Italia: Enrico Letta, Democrata Cristão...

Perfil do novo Presidente do Conselho de Ministros da Italia: um jovem Democrata Cristão.


Enrico Letta, nominated on Wednesday as Italy’s next prime minister, comes from the moderate Catholic wing of the centre-left Democrats, a party loyalist working behind the scenes among its bitterly divided factions, while acting as the long-time bridge to Silvio Berlusconi and the centre-right.
Mr Letta, who at 46 will be among Italy’s youngest postwar prime ministers, was cabinet secretary in the last centre-left government of Romano Prodi from 2006 to 2008, a position his uncle Gianni Letta held in the Berlusconi government that followed.
The deputy prime minister in the new government is likely to be Angelino Alfano, former centre-right justice minister and a Berlusconi loyalist. Mr Letta and Mr Alfano are seen to have developed a good working relationship, keeping lines of communication open between the two parties.
A convinced pro-European who speaks excellent English and French – rare in Italian politics – Mr Letta was seldom seen as destined for high office. But in the context of the present crisis after two months of deadlock, he emerged as an anodyne and respected candidate acceptable to all sides in the new “grand coalition”.
While Mr Letta is regarded as the capable mediator between Democrats and Mr Berlusconi’s People of Liberty, his diplomatic skills will be tested by the leftwing of his own party, which is strongly opposed to forming a coalition.
Leading the Democrats in a round of consultations with Giorgio Napolitano, the president, on Tuesday, Mr Letta committed the party to co-operation in the unprecedented left-right coalition, while stressing the need for policies to create jobs and return Italy to growth, as well as political and institutional reforms.
Mr Letta also said there was a “need to make the EU change its line as, up to now, it has not given sufficient answers” to Europe’s economic crisis. On political reforms, Mr Letta said the number of parliamentarians should be reduced, the bicameral system changed, the administrative layer of provinces abolished, and the electoral law amended to allow voters a direct choice of their candidates. “Without the reform of politics, there is no way out of the crisis,” he said.
Mr Letta had been deputy leader of the Democrats. The party’s secretary Pier Luigi Bersani submitted his resignation last week after the party’s implosion, when it failed in five rounds of voting in parliament to agree on the choice of a successor to Mr Napolitano. That impasse led to the main parties appealing to Mr Napolitano, 87, to accept an unprecedented second seven-year term.
Speaking to the Financial Times on February 25, as it emerged that the Democrats had failed to secure the majority in parliament they had expected, Mr Letta said: “The result is the absolute majority of Italians have voted against austerity measures, the euro and Europe. This sends a very clear signal to Brussels and Frankfurt.”
In late March, Mr Letta said a broad coalition with the centre-right as proposed by Mr Berlusconi was “not ideal”, noting the “bitter differences” between the two main parties. But significantly, Mr Letta did not rule out the possibility, despite the hardline opposition to such a coalition expressed by Mr Bersani.
Mr Letta began his political career in the Christian Democrats, Italy’s dominant postwar party that disintegrated amid corruption scandals in the early 1990s. Some moved to the centre-right under Mr Berlusconi and others, such as himself, eventually migrated to the Catholic-dominated Margherita party, which later merged with the left to form the Democratic party in 2007.
Born in Pisa, Mr Letta graduated in political sciences at the city’s university and has a doctorate in European Community law. A former member of the European parliament, he sat on its committee for economic and monetary affairs.
He became Italy’s youngest minister when appointed as European policy minister under Massimo D’Alema’s centre-left government in 1998, and also covered the role of industry and agriculture a year later. He is secretary-general of Arel, a think-tank founded in 1976 by Nino Andreatta, the Christian Democrat economist, and is a member of the Aspen Institute

Fonte: FT