Giulio Tremonti () (born 18 August 1947) is an Italian politician. He served in the government of Italy as
Minister of Economy and Finance under Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi ( ; ; born 29 September 1936) is an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies ...
from 1994 to 1995, from 2001 to 2004, from 2005 to 2006, and from 2008 to 2011.
Early life
Tremonti was born in
Sondrio
Sondrio (; lmo, Sùndri; rm, Sunder; archaic german: Sünders or ; la, Sundrium) is an Italian city and ''comune'' and Provincial Capital located in the heart of the Valtellina. , Sondrio counts approximately 21,876 inhabitants (2015) and it is ...
, Northern
Lombardy
Lombardy ( it, Lombardia, Lombard language, Lombard: ''Lombardia'' or ''Lumbardia' '') is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in the northern-central part of the country and has a population of about 10 ...
, in a family of
Venetian and
Campania
Campania (, also , , , ) is an administrative Regions of Italy, region of Italy; most of it is in the south-western portion of the Italian peninsula (with the Tyrrhenian Sea to its west), but it also includes the small Phlegraean Islands and the i ...
n ancestry (his father was from
Lorenzago di Cadore
Lorenzago di Cadore is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Belluno in the Italian region of Veneto, located about north of Venice and about northeast of Belluno. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 600 and an area of .All d ...
, in the
Province of Belluno
The Province of Belluno ( it, Provincia di Belluno; de-AT, Provinz Belluno; lld, Provinzia de Belum) is a province in the Veneto region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Belluno.
It has an area of and a total population of about 205,000.
...
, and his mother from
Benevento
Benevento (, , ; la, Beneventum) is a city and ''comune'' of Campania, Italy, capital of the province of Benevento, northeast of Naples. It is situated on a hill above sea level at the confluence of the Calore Irpino (or Beneventano) and the ...
). He is a full professor of law at the
University of Pavia
The University of Pavia ( it, Università degli Studi di Pavia, UNIPV or ''Università di Pavia''; la, Alma Ticinensis Universitas) is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. There was evidence of teaching as early as 1361, making it one ...
, Italy, and has been a visiting professor at the Institute of Comparative Law, Oxford. His particular fields of interest are fiscal and tributary law, as well as fiscal policies.
Political career
Tremonti was the man who facilitated the dialogue between billionaire entrepreneur/politician
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi ( ; ; born 29 September 1936) is an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies ...
and
Umberto Bossi
Umberto Bossi (born 19 September 1941) is an Italian politician and former leader of Lega Nord (Northern League), a party seeking autonomy or independence for Northern Italy or Padania. He is married to the Sicilian Manuela Marrone, and has fou ...
, leader of the federalist
Northern League and a friend of Tremonti's, leading to the formation of the center-right coalition
House of Freedoms
The House of Freedoms ( it, Casa delle Libertà, CdL) was a major centre-right political and electoral alliance in Italy, led by Silvio Berlusconi.
History
The CdL was the successor of the Pole of Freedoms/Pole of Good Government and the Pole fo ...
. Although a member of Forza Italia, on many issues he is closer to the League. In particular, he is a staunch
political
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
and
fiscal federalist, supporting a federal reform of the Italian political system and more autonomy for Lombardy and Veneto, where he has his core supporters.
He first ran for the
Italian Parliament
The Italian Parliament ( it, Parlamento italiano) is the national parliament of the Italian Republic. It is the representative body of Italian citizens and is the successor to the Parliament of the Kingdom of Italy (1861–1943), the transitiona ...
in 1987 with the
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the longest-living parties of the country.
Founded in Genoa in 1892, ...
(PSI).
Minister of Finance
Elected for the first time in 1994 for the
Pact for Italy
The Pact for Italy ( it, Patto per l'Italia) was a centrist political and electoral alliance in Italy launched by Mario Segni and Mino Martinazzoli in 1994.
History
The alliance was composed of the Italian People's Party (PPI), the main successo ...
, he switched his allegiance to center-right
Forza Italia
Forza ItaliaThe name is not usually translated into English: ''forza'' is the second-person singular imperative of ''forzare'', in this case translating to "to compel" or "to press", and so means something like "Forward, Italy", "Come on, Ital ...
soon after the Parliament held session, and obtained the finances position in the first Berlusconi cabinet.
Tremonti again served as finance minister starting in 2001, when Berlusconi came back to power. He was compelled to resign on 3 July 2004, after internal disputes about the economic situation of the country within the House of Freedoms, particularly with conservative
National Alliance. In late 2005 he was then reappointed to the same position for the third time after his substitute
Domenico Siniscalco
Domenico Siniscalco alias Domenico Giovanni Siniscalco(born 15 July 1954) is an Italian economist and former Minister of Finance.
Sinicalco graduated with law degree from the University of Turin.
He served Italian government from June 2001 to Ju ...
resigned until the end of the Berlusconi III Cabinet. At the 2008 general elections, Berlusconi came back to power with a large majority in the parliament and assigned Tremonti the Economics and Finances position. At the end of 2011, following some rumours Tremonti would close to leave Pdl and to adhere to the
Northern League. On 5 September 2012 Tremonti announced that he was setting up his own political movement ahead of elections to be held by next spring, potentially syphoning support from Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party.
During his time in office, Tremonti made the first and biggest across the board
Income tax
An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Tax ...
cuts in Italy by introducing a No-Tax-Area (2003) and reducing the top marginal tax rate (2005). He also made a significant reduction in the
corporate tax
A corporate tax, also called corporation tax or company tax, is a direct tax imposed on the income or capital of corporations or analogous legal entities. Many countries impose such taxes at the national level, and a similar tax may be imposed at ...
rate (from 36% to 33%, then further down to 27.5%) and has abolished taxes on reinvested profits. He has also completely abolished all
donation tax
A donation is a gift for charity, humanitarian aid, or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including money, alms, services, or goods such as clothing, toys, food, or vehicles. A donation may satisfy medical needs such as bl ...
es, estate/
inheritance
Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, Title (property), titles, debts, entitlements, Privilege (law), privileges, rights, and Law of obligations, obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ ...
taxes (2001), and
property tax
A property tax or millage rate is an ad valorem tax on the value of a property.In the OECD classification scheme, tax on property includes "taxes on immovable property or net wealth, taxes on the change of ownership of property through inheri ...
es on housing/real estate (2008) at the national level (property continues to be taxed at the local level). Nevertheless, after these measures, the
OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
stated in its latest (2007) report on Italy that "tax rates are high compared to other countries". He has been the promoter of the Global Legal Standards.
From 2008 until 2009, Tremonti was a member of the High Level Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems, co-chaired by
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chance ...
and
Robert Zoellick
Robert Bruce Zoellick (; ; born July 25, 1953) is an American public official and lawyer who was the eleventh president of the World Bank, a position he held from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2012. He was previously a managing director of Goldman Sach ...
.
Other activities
As an author, during his life, Tremonti has written mostly on taxation and international trade. He expressed how high taxes are a drag on growth and how fiscal federalism can create territorial taxation competition between regions that can reduce the burden on families and workers. He has also been a critic of China's dumping trade policy that causes delocalization of jobs from Europe to Asia. Nevertheless, he gave an important lecture at the
Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party
The Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party (), commonly known as the Central Party School (), located in Beijing, is the higher education institution which trains Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres. As of 2012, it has around 1,60 ...
in 2009.
He is currently a member of the
Italy-USA Foundation, chairman of the
Aspen Institute Italia and a frequent guest columnist on the ''
Corriere della Sera
The ''Corriere della Sera'' (; en, "Evening Courier") is an Italian daily newspaper published in Milan with an average daily circulation of 410,242 copies in December 2015.
First published on 5 March 1876, ''Corriere della Sera'' is one of It ...
''.
As of September 2020, he is a member of the Italian
Aspen Institute
The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1949 as the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. The institute's stated aim is the realization of "a free, just, and equitable society" through seminars, policy programs ...
.
executive Committee
aspeninstitute.it/
References
Books on economics and finances
*''La fiera delle tasse'' ("The Tax Fair", 1991)
*''Il federalismo fiscale'' ("Fiscal Federalism", 1994)
*''Il fantasma della povertà'' ("The Phantom of Poverty", 1995)
*''Le cento tasse degli italiani'' ("The Hundred Taxes of Italians", 1996, with G. Vitaletti)
*''Lo Stato criminogeno'' ("The crime-generating State", 1997)
*''Rischi fatali – L’Europa vecchia, la Cina, il mercatismo suicida: come reagire'' ("Fatal risks: Old Europe, China, the Suicidal Free Market Ideology: How to React", 2005)
*''La paura e la speranza - Europa : la crisi globale che si avvicina e la via per superarla'' ("Fear and hope - Europe: crisis approaching and the way to overcome it", 2008)
External links
BBC Report on his resignation in 2004
Giulio Tremonti's Official Website
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tremonti, Giulio
1947 births
Living people
People from Sondrio
Forza Italia politicians
Italian economists
Italian essayists
Italian male non-fiction writers
Italian Socialist Party politicians
Finance ministers of Italy
Male essayists
Deputy Prime Ministers of Italy
University of Pavia alumni