popolo della Libertà, a political party that was dissolved in 2013 to make way for the reborn Forza Italia. Roscioli’s current role within the party confirms the link between Forza Italia and the Berlusconi family, as in recent years he has acted as personal lawyer to Berlusconi and his children in various civil cases. It was Roscioli himself who handled Berlusconi’s most recent – and unsuccessful – appeal to the Court of Cassation against the civil judgement ordering him to pay 50,000 euros in damages for defamation to Guido Robledo, a former public prosecutor at the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office.

It was the newly elected mayor, Cannizzaro, who went to the greatest lengths during the election campaign to support Roscioli, described as ‘the right person to draw even more attention’ to the area, because Reggio Calabria is awaiting ‘over 150 million euros tied up in Rome, which, with his help, we will manage to release’. So much so that he went on to declare: ‘Roscioli will be my replacement in Parliament for 5–6 months. Anyone who votes for Fabio Roscioli is voting for Mayor Cannizzaro. It is also a vote of confidence in me and my team’. Among the leading supporters of Roscioli’s candidacy is also the President of the Calabria Region, Roberto Occhiuto, national deputy secretary of Forza Italia and a close associate of Marina Berlusconi, who is convinced that ‘few would have been as capable as Roscioli of understanding the parliamentary mechanisms through which to secure funding and projects for our regions’

Roscioli reciprocated that trust as follows: ‘When Occhiuto and Cannizzaro asked me to help the local area during these few months remaining until the end of the parliamentary term, I gave it some thought and decided to accept. They are already a highly respected force; I am offering to act as a bridge with regard to their projects.”