Emma Bonino

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Emma Bonino (2010)

Emma Bonino (born March 9, 1948 in Bra , Piedmont ) is an Italian politician and the most prominent representative (leader) of the Radicali Italiani . From 1995 to 1999 she was European Commissioner for Consumer Protection , Fisheries and Humanitarian Aid. From May 2006 to May 2008, she was Trade and European Affairs in the second cabinet of Romano Prodi . In the 2008–13 legislative period, she was one of the four vice-presidents of the Italian Senate. From April 2013 to February 2014, Bonino was Italian Foreign Minister in the Letta cabinet .

education

After graduating from high school in Bra, where she was born, Emma Bonino began studying linguistics in 1967 at the Luigi Bocconi University of Economics in Milan , completing a thesis on Malcolm X in 1972.

politics

Beginning with the Italian radicals

Bonino (front left) with President Sandro Pertini on a peace march (1985)

In 1975 Emma Bonino co-founded the Sterilization and Abortion Information Center ( Centro di Informazione Sterilizzazione e Aborto , CISA) and volunteered to be arrested for abortion. As a prisoner, she became one of the icons in the campaign to legalize abortion.

In 1976 the libertarian-anti-clerical Partito Radicale (Radical Party) ran for the first time in parliamentary elections . When she was only 28, Emma Bonino became a MP. She was re-elected in five subsequent elections, so that she was a member of the Camera dei deputati until 1995. In 1979 she won a seat in the European Parliament , to which she served for two consecutive terms until 1988. At first she was a member of the parliamentary group for the technical coordination and defense of independent groups and parliamentarians , on whose board she sat until 1980, from 1984 she was non-attached.

In the early 1980s she campaigned for awareness-raising campaigns for the protection of human rights in the Eastern Bloc and the establishment of an International Criminal Court . In 1981 she took part in the founding of Food and Disarmement International and served as the movement's secretary for several years, leading global information campaigns about the famine .

Transnational Radical Party

The Italian Radical Party disbanded in 1989 and became the Transnational Radical Party (TRP), a United Nations- accredited non-governmental organization (NGO). Bonino served as president from 1989 to 1993, then as secretary of the TRP until 1995. In 1992, Bonino was arrested in New York distributing sterile syringes to protest a US law that allowed syringes to be sold only with a doctor's prescription. In 1993 Bonino promoted a campaign for the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia by submitting 5,000 signatures from around the world to UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali .

In 1993 she founded the non-governmental organization " No Peace Without Justice ", which works to protect and promote human rights, democracy , the rule of law and international justice . In particular, the NGO supported the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and promoted the establishment of an international court to judge crimes against humanity such as genocide worldwide.

In the same year she met the Dalai Lama and held a press conference with him on mobilizing for the rights and freedom of the Tibetan people and democracy in China . In 1994 she headed a delegation from the Italian government to the UN General Assembly for the "Moratorium on the Death Penalty" initiative.

EU commissioner

In Italy, the radicals cooperated in the 1994 parliamentary elections with the center-right alliance Polo delle Libertà led by Silvio Berlusconi , which also won the election. In January 1995, Berlusconi, who was meanwhile Prime Minister, proposed Bonino as Italian EU Commissioner . In the Commission of President Jacques Santer , which was in office from 1995 to 1999 , she was responsible for consumer protection , fisheries and the European Office for Humanitarian Aid (ECHO).

On January 26, 1995, she was the first member of the EU Commission since the beginning of the Bosnian War to fly to Sarajevo and Mostar in Bosnia-Herzegovina . After the genocide in Rwanda , she traveled several times through the Great Lakes region in Africa in 1996 in order to support humanitarian aid for the refugees through the European mission in the region. At the same time, she tried to find a way out of the crisis for Somalia . In 1997 she led a mission in the Kurdish part of Iraq . As the acting EU Commissioner, Emma Bonino and her delegation were arrested for a few hours in Kabul by the Taliban government ( Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan ). She also promoted an awareness campaign about blackmailing Afghan women.

On March 15, 1999, she resigned with the entire Santer Commission after it was shaken by a corruption scandal involving Commissioner Édith Cresson . Although Emma Bonino was not affected by the main charges against the Commission, the 'wise men' reported that she had some deficiencies in the management of ECHO. Santer's successor, Romano Prodi , who is Italian himself, did not confirm her in her office, as Italy was only entitled to two commission posts and Mario Monti was to remain competition commissioner .

MEPs and engagement in the Middle East

After leaving the EU Commission, she launched the “Emma for President” campaign, with which she called for her election as President of Italy . Despite its relative popularity in opinion polls, it ultimately received only 15 out of 1010 votes in the electoral assembly (parliament and regional representatives), while Economics Minister Carlo Azeglio Ciampi was elected head of state with a very large majority. Nevertheless, the radical list she led in the European elections in June 1999 was able to achieve the best result in the history of the radical movement in Italy with 8.5% of the vote in Italy. In the European Parliament she was a member of the Technical Group of Independent MEPs from 1999-2001 , after which she was non-attached.

After the Radicals had existed for twelve years as a transnational NGO and only entered Italian elections with lists of persons ( Lista Pannella or Lista Bonino ), they re-established themselves in 2001 as a political party under Italian law under the name Radicali Italiani . Although Bonino did not officially hold a top position in this party, she was seen in public - alongside Marco Pannella - as the factual leader and referred to in the Italian media as the Anglicism leader . he lists she cited failed in the parliamentary elections in May 2001 with 2.2% of the electoral threshold. In December 2001, Bonino settled in Cairo to learn the Arabic language and culture. At the same time she promoted “StopFgm”, a campaign against female genital mutilation that is widespread in African countries .

In June 2004 she was re-elected as MEP and joined the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE). Until 2006 she was a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Budget Committee as well as a delegate in the EU- Turkey Joint Parliamentary Commission and the delegation to the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly . She also held the post of Vice-President of the Delegation for Relations with the Mashreq countries. In 2005 she toured Afghanistan as head of a European Union delegation to observe local elections.

Trade and European Minister

Bonino 2008

In 2006, the Italian Radicals decided with the Socialist splinter movement SDI , the new political force Rosa nel Pugno ( "Rose in the Fist") as part of Romano Prodi's center-left electoral coalition L'Unione to start. Emma Bonino led the election campaign of the new left-liberal movement, which was based on the principle of a clear separation of church and state and the modernization of society.

With just 2.6 percent of the vote, the movement received 18 MPs, but not a single senator. Emma Bonino opted for the Italian Parliament on April 27, 2006 and gave up her mandate in the European Parliament. Shortly before the elections, she was discussed in the media as a possible foreign minister in the Prodi government. Nevertheless, in the end she had to be content with a trade and European ministry that had been established for her. She headed this until the fall of the Prodi government in May 2008. Bonino was one of the founding members of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) in 2007 and was one of the co-chairs.

Senator

For the parliamentary elections in 2008 , Bonino left the Chamber of Deputies after seven legislative terms, but was elected to the other Chamber of Parliament, the Senate. This elected her on May 6, 2008, along with three other candidates as Vice President . At the same time, she was chairwoman of the Senate Committee for Equal Opportunities and Equal Opportunities for the legislative period up to 2013

For the regional election in Lazio in March 2010, Bonino stood as the top candidate of the center-left alliance of Partito Democratico , Italia dei Valori , Radicali, Sinistra Ecologia Libertà and other parties. With 48.3% of the vote, she was defeated by the center-right candidate Renata Polverini .

Candidate for President and Foreign Minister

Bonino with British Foreign Secretary William Hague (2013)

The radical list Amnistia Giustizia Libertà , led by Marco Pannella, failed in the 2013 parliamentary elections with just 0.2% of the vote, so that Bonino left parliament.

When the president was elected in April 2013, she was initially able to hope for some hope: she received public cross-party support, for example from the then Prime Minister Mario Monti , the PdL spokeswoman and former equality minister Mara Carfagna , the deputy PD chairman Ivan Scalfarotto and the Lega Nord -Senator Massimo Garavaglia . In addition, the Partito Socialista nominated her as a candidate. The Emma Bonino Presidente campaign broadcasted calls for votes from prominent supporters of Bonino in culture, science and the media, including actors Sergio Castellitto and Luca Barbareschi , astrophysicist Margherita Hack , director Marco Bellocchio and musician and television entertainer Renzo Arbore . It came first in several opinion polls and had the best odds among bookmakers . In the decisive electoral assembly, which consists of both chambers of parliament and representatives of the regions, she received only 13 of the 1007 votes and gave up after the third ballot. Ultimately, the 87-year-old incumbent Giorgio Napolitano , who had not even applied for re-election, was elected for another term.

Instead, Bonino was appointed Foreign Minister in the Letta cabinet on April 28, 2013 . In the course of the cabinet reshuffle on February 22, 2014, she was replaced by Federica Mogherini .

Bonino in 2017

On January 12, 2015, it was announced that Bonino had lung cancer . She has been a board member of the Open Society Foundations since July 2015 . She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group . Also in July 2015 there was a public break between Bonino and her decades-long political companion Marco Pannella. On Radio Radicale , he accused her of no longer taking part in radical grassroots work and of only being interested in the "international jet set". Subsequently, the Radicali Italiani, which stood by Bonino, and the Transnational Radical Party, which supported Pannella, also split.

As a candidate for Alliance + Europe , Bonino won the Senate constituency of Rome- Gianicolo in the 2018 parliamentary elections , which she has represented in the Upper House of Parliament ever since. She is a member of the EU Policy Committee and the Extraordinary Committee on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights.

honors and awards

Publications

  • Committed to freedom. Conversations with Giovanna Casadio. Translated by Davide Miraglia and Bettina Jänisch. European Publishing House, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-86393-054-7 .

Web links

Commons : Emma Bonino  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tommaso Labate: Pannella divorzia because Emma Bonino. La «signora» espulsa in diretta. Lei replica: «Io fuori? Siete scemi? " In: Corriere della Sera , July 28, 2015.
  2. ↑ Silvio Buzzanca: Pannella "espelle" Emma Bonino: "Non è più radicale". In: La Repubblica , July 28, 2015.
  3. ↑ VUB awards honorary doctorate to Dr. Emma Bonino and the inhabitants of Lampedusa. vub.ac.be, November 28, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Bonino, Emma
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian politician, member of the Camera, MEP
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Bra , Piedmont