Walter Veltroni

Walter Veltroni (2008)

Walter Veltroni (born July 3, 1955 in Rome ) is an Italian politician and journalist . From 2001 to 2008 he was mayor of Rome. From October 2007 to February 2009 he was chairman of the largest center-left party in Italy, the Partito Democratico (PD), and was the top candidate in the 2008 general election in Italy .

family

Walter Veltroni is the son of Vittorio Veltroni , who was editor-in-chief of RAI in the 1940s and died in 1956 when Walter was one year old. His mother Ivanka Kotnik was the daughter of Cyril Kotnik , the ambassador of the then Kingdom of Yugoslavia to the Holy See , who after the armistice in 1943 (and the fall of Mussolini ) helped numerous Roman Jews to escape persecution by the German occupiers.

Political career

Veltroni was a Roman city councilor from 1976 to 1981. Since 1987 he has been a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies for the Italian Communist Party and its successor parties Democratici di Sinistra and Partito Democratico . From 1992 to 1996 he was editor-in-chief of the left-wing daily L'Unità . In Romano Prodi's first cabinet , he was Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Culture from 1996 to 1998. From 1999 to 2004 he sat as a member of the social democratic group in the European Parliament .

In 2001 he was elected Mayor of Rome and in 2006 was confirmed in office with over 60% of the vote. In 2007, he sat in this role for new investigations into the Pasolini murder case . On February 13, 2008, he resigned from the mayor's office.

As a co-founder of the Partito Democratico , he was elected chairman ( Segretario ) on October 14, 2007 in a basic vote of all party supporters (primarie) with 75.7% of the votes . In the parliamentary elections on April 13 and 14, 2008, Veltroni stood as the top candidate of the new, center-oriented party.

One day after the Berlusconi government was sworn in , on May 9, 2008, Walter Veltroni presented his shadow cabinet . It was disbanded on February 24, 2009.

After his party's defeat in the regional elections on February 15 and 16, 2009 in the region of Sardinia , which had previously been ruled by the center-left coalition , Veltroni announced his resignation as party chairman.

author

In 2010 his first novel was published in German under the title The discovery of the sunrise .

Awards

• 2002: Large silver medal on ribbon for services to the Republic of Austria
• 2005: Grand Officer of the Order of the Infante Dom Henrique
• Norwegian Order of Merit
• Officer of the Legion of Honor

bibliography

• Il PCI e la questione giovanile (1977)
• A dieci anni dal '68. Intervista con Achille Occhetto (1978)
• Il sogno degli anni sessanta (1981)
• Il calcio è una scienza da amare (1982)
• Io e Berlusconi (e la Rai ) (1990)
• I programmi che hanno cambiato l'Italia (1992)
• Il sogno Spezzato. Le idee di Robert Kennedy (1992)
• La sfida interrotta. Le idee di Enrico Berlinguer (1992)
• Certi piccoli amori (1994)
• La bella politica (1995)
• Certi piccoli amori 2 (1997)
• Governare da sinistra (1997)
• I care (2000)
• Forse Dio è malato. Diario di un viaggio africano (2000)
• Il disco del mondo. Vita breve di Luca Flores , musicista (2003)
• Senza Patricio (2004)
• La scoperta dell'alba (novel, 2006)
• Che cos'è la politica? (2007)
• La nuova stagione. Contro tutti i conservatorismi (2007)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Testimony of a contemporary witness, Rabbi S. Sorani, in: Robert G. Weisbord, Wallace P. Sillanpoa: The Chief Rabbi, the Pope, and the Holocaust. An Era in Vatican-Jewish Relations . Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick (New Jersey) 1992, ISBN 0-88738-416-1 , p. 64 (books.google.com)
2. ^ Pd: Veltroni presenta governo ombra. ANSA , May 9, 2008.
3. ^ Corriere della Sera, February 24, 2009
4. ↑ Italy's opposition leader resigns
5. ↑ bazonline.ch
6. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)

Web links

Commons : Walter Veltroni  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Entry on Walter Veltroni in the Members' database of the European Parliament
• Portrait in La Repubblica (February 3, 2005) (Italian)
• Kordula Doerfler: The historian Paul Ginsborg on the upcoming elections and Berlusconi's comeback: Italy's decline cannot be stopped. In: Berliner Zeitung . March 29, 2008, accessed June 18, 2015 . 

predecessor	Office	successor
Francesco Rutelli	Mayor of Rome 2001-2008	Gianni Alemanno

predecessor	Office	successor
Antonio Paolucci	Italian Minister for Cultural Goods May 1996-October 1998	Giovanna Melandri