Gianni De Michelis

Gianni De Michelis

Gianni De Michelis (born November 26, 1940 in Venice ; † May 11, 2019 there ) was an Italian politician . He was Deputy Prime Minister in 1988/89, Foreign Minister of his country from 1989 to 1992 and from 2004 to 2009 a non-attached member of the Socialisti Uniti per l'Europa electoral list in the European Parliament .

education and profession

De Michelis came from a Methodist family and graduated in industrial chemistry from the University of Padua in 1963 . From 1963 to 1972 he worked initially as an assistant and later as a university lecturer in general chemistry. From 1972 to 1980 he was a private lecturer in general chemistry at the University of Venice . From 1980 to 1990 an extraordinary professorship followed.

Political career

De Michelis had been a member of the executive committee of the Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI) since 1976 , where he was responsible for organizing the party at national level. At that time he defined himself as anti-communist and anti- Democrazia Cristiana . From 1992 to 1993 he was Deputy Secretary General of his party. From 1997 to 2001 he was general secretary (= chairman) of his party.

From 1964 to 1980 and from 1990 to 1995 De Michelis was a city ​​councilor in Venice with responsibility for urban planning . Between 1974 and 1994 he was also a member of the Camera dei deputati . From 1987 to 1988 he was parliamentary group leader of his party here.

As Minister for Industrial Holdings , from 1980 to 1983 he was a member of the cabinets of Arnaldo Forlani , Giovanni Spadolini and Amintore Fanfani . In 1986 he was temporarily Minister of Labor in the Bettino Craxis cabinet . From 1988 to 1989 he held the post of Deputy Prime Minister under Ciriaco De Mita . De Michelis then belonged to Giulio Andreotti's cabinet as Foreign Minister until 1992 . In this capacity he worked on the Balkan conflict for the European Union together with his counterparts. He repeatedly traveled to Belgrade with the “cloverleaf” to call on Slobodan Milošević to comply with the ceasefire agreements for Slovenia and Croatia .

When the PSI collapsed in the early 1990s as a result of the massive corruption around Bettino Craxi, De Michelis founded a small party called Partito Socialista in 1997 from what was left of the right wing of the PSI . In 2001 he founded the Nuovo PSI together with Bettino Craxi's son Bobo , which belonged to the center-right alliance Casa delle Libertà , which Silvio Berlusconi supported. De Michelis was the national secretary of this small party until 2007 (0.95% in the 2001 parliamentary election).

In the 2004 European elections , he received a seat for the constituency of southern Italy on the list of Socialisti Uniti per l'Europa , an electoral alliance of various small parties from the ex-socialist spectrum. As a MEP, De Michelis was on the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy and was a substitute for the Justice Committee, a member of the delegation for relations with the People's Republic of China and a substitute for the delegation to the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly. He was also a member of the Security and Defense Subcommittee. From 2003 De Michelis was a member of the ASEM task force.

In 2007, De Michelis turned away from the Nuovo PSI because he no longer wanted to support the coalition with Berlusconi and instead founded the Partito Socialista with other former members of the PSI , which joined the center-left camp and took the name of its historical predecessor in 2009 - PSI - accepted.

From 1984 to 1992 De Michelis was Chairman and from 2001 he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Aspen Institute in Italy. From 2002 he was chairman of the Institute for Latin America and the Middle East IPALMO.

Web links

• Entry on Gianni De Michelis in the database of Members of the European Parliament

Individual evidence

1. ^ E 'morto Gianni De Michelis. In: ansa.it. May 11, 2019, accessed May 11, 2019 (Italian).