On August 13, the regional councilor for territorial government and heritage of the Campania Region, Vincenzo Cuomo, signed an agreement financing an urban regeneration program for the Municipality of Portici worth 13 million euros (Prius funds). Three days later, another 13.7 million – from the same fund – was allocated to the Municipality of Ercolano. Both these acts, and all those enacted by the Campania Region council since Cuomo was appointed councilor in Roberto Fico’s regional government, are now at risk of annulment. Because Cuomo, the legislative affairs and parliamentary relations office of the Ministry of the Interior states in black and white, “could not have been appointed councilor of the regional council.” “He was ineligible and incompatible,” denounces Sergio Rastrelli, the senator of Brothers of Italy, from Campania, who with a written parliamentary question submitted last January 28, a few weeks after Fico took office as head of the Region, raised the case.
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THE VICE OF THE RULES
To understand more about this story that risks leading to the revocation of Cuomo’s appointment and, consequently, shaking the Campania government, one must follow the timeline. Premise: the position of regional councilor is incompatible with that of mayor. The problem is that Cuomo, mayor of Portici himself, resigned from the mayoral office on the same day he was appointed councilor. That is, December 31, 2025. With the resignation from the local administrator position received at the Naples prefecture, informs the Ministry of the Interior, on the following January 2. Too bad that regarding the cause of incompatibility between the mayor’s office and the appointment as regional councilor, the consolidated text of the local authorities’ regulations provides that “the resignations” of mayors “are effective and irrevocable only after 20 days have passed since their submission.” A window, according to what Rastrelli denounced and confirmed by the Ministry of the Interior, that Cuomo would not have respected. Limiting himself, at the time of taking office in Fico’s council, to signing a declaration waiving the right to revoke the same resignation. An act, however, that for the Ministry of the Interior is not suitable to make the resignation “immediately effective,” skipping the “window period.” Conclusion of the Ministry of the Interior: “At the time of appointment as regional councilor,” Cuomo “still held the office of mayor.”
Not only that: the Campania statute would also block the councilor, according to which the members of the Council must necessarily be chosen among those “eligible for regional councilor.” And mayors of municipalities within the regional territory are not included among these. Unless they have ceased their functions at least 60 days before the date of the vote for the renewal of the Regional Council (in Campania the vote took place on November 23 and 24, 2025).
FDI ON THE OFFENSIVE
Responding to Rastrelli was Undersecretary Wanda Ferro, who at the bottom of the document recalled that “the body authorized to declare ineligibility, incompatibility or any conflict of interest and, therefore, to deliberate the forfeiture of a regional councilor or a member of the Council, is the Campania Regional Council.” Thus Rastrelli, for competence, forwarded the “response” received from the Ministry of the Interior to the president of the Regional Council, Massimiliano Manfredi, to the prefect of Naples, Michele Di Bari, and to the governor, Fico, to urge them to initiate “the immediate forfeiture procedure” of Cuomo. But since during its first months of activity, Rastrelli recalled, the regional government has operated and deliberated “with a council member appointed councilor in clear violation of the law,” all the resolutions and measures issued, exclusively or collegially, by Cuomo are now targeted. Cuomo, with self-certification at the time of taking office, would have declared that he had no causes of incompatibility regarding his role as councilor. While from Palazzo Santa Lucia, the seat of the Council, they recall that “the 20-day period from the submission of the resignation from the mayoral office has been ascertained,” the center-right goes on the attack and pressures Fico. “Campania deserves a Council that is unassailable in terms of legality and transparency,” says Antonio Iannone, regional commissioner of FdI.
