Tourism Minister Daniela Santanchè stated on Monday that she has no intention of resigning. She was speaking at the Italy Village event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
“I am not resigning and I am moving forward,” said Daniela Santanchè, who attended the inauguration of the Italy Village, a travelling exhibition accompanying the world tour of the Italian Navy’s training vessel Amerigo Vespucci. The vessel docked at a Saudi port for the first time in its 93-year history.
Defence Minister Guido Crosetto, also in Jeddah for bilateral meetings and a visit to the Amerigo Vespucci, remarked that the question of Santanchè’s potential resignation “needs to be dealt with by the premier and Santanchè, especially by Santanchè herself.”
Santanchè denied on Friday that she had been asked to step down after being indicted for alleged false accounting related to her former publishing company, Visibilia. She resigned from her roles in the firm, now in administration, before becoming minister in 2022.
The minister, a 63-year-old member of Premier Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, has rejected any wrongdoing. She is among 17 individuals, including her partner Dimitri Kunz and her sister Fiorella Garnero, indicted earlier this month. Prosecutors allege that between 2016 and 2022, Visibilia’s financial statements were falsified to conceal millions of euros in losses and keep the company operational.
The trial is set to begin in March, and additional legal cases related to her business activities could follow.
Santanchè previously survived a no-confidence motion in the Senate over accusations that her former business failed to pay suppliers, dismissed workers without redundancy payments, and improperly received COVID aid.
![Amerigo Vespucci, tall ship. Credit: By Harley D. Nygren - NOAA's America's Coastlines Collection, Image ID: corp2248 ([1]), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=735566](https://italynews.online/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/1079px-Amerigo_vespucci_1976_nyc_aufgetakelt-1-300x300.jpg "Amerigo Vespucci and Villaggio Italia in Saudi Arabia")
