Giuliano Amato OMRI (Italian pronunciation: [dʒuˈljaːno aˈmaːto]; born 13 May 1938) is an Italian politician who twice served as Prime Minister of Italy, first from 1992 to 1993 and again from 2000 to 2001. Upon Arnaldo Forlani's death in July 2023, Amato became the country's earliest-serving Prime Minister.
Giuliano Amato | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Giuliano Amato in 2013 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Prime Minister of Italy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In office 26 April 2000 – 11 June 2001 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
President | Carlo Azeglio Ciampi | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Massimo D'Alema | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Silvio Berlusconi | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In office 28 June 1992 – 29 April 1993 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
President | Oscar Luigi Scalfaro | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Giulio Andreotti | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Carlo Azeglio Ciampi | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Deputy Prime Minister of Italy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In office 29 July 1987 – 13 April 1988 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Prime Minister | Giovanni Goria | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Arnaldo Forlani | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Gianni De Michelis | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Turin, Piedmont, Kingdom of Italy | 13 May 1938||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Political party | PSI (before 1994) Independent (1994–2007; since 2008) PD (2007–2008) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Height | 1.68 m (5 ft 6 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Spouse | Diana Vincenzi | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Children | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Alma mater | University of Pisa Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies Columbia University | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Signature | ![]() | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Later, he was Vice President of the Convention on the Future of Europe that drafted the European Constitution and headed the Amato Group. He is commonly nicknamed dottor Sottile, which means "Doctor Subtilis", the sobriquet of the Scottish Medieval philosopher John Duns Scotus, a reference to his political subtlety. From 2006 to 2008, he was the Minister of the Interior in Romano Prodi's government. He served on the Constitutional Court of Italy from September 2013 to September 2022, to which he was appointed by President Giorgio Napolitano. He also served as President of the Court from 29 January 2022 to 18 September 2022.[1]
Biography
editBorn in Turin into a Sicilian family, Amato grew up in Tuscany. He received a first degree in law from the University of Pisa in 1960 while attending the prestigious Collegio Medico-Giuridico of the Scuola Normale Superiore, which today is Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies. As a Fulbright grantee, he received a master's degree in comparative law from Columbia Law School in 1963.[2] After teaching at the Universities of Modena, Perugia and Florence, he worked as professor of Italian and Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Rome La Sapienza from 1975 to 1997.[2]
Amato began his political career in 1958 when he joined the Italian Socialist Party. He was a Member of Parliament from 1983 to 1993. He was Undersecretary of State to the Prime Minister's office from 1983 to 1987, Deputy Prime Minister from 1987 to 1988, and Minister for the Treasury from 1987 to 1989.[citation needed]
From June 1992 to April 1993, Amato served as Prime Minister. During those ten months, a series of corruption scandals rocked Italy and swept away almost an entire class of political leaders. Amato himself was never implicated, notwithstanding how close he was to Bettino Craxi, a central figure in the corruption system.[citation needed]
As Prime Minister, Amato responded effectively to two devaluations of the lira in the wake of currency speculation that led Italy to be expelled from the European Monetary System by cutting the budget deficit drastically, thus taking the first steps in the road that would bring Italy to adopt the Euro.[citation needed]
At a point, his government was harshly contested because of a decree that suddenly moved the competence for corruption investigations into the hands of the police, which, being controlled directly by the government, would have not been independent. Fearing that the new system would have effectively blocked investigations of political corruption, Italians took to the streets in massive, spontaneous rallies. President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro refused to sign the decree, deeming it blatantly unconstitutional. While his justice minister Giovanni Conso took the blame, it has been disputed whether Amato was a victim of circumstances or whether he really wanted to save the corruption-ridden system.[citation needed]
At the end of his period as Prime Minister, Amato gave a speech to the Parliament in which he solemnly promised that at the end of his term, he would retire from politics, stressing that his was a true commitment and that he would not break this promise as some politicians (whom he characterized as "mandarins") used to do. However, this promise was short-lived; Amato has regularly come under criticism for having made such a solemn commitment and failing to keep it.[citation needed]
Amato was President of the Italian antitrust authority from November 1994 to December 1997,[3] Minister for Institutional Reforms in Massimo D'Alema's first government from October 1998 to May 1999, and, once again, Treasury Minister in D'Alema's second government from December 1999 to April 2000. Amato was nearly nominated for the Presidency of the Republic and was a close contender to replace Michel Camdessus as head of the International Monetary Fund.[citation needed]
Amato served as Prime Minister again from April 2000 to May 2001. He promoted economic competitiveness as well as social protection. In addition to economic reforms, he pushed ahead with political and institutional reforms, trying to deal with a weak executive and fragmented legislature.[citation needed]
In December 2001, European Union leaders at the European Council in Laeken appointed Amato and former Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene to be Vice Presidents of the Convention on the Future of Europe to assist former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in the drafting of the new European Constitution. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002.[4][5]
Amato was a Member of the Senate representing the constituency of Grosseto in Tuscany from 2001 to 2006. In 2006, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the Olive Tree list, and he was named Minister of the Interior in Romano Prodi's centre-left government.[citation needed]
Since 2010, he also leads advanced seminar classes at the Master in International Public Affairs of the LUISS School of Government.[citation needed]
On 12 September 2013, President Giorgio Napolitano appointed Amato as judge on the Constitutional Court of Italy, where he has served since then.[6] On 16 September 2020 Amato ran for the position of President of the Constitutional Court, but lost in the second round of voting against Mario Rosario Morelli who obtained nine votes, while Giancarlo Coraggio obtained five and Amato received one.[7] He was subsequently made Vice President by Morelli.[8] He was confirmed in this position by Coraggio who became president in December 2020.[9]
Amato is married to Diana Vincenzi, a professor of Family Law at the University of Rome. They have two children, Elisa and Lorenzo, and five grandchildren, Giulia, Marco, Simone, Elena and Irene. As of September 2020, Amato is a member of the Italian Aspen Institute.[10]
World Justice Project
editGiuliano Amato serves as an Honorary Co-chair for the World Justice Project. The World Justice Project works to lead a global, multidisciplinary effort to strengthen the Rule of Law for the development of communities of opportunity and equity.[11]
President of Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies
editIn 2012 Giuliano Amato was appointed as President of the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies.[12][13] As alumnus of Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies (attending the prestigious Collegio Medico-Giuridico of the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, which today is Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies), he guarded close contact with the university, previously heading Sant'Anna Alumni Association.
He was appointed as President of the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies on 21 February 2012 by the Academic Senate of Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies and by a Decree of the Minister Francesco Profumo of the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (Italy).[12][13] He resigned from his post at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies after being appointed to the Constitutional Court in September 2013.
Personal views
editIn 2011, Amato declared that Italian creativity is not supported by an adequate efficiency of the organization of its public and private entities. He believes it had a role in the lost hope in the future and in the sense of a common national identity, as well as it had not been yet perfectioned as a whole in a way that was congruent with its essence. That loss had favoured the flourishing of xenophobia and purported regional identities, such as the Lega Nord movement.[14]
Amato thinks that the brigandage in Southern Italy after 1861 was an unfair and unlawful movement that cannot be seen as a form of antinational rebellion; however, the soldiers and the officials of the Borbonic Army who joined the movement cannot be defined as betrayers of the ongoing Italy. It is also not credible that the Expedition of the Thousand could have caused the annexation of the Southern Italy to the Kingdom of Sardinia by itself, while the main political and cultural foundations had been thrown by the works of intellectuals like Francesco Mario Pagano and Vincenzo Cuoco produced in the 1790s.[14] If he did not believe the national identity is always something more important than sub-national or sovran-national ones, Amato believes in the multi-layer identities model proposed by Alberto Banti in a way for which the European identity strengthens the Italian identity even when they live and work in a foreign country. According to him, the Italian identity is kept alive in any country in which they should have gone.[14]
Electoral history
editElection | House | Constituency | Party | Votes | Result | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1983 | Chamber of Deputies | Turin–Novara–Vercelli | PSI | 32,525 | Elected | |
1987 | Chamber of Deputies | Turin–Novara–Vercelli | PSI | 50,816 | Elected | |
1992 | Chamber of Deputies | Siena–Arezzo–Grosseto | PSI | 32,961 | Elected | |
2001 | Senate of the Republic | Grosseto | Ulivo | 83,805 | Elected | |
2006 | Chamber of Deputies | Tuscany | Ulivo | –[a] | Elected |
- ^ Elected in a closed list proportional representation system.
First-past-the-post elections
edit2001 general election (S): Tuscany — Grosseto | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Candidate | Coalition | Votes | % | |
Giuliano Amato | The Olive Tree | 83,805 | 48.1 | |
Franco Mugnai | House of Freedoms | 73,921 | 42.4 | |
Others | 16,437 | 9.5 | ||
Total | 174,163 | 100.0 |
Honour
editReferences
edit- ^ "Corte costituzionale -". www.cortecostituzionale.it. Retrieved 24 April 2023.
- ^ a b "Giuliano Amato Italy's new Prime Minister". Cosmopolis. 6. May 2000. Retrieved 6 June 2013.
- ^ Hawk B. Giuliano Amato, Antitrust and the Bounds of Power. Fordham International Law Journal [serial online]. 1998;21(4):1670-1675.
- ^ "Giuliano Amato". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. May 2024. Retrieved 23 May 2024.
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter A" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 17 April 2011.
- ^ "Ex-premier Amato appointed to Constitutional Court". Ansa. 12 September 2013. Archived from the original on 22 September 2020.
- ^ "Corte Costituzionale, Mario Morelli nuovo presidente: prende il posto di Marta Cartabia. Ma la Consulta si è divisa" (in Italian). Il Messagero. 16 September 2020. Archived from the original on 17 September 2020.
- ^ "Mario Rosario Morelli eletto Presidente della Corte Constituzionale" (PDF) (in Italian). Constitutional Court of Italy. 16 September 2020. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 September 2020.
- ^ "Constitutional Court: the judge Giancarlo Coraggio, elected with the unanimity of votes, will be in charge until 22 January 2022" (in Italian). 18 December 2020. Retrieved 18 December 2020.
- ^ executive Committee Archived 9 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine, aspeninstitute.it/
- ^ "Honorary Chairs". The World Justice Project. Retrieved 17 April 2011.
- ^ a b Giuliano Amato designato Presidente della Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna at SSSUP
- ^ a b Giuliano Amato nuovo presidente della Scuola Sant'Anna at Il Tirreno
- ^ a b c De Bernardi, Alberto (2011). "Senza futuro è difficile avere un passato" [Without Future It Could Be Difficult to Have A Past]. Storicamente (in Italian). 7 (1). doi:10.1473/stor89. ISSN 1825-411X. OCLC 8539642109. Archived from the original on 2 December 2017. via – DOAJ.
- ^ "Le onorificenze della Repubblica Italiana". www.quirinale.it. Retrieved 24 October 2022.