Renato Schifani

Renato Schifani (2008)

Renato Giuseppe Schifani (born May 11, 1950 in Palermo ) is an Italian politician and lawyer who was a long-time member of Forza Italia (from 2008 Popolo della Libertà ) and has been a member of Nuovo Centrodestra since 2013 . He was elected President of the Senate on April 29, 2008 for the 16th term of the Italian Parliament . He stayed in this office until March 16, 2013, when the majority in the Senate changed after the parliamentary elections .

Political career

As a trained lawyer, Renato Schifani began his political career at Democrazia Cristiana . In 1996 he was elected to the Senate for the first time for Silvio Berlusconi's center-right alliance in the constituency of Altofonte - Corleone . He was confirmed in the subsequent parliamentary elections (2001, 2006 and 2008). From 2001 to 2008 he was also group chairman of Forza Italia in the Senate and worked on the Committee for Spatial Planning and the Environment.

After the clear victory of Berlusconi's Popolo della Libertà in the parliamentary elections in 2008 , he was elected President of the Senate in the first ballot with 178 votes (i.e. four votes above the majority of the new governing coalition) on April 29, 2013, after President Giorgio Napolitano the second highest state office in Italy.

Schifani is one of the politicians known as Berluscones , who are distinguished by their loyal support to the chairman of Forza Italia . A law that he had drafted and passed in June 2003 together with Antonio Maccanico , the so-called “Maccanico-Schifani Arbitration” ( lodo Maccanico-Schifani ), provided for the suspension of all legal proceedings against politicians in the five highest-ranking state offices thus benefited above all the then incumbent Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. However, on January 13, 2004, the law was declared unconstitutional.

During the dispute between Angelino Alfano and Silvio Berlusconi about the future direction of the party, he opposed his political mentor for the first time and became a member of the new center-right Nuovo Centradestra party, which was or is part of the governments of Enrico Letta and Matteo Renzi .

Awards

• 2008 Grand Cross of the Pro Merito Melitensi Order of Merit of the Sovereign Order of Malta

Individual evidence

1. ^ Torna al lavoro il Parlamento. Schifani presidente del Senato La Repubblica , April 29, 2008
2. ↑ cf. Gagliardoni, Giorgio / Quinzani, Ferdinando: Agitprop e Berluscones. Il ritratto della nuova politica italiana nel diario di due militanti . Editori Riuniti, Rome 2002
3. ↑ cf. Gomez, Peter / Travaglio, Marco: Se li conosci li eviti . Chiarelettere, Milan 2008
4. ↑ Awarding of the medal ( Memento of the original from November 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) 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. 

Web links

• Profile at the Italian Senate (Italian)
• Profile at openpolis.it (Italian)