Franco Marini (politician)

Franco Marini

Franco Marini (born April 9, 1933 in San Pio delle Camere , L'Aquila province ) is an Italian politician of the Partito Democratico (PD) and trade unionist . From April 2006 to April 2008 he was President of the Italian Senate in the 15th legislative period .

On April 18, 2013, he ran two ballots for the office of Italian President (successor to Giorgio Napolitano ); in both he did not achieve the required two-thirds majority .

Political career

Marini grew up as the eldest son of a large family of modest living conditions, studied after graduation Law and did his military service in the Alpini from. In 1950 he joined the Democrazia Cristiana . At the same time he became active for the Catholic Action and the Christian labor movement ACLI ( Associazioni Cristiane dei Lavoratori Italiani ) and began a career in the Christian trade union confederation CISL ( Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori ) during his student days . His political mentor and foster father Giulio Pastore got him a job in 1963 in the education department of the Ministry of Southern Italian Affairs. In 1965 he was elected to the board of the public employees' union. In the 1970s he rose to become vice chairman of the CISL, which he took over as chairman in 1985.

After the death of Carlo Donat Cattin in 1991 he inherited his leadership role in Forze nuove , a left, socio-politically oriented movement within the Democrazia Cristiana. In April of the same year, he resigned from the union presidency and moved to Andreotti's seventh cabinet as labor minister . In April 1992 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies with the best result for his party and in 1994 - after the dissolution of the Democrazia Cristiana - he moved to the Partito Popolare Italiano , of which he was chairman from 1997 to 1999. In this capacity, in contrast to Romano Prodi , he spoke out against a party merger within the center-left alliance L'Ulivo . In 1999 he was elected to the European Parliament , where he worked on foreign and security policy issues until 2004.

In 2002 he participated in the formation of the Christian Democratic rallying party La Margherita - Democrazia è Libertà and became its organizational director. As a more center-oriented (“centrist”) politician, he was initially skeptical about the merger of Margherita with the left- wing democrats to form the Partito Democratico in 2007, but did not stand in his way.

In the parliamentary elections in April 2006 , he was elected to the Senate for the center-left alliance L'Unione , where he ran against the right-wing Giulio Andreotti for the office of Senate President. It was only in the third ballot on April 29, 2006 that he was able to prevail with 165 votes to 156 and since then he has held the second highest state office in Italy for exactly two years.

After Romano Prodi's provisional resignation on February 21, 2007, his name for the post of Prime Minister was brought up several times in a transitional government, but came off the table a few days later with the renewed confirmation of the Prodi government. Marini himself rejected a proposal made by the former Prime Minister and Senator Lamberto Dini in November 2007.

On January 30, 2008, after Prodi's resignation, Marini was tasked by President Giorgio Napolitano with the formation of a transitional government with the main goal of bipartisan negotiation of institutional and electoral reforms. Due to the disagreement between the two political camps and the insistence of the opposition parties on immediate elections, Marini's efforts were unsuccessful. On February 4, 2008, he gave back his mandate to form a government.

On April 17, 2013 he was nominated by the PD , the PDL and the Scelta Civica (SC) as a candidate for the office of President of the Italian Republic , but failed to achieve the necessary majority in parliament.

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1. ↑ sueddeutsche.de: A compromise that divides
2. ↑ Incarico esplorativo a Marini ( Memento of the original of February 10, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. La Repubblica, January 30, 2008 
3. ↑ Marini rinuncia, ora si vota. Corriere della Sera, February 5, 2008, accessed January 2, 2015 (Italian). 

Web links

Commons : Franco Marini  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Franco Marini  - Sources and full texts (Italian)

• Profile at the Italian Senate (Italian)
• Entry on Franco Marini in the database of Members of the European Parliament