Enrico Letta

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Enrico Letta (2017)
Signature of Enrico Letta

Enrico Letta (born August 20, 1966 in Pisa ) is an Italian politician of the Partito Democratico . He was Prime Minister of Italy from April 28, 2013 to February 22, 2014 .

Family and education

Letta was born as the son of mathematician Giorgio Letta (* 1936), professor at the University of Pisa , and his wife Anna. The father came (like his uncle, the politician Gianni Letta ) from Avezzano , province of L'Aquila . After completing his studies in political science at the University of Pisa, Letta received her doctorate with a research thesis on European law at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa.

His second marriage is to Gianna Fregonara, a journalist for the daily Corriere della Sera . The couple has three children.

Political career

Letta began his political engagement with the youth of the Democrazia Cristiana . From 1991 to 1995 he was Chairman of the Youth Organization of the European People's Party , then Secretary General of the Euro Committee in the Italian Ministry of Budget (1996–1997) and Deputy Chairman of the Partito Popolare Italiano (1997–1998).

In the D'Alema I cabinet (October 1998 to December 1999) he was one of seven ministers without portfolio responsible for European Community policy . In the D'Alema II cabinet (December 1999 to April 2000) he was Minister for Industry, Trade and Crafts; also in the Amato II cabinet (April 2000 to June 2001). In 2001, the PPI merged with the La Margherita - Democrazia è Libertà party , whose economic policy spokesman was Letta until 2007.

In the 2004 European elections , Letta was elected to the center-left L'Ulivo list in the European Parliament , of which he was a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe until 2006 . There he worked in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs , in the Delegation for relations with the Maghreb countries and the Arab Maghreb Union and in the Temporary Committee on the Political Challenges and Budgetary Means of the Enlarged Union 2007-2013.

After the victory of the center-left alliance L'Unione in the Italian parliamentary elections in April 2006 , he entered the Chamber of Deputies as a representative of his party ( La Margherita ) and was appointed State Secretary to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers in the Prodi II cabinet . In this position he replaced his uncle Gianni Letta, who belonged to the opposing center-right camp around Silvio Berlusconi .

On May 23, 2007 Letta was one of the 45 signatories of the founding committee of the Partito Democratico (PD) , which was merged from left and Christian Democrats . His candidacy for the chairmanship of the new party was supported by well-known representatives of centrist groups. a. by Minister of Agriculture Paolo De Castro and former President Francesco Cossiga . In the primary election held on October 14, 2007, open to all citizens (not just party members) , in which over 3.5 million PD sympathizers took part, he was clearly defeated by his rival Walter Veltroni (75th) with 11.1% of the vote , 8%) and Rosy Bindi (12.9%).

Letta was a member of the Trilateral Commission and sat together with Mario Monti on the executive committee of the Aspen Institute Italy . In spring 2012 Letta attended the Bilderberg Conference in Chantilly, Virginia .

Term of office as Prime Minister

Letta (2nd from left) at a G8 meeting in 2013
Letta with John Kerry , 2013

In the wake of the government crisis after the Italian parliamentary elections at the end of February 2013 , Letta was appointed Deputy Head of the Partito Democratico on April 24, 2013 by President Giorgio Napolitano to form a government. His party leader Pier Luigi Bersani had previously failed and announced his resignation. Letta sought a coalition with Silvio Berlusconi's PdL and Mario Monti's Scelta Civica and submitted his cabinet list to Napolitano on April 27. His government was sworn in on April 28th.

The Italian Constitution prescribes a vote of confidence in each new government in both houses of parliament - the House of Representatives and the Senate. Letta's government received a large majority in the House of Representatives in this vote on April 29, 2013 . A day later in the Senate, too , it received a large majority (233 Senators for, 59 against, 18 abstentions).

Letta's government consisted of 21 ministries. The three main political currents were taken into account: the center-left and the center-right, the parties of the center and the independents.

Letta made inaugural visits to Berlin, Brussels (EU) and Paris.

On September 26, 2013, the International Monetary Fund published a study on the economic situation in Italy and made forecasts

  • a net new debt of 3.2% of GDP (the government had previously named 2.9%),
  • for 2013 a recession (1.8 percent) and
  • for 2014 growth of 1.4 percent.

The IMF economists called on the Italian government to deregulate the labor market and the service sector, make its judicial system more efficient and reactivate the privatization program in order to reduce Italy's high level of new debt.

On September 28, 2013, Angelino Alfano , deputy prime minister in the Letta cabinet and secretary of Berlusconi's party PdL, announced that the five ministers of his party would resign from the Italian government. This was officially justified with the protest against a planned increase in value added tax ("IVA"), but many observers saw this as a political maneuver by Berlusconi to divert attention from his legal problems and to bring about new elections. The day before, after the failure of a cabinet meeting on a fiscal policy package, Letta announced that he would put the vote of confidence in both chambers of parliament on October 2, 2013 to see whether he still had a stable government majority. The PdL ministers signed their resignation on the same weekend at Berlusconi's “behest”, but expressed criticism of the “extremist” decision made by their party leader. On October 1, Alfano called on the PdL MPs to vote for Letta on the vote of confidence . On the evening of the same day Letta rejected the resignation of the PdL ministers.

In the vote of confidence on October 2nd, 77 percent of the senators (235 for, 70 against) voted for Letta. At the same time, Berlusconi's attempt to bring down the Letta government failed. Most recently, in view of the looming defeat in the vote and an impending split in his own party, Berlusconi himself pleaded for confidence in Letta. In the House of Representatives, too, the majority of parliamentarians expressed their confidence in him (435 for, 162 against).

Due to an internal party vote on February 13, 2014, with the request of the new party chairman Matteo Renzi for a new government, Letta and his cabinet resigned on February 14, 2014. President Napolitano entrusted the Letta cabinet with the continuation of current official business until the new Renzi government was sworn in . Letta handed over his office to Renzi on February 22, 2014.

Publications

  • Costruire una cathedral. Perché l'Italia deve tornare a pensare in grande. Mondadori, Milan 2009, ISBN 978-8-80459050-7
  • In this moment of time sta nascendo un bambino . Rizzoli, Milan 2007, ISBN 978-8-81701988-0
  • L'Europa a venticinque . Il Muliono, Bologna 2006, ISBN 978-8-81511015-2
  • La comunità competitiva. L'Italia, le libertà economiche e il modello sociale europeo. Donzelli, Rome 2001, ISBN 978-8-87989625-2
  • Passaggio a north-est. L'unione europea tra geometrie variabili, cerchi concentrici e velocità differenziate. Il Mulino, Bologna 1994, ISBN 978-8-81504834-9

Web links

Commons : Enrico Letta  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Enrico Letta  - Quotes (Italian)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Government crisis : Italy's Prime Minister Letta resigns . Mirror online. February 13, 2014. Retrieved February 27, 2014.
  2. ^ The Trilateral Commission . The Trilateral Commission. February 2014. Retrieved February 27, 2014.
  3. ↑ I "poteri Forti" e l'invocato (oggi detestato) Governo Monti ( Italian ) Guidasicilia. February 12, 2014. Retrieved February 27, 2014.
  4. ↑ Final List of Participants ( English ) Bilderberg Meetings. May 31, 2012. Archived from the original on June 1, 2012. Retrieved on February 27, 2014.
  5. ↑ Napolitano issues government mandate: Enrico Letta to become Italy's new head of government at nzz.ch, April 24, 2013 (accessed April 24, 2013).
  6. ^ Inauguration of Prime Minister Letta: Shots in front of the government seat in Rome - police officers injured. In: Spiegel Online . April 28, 2013. Retrieved April 28, 2013 .
  7. ↑ Letta easily wins a vote of confidence
  8. ↑ spiegel.de: Debt policy: EU pushes Italy's new government to austerity
  9. ↑ RP April 30, 2013: [1]
  10. ^ NZZ: Italy's head of government with Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande
  11. ^ Italy: Deeper Structural Reforms Needed to Jumpstart Growth and Create Jobs
  12. ↑ IMF: Country Report No. 13/298: ITALY - 2013 Article IV Consultation (pdf, 67 S.) ("Under Article IV of the IMF's Articles of Agreement, the IMF holds bilateral discussions with members, usually every year")
  13. ↑ It gets lonely about Berlusconi ( memento from October 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), article from October 1, 2013 in the portal tagesschau.de , accessed on October 1, 2013
  14. ^ Fabian Reinbold: Government crisis in Italy: uprising against the "Cavaliere" . Article from October 1, 2013 in the portal spiegel.de , accessed on October 1, 2013
  15. ↑ Jörg Bremer: The fantastic five . Article from October 1, 2013 in the faz.net portal , accessed on October 1, 2013
  16. ↑ Enrico Letta asked the vote of confidence on Wednesday . Article from September 29, 2013 in the welt.de portal , accessed on September 30, 2013
  17. ↑ Letta before a decisive test of strength . Article from October 1, 2013 in the portal handelsblatt.com , accessed on October 1, 2013
  18. ↑ Rome is sinking into chaos ( memento of the original from September 28, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Article from September 28, 2013 in the online portal tagesspiegel.it ( Die Neue Südtiroler Tageszeitung ), accessed on September 28, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.tageszeitung.it
  19. ^ Mutiny against Berlusconi , article from October 1, 2013, accessed on the nzz.ch portal on October 1, 2013
  20. ↑ spiegel.de: Italy's government crisis: Berlusconi's MPs want to express their trust in Letta
  21. ↑ Letta respinge dimissioni ministri Pdl , message from October 1, 2013 in the ansa.it portal , accessed on October 1, 2013
  22. ↑ Italy's strings pull the strings , Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 2, 2013, accessed on October 3, 2013
  23. ↑ Camera dei Deputati , accessed October 3, 2013
predecessor Office successor
Nunzia De Girolamo Italian Minister of Agriculture and Forestry
January 2014 – February 2014 		Maurizio Martina
personal data
SURNAME Letta, Enrico
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian politician (PD), member of the Camera dei deputati, MEP and Prime Minister
DATE OF BIRTH 20th August 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH Pisa