Massimo D'Alema

Massimo D'Alema
Prime Minister of Italy
In office 21 October 1998 – 26 April 2000
President	Oscar Luigi Scalfaro Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
Deputy	Sergio Mattarella
Preceded by	Romano Prodi
Succeeded by	Giuliano Amato
President of COPASIR
In office 26 January 2010 – 15 March 2013
Preceded by	Francesco Rutelli
Succeeded by	Giacomo Stucchi
Deputy Prime Minister of Italy
In office 17 May 2006 – 8 May 2008
Prime Minister	Romano Prodi
Preceded by	Giulio Tremonti
Succeeded by	Angelino Alfano
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office 17 May 2006 – 8 May 2008
Prime Minister	Romano Prodi
Preceded by	Gianfranco Fini
Succeeded by	Franco Frattini
Vice-President of the Socialist International
In office 11 September 1996 – 7 November 1999
President	Pierre Mauroy
In office 29 October 2003 – 29 August 2012
President	António Guterres George Papandreou
Leader of the party President of the Democrats of the Left In office 6 November 1998 – 14 October 2007 Preceded by Giglia Tedesco Tatò Succeeded by Position abolished Secretary of the Democrats of the Left In office 12 February 1998 – 6 November 1998 Preceded by Position established Succeeded by Walter Veltroni Secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left In office 1 July 1994 – 12 February 1998 Preceded by Achille Occhetto Succeeded by Position abolished Secretary of the Italian Communist Youth Federation In office 3 April 1975 – 12 June 1980 Preceded by Renzo Imbeni Succeeded by Marco Fumagalli
Member of Parliament Member of the European Parliament In office 20 July 2004 – 27 April 2006 Constituency Southern Italy Member of the Chamber of Deputies In office 28 April 2006 – 14 March 2013 Constituency Apulia In office 2 July 1987 – 19 July 2004 Constituency Lecce–Brindisi–Taranto (1987–1994) Casarano (1994–2004)
Personal details
Born	(1949-04-20) 20 April 1949 Rome, Lazio, Italy
Political party	Art.1 (since 2017)
Other political affiliations	PCI (1963–1991) PDS (1991–1998) DS (1998–2007) PD (2007–2017)
Spouse	Linda Giuva
Children	2
Website	Official website

Massimo D'Alema (Italian pronunciation: [ˈmassimo daˈlɛːma]; born 20 April 1949) is an Italian politician and journalist who was the 53rd prime minister of Italy from 1998 to 2000. He was Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2008. D'Alema also served for a time as national secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS). The media has referred to him as Leader Maximo due to his first name and for his dominant position in the left-wing coalitions during the Second Republic.

Earlier in his career, D'Alema was a member of the Italian Communist Party and was the first former communist to become prime minister of a NATO country and the only former communist prime minister of Italy.

Biography

D'Alema was born in Rome on 20 April 1949, the son of Giuseppe D'Alema, a communist politician. He is married to Linda Giuva, a professor at the University of Siena, and has two children, Giulia and Francesco. He later became a notable member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), part of which in 1991 gave origin to the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) and to the Democrats of the Left (DS) in 1998. That same year, succeeding Romano Prodi, he became Prime Minister as the leader of The Olive Tree centre-left coalition. He was the first former Communist to become prime minister of a NATO country and the first Prime Minister of Italy born after Italy became a Republic in 1946. While D'Alema was Prime Minister, Italy took part in the NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999. The attack was supported by Silvio Berlusconi and the centre-right opposition, while the far left strongly contested it.

D'Alema during a Democratic Party meeting

In the internal life of his party, mostly during its transition from PCI to PDS, D'Alema stressed that its roots in Marxism should be renovated, with the aim to create a modern Western European social-democratic party. He has been the director of L'Unità, formerly the official newspaper of the PCI, which subsequently became the newspaper of the DS.

D'Alema was Member of the European Parliament for Southern Italy with the Democrats of the Left, part of the Party of European Socialists group, and sat on the European Parliament's Committee on Fisheries and its Committee on Foreign Affairs until he stood down following his election to the Chamber of Deputies in Italy.

Following Romano Prodi's win in the 2006 Italian general election, D'Alema was initially tipped to become President of the Italian Republic once the Chamber of Deputies reconvened, but D'Alema himself stepped back, endorsing the official candidate of the centre-left coalition, Giorgio Napolitano, who was elected. Immediately following the April 2006 election, he was proposed as the future President of the Chamber of Deputies. The Communist Refoundation Party strongly pushed for Fausto Bertinotti to become the next President. After a couple of days of heated debate, D'Alema stepped back to prevent a fracture between political parties, an act applauded by his allies. The same month, he was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in the new Prodi government. He served in those posts until Prodi's government fell and Berlusconi's centre-right coalition prevailed in the 2008 Italian general election. D'Alema was re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies in this election as part of the recently formed Democratic Party.

2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

While Italian Foreign Minister in the 2006–2008 Romano Prodi centre-left government, D'Alema took a pro-active diplomatic stance during the 2006 Lebanon War. Italy led negotiations with the Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni and was proposed by Israel to head the multinational peacekeeping mission Unifil, although the dangers of the mission for Italian troops sparked warnings from the centre-right opposition that it could prove a "kamikaze" mission, with the peacekeepers sandwiched between Israel and the well-armed Hezbollah. D’Alema pledged Italy's willingness to enforce the United Nations resolution on Lebanon and urged other European Union member states to do the same because the stability of the Middle East should be a chief concern for Europeans.

On the European scene

D'Alema with Condoleezza Rice

D'Alema was briefly a Member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2006. Since 2003 he has been member of the scientific committee of Michel Rocard and Dominique Strauss-Kahn's association "A gauche en Europe". He still figures on the European scene; he signed the Soros letter ('As concerned Europeans') and has called for a stronger European integration. Three year after the peace-keeping role in the 2006 Israeli-Lebanon war, D'Alema became one of the favourite candidates for the charges of president of the European Council, high representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, or secretary-general for the Council Secretariat, without being appointed.

Since 30 June 2010, D'Alema has been the president of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), the political foundation of the Party of European Socialists. He has been a friend of the Italian banker and Freemason Vincenzo De Bustis.

Electoral history

Election	House	Constituency	Party		Votes	Result
1987	Chamber of Deputies	Lecce–Brindisi–Taranto		PCI	115,784	Y Elected
1992	Chamber of Deputies	Lecce–Brindisi–Taranto		PDS	30,819	Y Elected
1994	Chamber of Deputies	Casarano		PDS	24,018	Y Elected
1996	Chamber of Deputies	Casarano		DS	38,077	Y Elected
2001	Chamber of Deputies	Casarano		DS	38,204	Y Elected
2004	European Parliament	Southern Italy		Ulivo	836,707	Y Elected
2006	Chamber of Deputies	Apulia		Ulivo	–	Y Elected
2008	Chamber of Deputies	Apulia		PD	–	Y Elected
2018	Senate of the Republic	Nardò		LeU	10,552	N Not elected

First-past-the-post elections

1994 Italian general election (C): Casarano
Candidate		Coalition	Party	Votes	%
	Massimo D'Alema	Progressives	PDS	24,018	34.80
	Lorenzo Emilio Ria	Pact for Italy	PS	20,908	30.29
	Massimo Basurto	Pole of Good Government	FI	20,652	29.92
	Others			3,437	4.98
Total				69,015	100.0
Turnout				75,660	77.94
Source: Ministry of the Interior

1996 Italian general election (C): Casarano
Candidate		Coalition	Party	Votes	%
	Massimo D'Alema	The Olive Tree	PDS	38,077	55.75
	Luciano Sardelli	Pole for Freedoms	FI	30,218	44.25
Total				68,295	100.0
Turnout				74,404	74.42
	Centre-left hold
Source: Ministry of the Interior

2001 Italian general election (C): Casarano
Candidate		Coalition	Party	Votes	%
	Massimo D'Alema	The Olive Tree	DS	38,204	51.49
	Alfredo Mantovano	House of Freedoms	FI	33,666	45.37
	Leonardo Tunno		FT	870	1.17
	Pantaleo Gianfreda		IdV	839	1.13
	Roberto Mancuso		LB	622	0.84
Total				74,201	100.0
Turnout				79,169	75.99
	Centre-left hold
Source: Ministry of the Interior

2018 Italian general election (S): Nardò
Candidate		Coalition	Party	Votes	%
	Barbara Lezzi		M5S	107,722	39.88
	Luciano Cariddi	Centre-right	UDC	95,081	35.20
	Teresa Bellanova	Centre-left	PD	46,891	17.36
	Massimo D'Alema	Free and Equal	MDP	10,552	3.91
	Others			9,881	3.65
Total				270,127	100.0
Turnout				282,226	70.51
Source: Ministry of the Interior

Career

Party

• 1975–1980: National Secretary of the FGCI
• 1981–1986: Regional Secretary of the PCI in Apulia
• 1986–1989: editor of the daily newspaper L'Unità
• 1986–1992: Member of the PCI/PDS national secretariat
• 1992–1994: chairman of the PDS members of Parliament
• 1994–1999: leader of the PDS-DS
• Chairman of the DS
• Since 1996: vice-chairman of the Socialist International

Institutions

• 1970–1976: town councillor of Pisa
• 1985–1987: regional Councillor of Apulia
• 1987–2004: chairman of the parliamentary group
• 1987–2013: Member of the Chamber of Deputies
• 1996–1998: Chairman of the Committee for Constitutional Reform
• 1998–2000: Prime Minister of Italy
• 2006–2008: Minister of Foreign Affairs

Awards

• Supreme awards (from the Republic of Chile, South Korea, and Palestine)
• Officer of the Legion of Honour of the French Republic

See also

• 2004 European Parliament election in Italy

Books

D'Alema published eight books, half of which with Mondadori, which is controlled by Fininvest, the family holding company of Silvio Berlusconi.

• Dialogo su Berlinguer ("Dialogue on Berlinguer"), with Paul Ginsborg, Giunti, 1994, ISBN 88-09-20545-6;
• Un paese normale. La sinistra e il futuro dell'Italia ("A normal country. The left wing and Italy's future"), Mondadori, 1995, ISBN 88-04-40847-2;
• Progettare il futuro ("Shaping the future"), Bompiani, 1996, ISBN 88-452-2883-5;
• La sinistra nell'Italia che cambia ("The left wing in the changing Italy"), Feltrinelli, 1997, ISBN 88-07-47013-6
• La grande occasione. L'Italia verso le riforme ("The great chance. Italy towards reforms"), Mondadori, 1997, ISBN 88-04-42161-4;
• Parole a vista ("Words on sight"), with Enrico Ghezzi, Bompiani, 1998, ISBN 88-452-3777-X;
• Kosovo. Gli italiani e la guerra ("Kosovo. Italians and war"), with Federico Rampini, Mondadori, 1999, ISBN 88-04-47302-9;
• Oltre la paura ("Beyond fear"), Mondadori, 2002, ISBN 88-04-51206-7.

External links

• Massimo D'Alema at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB) (in Spanish)
• Personal profile of Massimo D'Alema in the European Parliament's database of members
• Declaration (PDF) of financial interests (in Italian)