Elio Di Rupo (; born 18 July 1951) is a Belgian politician who served as the

prime minister of Belgium The prime minister of Belgium (; ; ) or the premier of Belgium is the head of the federal government of Belgium, and the most powerful person in Belgian politics. The first head of government in Belgian history was Henri van der Noot in 179 ...

from 2011 to 2014, heading the

Di Rupo Government The Di Rupo Government was the federal cabinet of Belgium sworn in on 6 December 2011, after a record-breaking 541 days of negotiations following the June 2010 elections. The government included social democrats ( sp.a/ PS), Christian democrats ...

, and as

minister-president of Wallonia The minister-president of Wallonia () is the head of the Government of Wallonia, the executive power of Wallonia, one of the three regions of Belgium. The official residence, known as the Élysette, is in Namur, along the Meuse River. The ministe ...

for three non-consecutive terms between 1999 and 2024. He was the first

francophone The Francophonie or Francophone world is the whole body of people and organisations around the world who use the French language regularly for private or public purposes. The term was coined by Onésime Reclus in 1880 and became important a ...

to hold the prime ministership since

Paul Vanden Boeynants Paul Emile François Henri Vanden Boeynants (, ; 22 May 1919 – 9 January 2001) was a Belgian politician.
Rulers. Retrieved 30 August 201 ...

in 1979, and the country's first socialist prime minister since

Edmond Leburton Edmond Jules Isidore Leburton (18 April 1915 – 15 June 1997) was a Belgian politician who served as the prime minister of Belgium from 1973 to 1974. He first entered Parliament representing Huy, Belgium. Prime Minister of Belgium Leburt ...

left office in 1974. Di Rupo was also Belgium's first prime minister of non-Belgian descent, and the world's second openly gay person and first openly gay man to be head of government in modern times.

Background and early life

Di Rupo was born in

Morlanwelz Morlanwelz (; ) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. On 1 January 2006 Morlanwelz had a total population of 18,595. The total area is 20.26 km2 which gives a population density of 918 inhabitants per km2 ...

Wallonia Wallonia ( ; ; or ), officially the Walloon Region ( ; ), is one of the three communities, regions and language areas of Belgium, regions of Belgium—along with Flemish Region, Flanders and Brussels. Covering the southern portion of the c ...

, to Italian parents. His father was born in San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore. While Di Rupo was born in Belgium, his brothers and sisters were all born in Italy. When he was one year old, his father died in a car crash and his mother was unable to raise all seven children. Due to the poor financial state of his family, three of his brothers were raised in a nearby orphanage. When he was 12, he attended boarding school. Due to medical issues, Di Rupo had to re-do his first year of high school twice, but eventually excelled in science at the end of his high school years. This led him to pursue a degree in

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

at the

University of Mons The University of Mons (, ) is a Belgian university located in the city of Mons, founded in 2009 by merging the Engineering Faculty of Mons (FPMs) and the University of Mons-Hainaut. The merging of the institutions was achieved following a g ...

, where he eventually obtained a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in Chemistry, after being a part-time lecturer at

Leeds University The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed ...

as well.

Political career

Di Rupo came in contact with the socialist movement for the first time during his studies in

Mons Mons commonly refers to: * Mons, Belgium, a city in Belgium * Mons pubis (mons Venus or mons veneris), in mammalian anatomy, the adipose tissue lying above the pubic bone * Mons (planetary nomenclature), a sizable extraterrestrial mountain * Batt ...

, where he first obtained a master's degree and afterwards a PhD in

. He went during the preparation of his doctorate to the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

(United Kingdom), where his function was that of lecture member of staff in 1977–1978. He started his political career as an

attaché In diplomacy, an attaché () is a person who is assigned ("to be attached") to the diplomatic or administrative staff of a higher placed person or another service or agency. Although a loanword from French, in English the word is not modified ac ...

at the cabinet of Jean-Maurice Dehousse in 1980–81. His first political mandate came in 1982, when he was Councillor of

(until 1985, and again from 1988 until 2000). In 1986, he was mayor of health, urban renewal and social affairs. Professionally, Di Rupo was at the same time cabinet member and then Deputy Head of Cabinet of the minister of finance of that time of the Walloon region and consequently Deputy Head of Cabinet of the minister of finance and energy of the Walloon region at that time Philippe Busquin (1981–85) and superintendent of the energy-inspection of the ministry of the Walloon region. He is a deputy (MP) for the

Arrondissement of Mons The Arrondissement of Mons (; ) is one of the seven administrative arrondissements in the Walloon province of Hainaut, Belgium. It is both an administrative and a judicial arrondissement. However, the Judicial Arrondissement of Mons also co ...

in the

Belgian Chamber of Representatives The Chamber of Representatives (; ; ) is one of the two chambers in the bicameral Federal Parliament of Belgium, the other being the Senate. It is considered to be the "lower house" of the Federal Parliament. Members and elections Article 62 o ...

. He once described

François Mitterrand François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand (26 October 19168 January 1996) was a French politician and statesman who served as President of France from 1981 to 1995, the longest holder of that position in the history of France. As a former First ...

as being "a character from a novel". In 2000, he became the mayor of

, which is the capital of the province of Hainaut. In 1987, he got his national political breakthrough. He was elected as member of the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourb ...

and went two years later for a short time to the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...

. In 1991, Di Rupo was chosen as a senator, but shortly afterwards (1992), he took in the French-speaking community his first ministerial function in Education and later also Media. These were his responsibilities until

Guy Coëme Guy Coëme (born 21 August 1946) is a Francophone Belgian politician for the Socialist Party (PS). He served as 5th Minister-President of Wallonia from February to May 1988. Coëme served as minister of defence in the government Martens VIII a ...

, who was mentioned in the Agusta-scandal, resigned and Di Rupo went to the federal government in 1994 as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Traffic and Governmental companies. Following the elections in 1995, he remained the Vice-Prime Minister of Belgium and was appointed minister of Economics and Telecommunications. In 1995 he signed the merger of the Belgian airline Sabena with Swiss Air that eventually led to the bankruptcy of Sabena with thousands of unemployed employees as result. In 1996, at the time of the Dutroux affair, Olivier Trusgnach, a prostitute, alleged that Di Rupo paid him for sex while Trusgnach was still a minor. This accusation could have meant the end of his political career. Di Rupo denied the accusations. After the federal and regional elections of June 1999 in which, due to the Dioxin Affair, the Christian-Democrats lost many of their votes, Di Rupo negotiated with the Flemish socialists of sp.a, the Liberals and

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as environmentalism and social justice. Green party platforms typically embrace Social democracy, social democratic economic policies and fo ...

to form a "purple-green" government. Di Rupo himself was in charge of the function of minister-president of the Walloon region, but already in October of the same year the members of the party chose him as president and in April 2000, he was succeeded in his function of minister-president by

Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe (born 28 April 1944 in Charleroi), nicknamed "Van Cau", is a Belgian politician. He is member of the Parti Socialiste (''Socialist Party''; PS). He was the tenth Minister-President of Wallonia from 4 April 2000 until ...

. As new president of the party, Di Rupo was forced to make a generation change within the PS and go down a new path. During the regional and federal elections of 1995 and 1999, the PS lost many of its votes, partly because of

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities ...

scandals in the 1990s (named Agusta-scandal and UNIOP-affair), in which the most prominent PS-politicians were involved. PS had been in the government subsequently since 1988 (in the regional government and in the federal government), but the liberal PRL (now MR) became in the 1999-elections as strong as the PS. Apart from those two,

Ecolo Ecolo (), officially Écologistes Confédérés pour l'organisation de luttes originales (, ) is a French-speaking political party in Belgium based on green politics. The party is active in Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region. Ecolo's F ...

also became an important political party. Di Rupo realised that drastic action was required to regain the position of the PS. By several measures, such as "Contrat d'avenir pour la Wallonie" (Contract for the Future of Wallonia) and a new generation of party leaders, by which Marie Arena was important, he tried to reassemble the left wing-forces around him. Successfully, because in the elections of 2003, PS regained the electoral score of 1991 and was by far the most important political party before MR. During the regional elections of 2004, it also became the most important party in the Brussels capital region. Elio di Rupo-15-12-2007

Di Rupo changed, in 2004, the liberal coalition partner for the Christian-democratic party, in the Walloon Government and in the Brussels Capital Government (in the last also the green party Ecolo was part of the government). By doing this, coalitions were made which differed from the federal coalition at that time. In October 2005, he became

Minister-President of Wallonia The minister-president of Wallonia () is the head of the Government of Wallonia, the executive power of Wallonia, one of the three regions of Belgium. The official residence, known as the Élysette, is in Namur, along the Meuse River. The ministe ...

after

resigned amid a corruption scandal, involving several members of Di Rupo's party. He continued as party leader though and has had to deal with the PS's ICDI affair that emerged in May 2006. In 2006 and 2007, Di Rupo and his party appeared unsuccessful in trying to clean out corruption. This was probably instrumental in the party's losing its first place amongst

French community The French Community () was the constitutional organization set up in October 1958 between France and its remaining African colonies, then in the process of decolonization. It replaced the French Union, which had reorganized the colonial em ...

parties 2007 federal election. Di Rupo then decided to take a firmer stance against corruption in Charleroi: he virtually took control of the city's Socialist Party and ordered the Socialist mayor and

aldermen An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law with similar officials existing in the Netherlands (wethouder) and Belgium (schepen). The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking membe ...

to resign. After former PS president

Guy Spitaels Guy Gustave Arthur Ghislain Spitaels (; 3 September 1931 – 21 August 2012) was a Belgian politician of the Socialist Party. He was the 7th Minister-President of Wallonia from 1992 to 1994 and president of his party for thirteen years, until he ...

urged him to choose between the presidency of the party and of the

Walloon Government The Government of Wallonia (, ) or Walloon Government (, ) is the executive branch of Wallonia and one of the six governments in Belgium. It is located in Namur, where the Parliament of Wallonia is also seated Compositions Current compositi ...

, Di Rupo decided to organise internal elections for party president in July 2007 rather than in October of that year and announced that he would resign from his mandate as Minister-President if re-elected. On 11 July 2007, he was re-elected president of the Socialist Party with 89.5% of the votes.

Prime Minister of Belgium

Following the

2010 Belgian general election Federal elections were held in Belgium on 13 June 2010, during the midst of the 2007-11 Belgian political crisis. After the fall of the previous Leterme II Government over the withdrawal of Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats (Open VLD) from th ...

, in which the PS emerged as the largest of the Francophone parties and the second largest political party in Belgium, speculation emerged as to whether Di Rupo could be the Prime Minister in a new government. The

RTBF The ("Belgian Radio-television of the French Community"), shortened to RTBF (branded as rtbf.be), is a public broadcasting, public service broadcaster for the French Community of Belgium, French-speaking Community of Belgium. Its counterpart i ...

raised questions, however, about whether Di Rupo's limited fluency in Dutch would be a stumbling block in seeking that office; every prime minister since 1979 had been a Fleming. In May 2011, he was appointed

Formateur A formateur (French for "someone who forms, who constitutes") is a politician who is appointed to lead the formation of a coalition government, after either a general election or the collapse of a previous government. The role of the formateur i ...

by King Albert II, which gave Di Rupo the task of forming a government. Traditionally, the Formateur also becomes the Prime Minister of the government he forms. He became prime minister of the

Di Rupo I Government The Di Rupo Government was the federal cabinet of Belgium sworn in on 6 December 2011, after a record-breaking 541 days of negotiations following the June 2010 elections. The government included social democrats ( sp.a/ PS), Christian democrat ...

on 6 December 2011. With Di Rupo's appointment, Belgium ended 589 days without a government, believed to be the longest such streak ever for a country in the developed world.

Yves Leterme Yves Camille Désiré Leterme (; born 6 October 1960) is a Belgian politician, a leader of the Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V). He was the prime minister of Belgium from March 2008 to December 2008, and later from November 2009 ...

had resigned on 26 April 2010 and had been serving as caretaker prime minister since then.

Board of directors

Between 2004 and 2005, Elio Di Rupo was on the

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

of what was then

Dexia Dexia N.V./S.A., or the Dexia Group, is a Franco-Belgian financial institution formed in 1996. At its peak in 2010, it had about 35,200 members of staff and a core shareholders' equity of €19.2 billion. In 2008, the bank entered severe ...

bank, currently

Belfius Belfius Bank and Insurance, known as Dexia Bank Belgium until 1 March 2012, is a Belgian state-owned bank that emerged from the dismantling of the Dexia group which had been purchased by the Belgian government on 10 October 2011 for 4 billion eur ...

Personal life

Visit of the College of Commissioners Egmont Palace EU2024BE on 5 January 2024 - 78

Di Rupo describes himself as an "

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

, rationalist, and

Freemason Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

." He is fluent in

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

, French and English. After becoming Prime Minister, he took

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

lessons to address his previous limited fluency in the language and this improved enough for him to be able to address the parliament in Dutch and conduct TV interviews in the language. Di Rupo

came out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBTQ people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. This is often framed and debated as a privacy issue, ...

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late ...

in 1996, and when asked by a confrontational "media pack" if he was gay, he responded, "Yes. So what?" He is the first openly gay man to lead a sovereign state, and the first openly gay person to win the position through an election. Between Di Rupo's election and 2013, he was one of the only three openly gay or lesbian national

heads of government In the executive branch, the head of government is the highest or the second-highest official of a sovereign state, a federated state, or a self-governing colony, autonomous region, or other government who often presides over a cabinet, a ...

, the other ones being Icelandic Prime Minister

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir (; born 4 October 1942) is an Icelandic politician, who served as prime minister of Iceland from 2009 to 2013. Elected as an MP from 1978 to 2013, she was appointed as Iceland's Minister of Social Affairs and Social ...

, and Luxembourgish Prime Minister

Xavier Bettel Xavier Bettel (; born 3 March 1973) is a Luxembourgish lawyer and politician who serves as the List of deputy prime ministers of Luxembourg, deputy prime minister of Luxembourg and as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Luxembourg), minister for Fo ...

Honours

* Belgium: Knight Grand Cross of the

Order of Leopold II The Order of Leopold II is an order of Belgium and is named in honor of King Leopold II. The decoration was established on 24 August 1900 by Leopold II as Sovereign of the Congo Free State and was in 1908, upon Congo being handed over to Belgiu ...

* Belgium: Commander of the Order of Leopold * Italy: Grand Officer of the

Order of Merit of the Italian Republic The Order of Merit of the Italian Republic () is the most senior Italian order of merit. It was established in 1951 by the second President of Italy, President of the Italian Republic, Luigi Einaudi. The highest-ranking honour of the Republi ...

Source:

Notes

References

Visite à domicile
Interview with Di Rupo in French (17 May 2007)
Hilariteit om bizarre tweet van Elio Di Rupo
Tweeting behaviour of Elio Di Rupo (in Dutch), published on 17 March 2013 in

De Standaard (, ) is a Flemish daily newspaper published in Belgium by Mediahuis (formerly Corelio and VUM). It was traditionally a Christian-Democratic paper, associated with the Christian-Democratic and Flemish Party, and in opposition to the Sociali ...

External links