Piero Franco Rodolfo Fassino (born 7 October 1949) is an Italian politician with the

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

. He was

Mayor of Turin The mayor of Turin (Italian: ''sindaco di Torino'') is an elected politician who, along with the Turin City Council of 40 members, is accountable for the government of Turin, Piedmont, Italy. The current mayor is Stefano Lo Russo, a universit ...

from 2011 until 2016 and is a former national secretary of the

Democrats of the Left The Democrats of the Left ( it, Democratici di Sinistra, DS) was a social-democratic political party in Italy. The DS, successor of the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) and the Italian Communist Party, was formed in 1998 upon the merger of th ...

party.Prodi Clears Final Hurdle as Deficit Pressures Mount
11 May 2006, ''

Bloomberg L.P. Bloomberg L.P. is a privately held financial, software, data, and media company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was co-founded by Michael Bloomberg in 1981, with Thomas Secunda, Duncan MacMillan, Charles Zegar, and a 1 ...

''. Accessed 15 April 2009
Archived
15 April 2009.

Early life and education

Fassino was born in

Avigliana Avigliana (Piedmontese: ''Vijan-a'' ; French : ''Veillane'') is a town and '' comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Turin in the Piedmont region or Italy, with 12,480 inhabitants as of January 1, 2017. It lies about west of Turin ...

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

( province of Turin), in a traditional

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

family. His father Eugenio was a partisan, commander of the 41st Garibaldi Brigade, his paternal grandfather Piero has been beaten to death by the Italian Fascists in 1944 because he did not want to reveal his son's hideout, while his maternal grandfather Cesare Grisa was one of the founders of the

Italian Socialist Party The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a Socialism, socialist and later Social democracy, social-democratic List of political parties in Italy, political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the l ...

. He graduated in Political Sciences.

Political career

Early career

Fassino registered with the Youth Communist Federation of Turin in 1968, becoming their secretary three years later. In 1975, he was elected as Member of the City Council of the Piedmont regional capital, a position he remained in for ten years. From 1985 to 1990 he held a position as Provincial Councillor, also in Turin. He was also secretary of the provincial

Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party ( it, Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) was a communist political party in Italy. The PCI was founded as ''Communist Party of Italy'' on 21 January 1921 in Livorno by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) ...

(PCI) federation of Turin from 1983 to 1987, when he was elected as member of the National Secretary's Office of the party, first as the Secretary's Office Coordinator, then as Responsible of Organization, during the period where the party was transformed from the PCI into the

Democratic Party of the Left The Democratic Party of the Left ( it, Partito Democratico della Sinistra, PDS) was a democratic socialist and social-democratic political party in Italy. Founded in February 1991 as the post-communist evolution of the Italian Communist Party, t ...

(PDS). From 1991 to 1996, Fassino was International Secretary of the new party; his first election to the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of the Italian parliament) was in 1994. Re-elected in 1996, he was appointed in 1998 as Minister for Foreign Commerce in the government headed by

Massimo D'Alema Massimo D'Alema (; 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 serv ...

. From 2000, he was Minister of Justice in the Giuliano Amato government. Candidate as vice-premier of The Olive Tree coalition in a ticket with former

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

Mayor

Francesco Rutelli Francesco Rutelli (born 14 June 1954) is an Italian journalist and former politician, who is the president of ''Anica'', National Association of Film and Audiovisual Industry, since October 2016. He also chairs the "Centro per un Futuro Sostenib ...

for the 2001 general elections in Italy won by the House of Freedoms rival coalition, he was still re-elected as a Member of Parliament.

Chairman of Democrats of the Left, 2001–2007

In 2001, during the National Party Congress of the

, Fassino was elected as secretary (a position of leader in Italian political parties). He was then re-elected in February 2005, during the party congress. In 2003, Fassino and other high-ranking party members – including

Romano Prodi Romano Antonio Prodi (; born 9 August 1939) is an Italian politician, economist, academic, senior civil servant, and business executive who served as the tenth president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He served twice as Pr ...

Lamberto Dini Lamberto Dini CGMG (born 1 March 1931) is an Italian politician and economist. He was the Director General of Bank of Italy from 1979 to 1994, Minister of Treasury from 1994 to 1996, the 51st Prime Minister of Italy from 1995 to 1996, and Forei ...

and

Walter Veltroni Walter Veltroni (; born 3 July 1955) is an Italian writer, film director, journalist, and politician, who served as the first leader of the Democratic Party within the centre-left opposition, until his resignation on 17 February 2009. He serv ...

– was accused of taking millions of pounds in backhanders when state-run

Telecom Italia Gruppo TIM, legally TIM S.p.A. (formerly Telecom Italia S.p.A.), also known as the TIM Group in English, is an Italian telecommunications company with headquarters in Rome, Milan, and Naples, (with the Telecom Italia Tower) which provides fixed ...

bought a 29% stake in Telekom Serbia in 1997. During his time in office, Fassino asserted that ''

Il Giornale ''il Giornale'' ( en, The Newspaper) is an Italian language daily newspaper published in Milan, Italy. History and profile The newspaper was founded in 1974 by the journalist Indro Montanelli, together with the colleagues Enzo Bettiza, Ferenc ...

'', a right-wing newspaper, published confidential wiretap transcripts shortly before the 2006 election to create the impression that he had exercised improper pressure in the attempted takeover of

Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Banca Nazionale del Lavoro S.p.A. (BNL) is an Italian bank headquartered in Rome. It is Italy's sixth largest bank and has been a subsidiary of BNP Paribas since 2006. History Founded in 1913 as Istituto Nazionale di Credito per la Cooperazione ...

by insurer

Unipol Unipol Gruppo S.p.A. is an Italian financial services holding company operating in the insurance and banking fields with headquarters in the Unipol Tower, Bologna. As of 2009 it was ranked as the country's fourth-largest insurer. The company t ...

in 2005. In 2013, a court awarded 80,000 euros in damages to Fassino for the incident.

Member of Parliament, 2006–2011

In addition to his role in parliament, Fassino was a member of Italian delegation to the

Assembly of the Western European Union The Assembly of the Western European Union, also called the European Security and Defence Assembly, was a parliamentary assembly for delegations from the national parliaments of the member countries of the Western European Union (WEU), a securit ...

from 2006 until 2011, where he served as chairman of the Committee on Political Affairs and as

rapporteur A rapporteur is a person who is appointed by an organization to report on the proceedings of its meetings. The term is a French-derived word. For example, Dick Marty was appointed ''rapporteur'' by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Eur ...

for the

Western Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...

. From 2007 until 2010, Fassino served as the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

's special envoy for

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, appointed by the Union’s

High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR/VP) is the chief co-ordinator and representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) within the European Union (EU). The position is currently held b ...

Javier Solana Francisco Javier Solana de Madariaga (; born 14 July 1942) is a Spanish physicist and PSOE politician. After serving in the Spanish government as Foreign Affairs Minister under Felipe González (1992–1995) and as the Secretary General of NA ...

Mayor of Turin, 2011–2016

Fassino served as Mayor of

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The ...

from 2011 until 2016. In the 2016 elections, he was defeated by

Chiara Appendino Chiara Appendino (born 12 June 1984) is an Italian politician and sports manager, mayor of Turin and the Turin metropolitan city from 30 June 2016 to 27 October 2021 and vice president of the Italian Tennis Federation from 2 October 2020. She is ...

, who overturned an 11-point gap after the first round to win 55 percent of the vote.

Member of Parliament, 2018–present

Fassino has also served as member of the Italian delegation to the

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe, a 46-nation international organisation dedicated to upholding human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The Assembly is made up ...

from 1994 until 1996; from 2006 until 2011; and since 2018. As member of the

, he is part of the

Socialists, Democrats and Greens Group The Socialists, Democrats and Greens Group (french: Groupe Socialiste, SOC) is a primarily social-democratic political grouping in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. It was known as the Socialist Group prior to August 2017. The g ...

. In the Assembly, he serves on the Committee on the Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by

Member States of the Council of Europe The Council of Europe was founded on 5 May 1949 by ten western and northern European states, with Greece joining three months later, and Iceland, Turkey and West Germany joining the next year. It now has 46 member states, with Montenegro being th ...

(since 2018); the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy (since 2018); and the Sub-Committee on the Middle East and the Arab World (since 2019). He also serves as the Assembly's co-rapporteur on

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...

(alongside

Ian Liddell-Grainger Ian or Iain is a name of Scottish Gaelic origin, derived from the Hebrew given name (Yohanan, ') and corresponding to the English name John. The spelling Ian is an Anglicization of the Scottish Gaelic forename ''Iain''. It is a popular name in Sc ...

) and

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...

Recognition

Fassino received the ''America Award'' from the Italy-USA Foundation in 2010.

Other activities

European Council on Foreign Relations The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) is a pan-European think tank with offices in seven European capitals. Launched in October 2007, it conducts research on European foreign and security policy and provides a meeting space for decisi ...

(ECFR), Member of the Council * Italy-USA Foundation, Member (since 2018)

Personal life

Fassino is married to Anna Maria Serafini, who was elected in Italian Senate (the second chamber of the Italian parliament) in 2006. He considers himself Roman Catholic.

External links

Fassino proclaimed mayor

References

, - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Fassino, Piero 1949 births Living people People from Avigliana Italian Roman Catholics Italian Communist Party politicians Democratic Party of the Left politicians Democrats of the Left politicians Democratic Party (Italy) politicians Italian Ministers of Justice Government ministers of Italy Deputies of Legislature XII of Italy Deputies of Legislature XIII of Italy Deputies of Legislature XIV of Italy Deputies of Legislature XV of Italy Deputies of Legislature XVI of Italy Deputies of Legislature XVIII of Italy Mayors of Turin University of Turin alumni Deputies of Legislature XIX of Italy