Giorgio Napolitano life and biography

Giorgio Napolitano is the current President of Italy, who became the first Italian President after being member of the Communist Party. He is a former lifetime senator, his election took place on 10 May 2006, and his term started with the swearing-in ceremony held on 15 May 2006.

He graduated in law from Naples University in December 1947, with a dissertation on political economy entitled Il mancato sviluppo industriale del Mezzogiorno dopo l'unità e la legge speciale per Napoli del 1904 (The Failure to Bring about Industrial Development in Southern Italy after Italy's Unification and Special Legislation for Naples in 1904). In 1945-46 he engaged actively in the Student Faculty Councils movement, and was a delegate to the first National University Congress.

In 1942, as un undergraduate in Naples, he joined a group of young anti-Fascists and in 1945 he joined the Italian Communist Party, of which he was a militant and then a leading figure until the Democratic Party of the Left was established.

From the autumn of 1946 to the spring of 1948 he was a member of the Secretariat of the Italian Economic Centre for Southern Italy, chaired by Senator Paratore. He took also an active part for over 10 years in the Movement for the Rebirth of Southern Italy, since its foundation in December 1947.

He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time in 1953, and with the exception of the 4th Parliament he was a Member of Parliament until 1996, always re-elected in the Naples constituency.

His parliamentary activity began as a member of the Budget and State Holdings Committee, and focused - also in debates on the Floor of the House - on the issues of Southern Italy’s development and national economic policy.

In the 8th (from 1981) and 9th Parliaments (until 1986) he chaired the Communist group at the Chamber of Deputies.

During the 1980s his activity focused on international and European policy issues, both as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies and (from 1984 to 1992 and from 1994 to 1996) of the Italian delegation to the North Atlantic Assembly, and also through manifold political and cultural initiatives. As far back as the 1970s he was an active lecturer abroad, visiting International Policy Institutes in the UK and Germany and several US Universities (Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Chicago, Berkeley, SAIS and CSIS in Washington).

From 1989 to 1992 he was a Member of the European Parliament.
On June 3rd 1992, in the 11th Parliament, he was elected Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, and remained in office until the end of that Parliament in April 1994.

During the 12th Parliament he was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Chairman of the Special Committee on the Reorganisation of Broadcasting Sector.

During the 13th Parliament he served as Minister of the Interior and for the Coordination of Civil Protection in the Prodi Government, from May 1996 to October 1998.

Since 1995 he has been the President of the Italian Council of the European Movement.

From June 1999 to June 2004 he chaired the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the European Parliament.

In the 14th Parliament the then Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Pier Ferdinando Casini, appointed him as Chairman of the Foundation of the Chamber of Deputies, an office which he held until the end of that Parliament.

On September 23rd 2005 he was appointed life senator by the President of the Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

On May 10th 2006 he was elected President of the Republic with 543 votes. He was sworn-in on May 15th, 2006.

In acknowledgement of hid dedication to the cause of Parliamentary democracy and his contribution to the rapprochement between the Italian Left and European Socialism, in 1997 he was awarded the Leibnitz-Ring International Award in Hannover for his “lifelong” commitment.

In 2004 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Political Science from Bari University.

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