Giancarlo Giorgetti during a press conference in Rome on February 18, 2022 (AFP / Andreas SOLARO)
Giancarlo Giorgetti, appointed Italian Minister of the Economy on Friday, 55, passes for a powerful, but discreet figure in the League (extreme right) of Matteo Salvini, of which he is considered one of the most moderate and pro- Europeans.
As Minister of Economic Development appreciated by industrialists, he was a loyal supporter of former Prime Minister Mario Draghi until the end, pushed out by three parties in his coalition, including the League.
Although he spent most of his political career in the League, this man of conviction did not hesitate to take the opposite view of the sovereignist Salvini and to mute the euroscepticism of this populist party to join Mario Draghi’s government of national unity.
Giancarlo Giorgetti (l) and Mario Draghi (d) during a debate in the Senate in Rome, February 17, 2021 (POOL/AFP/Andrew Medichini)
Within the League, supporters of a hard line consider him the leader of the “Draghini” too moderate, but publicly, he has always denied the slightest disagreement with Matteo Salvini.
His political mentor was Umberto Bossi, founder of the Northern League, who harangued the crowds to castigate “Rome the thief” and demand the autonomy of “Padania”, a self-proclaimed region in northern Italy.
– “A game of chess” –
“Umberto Bossi is a political master and an example for me, he made me understand that politics is a game of chess, you have to calculate everything until the last move”, he confessed in an interview granted to Italian television in March 2018.
Like Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister and President of Fratelli d’Italia, he cut his political teeth in the Youth Front of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist party created by followers of dictator Benito Mussolini after World War II. .
He was hardly the first choice for the Economy portfolio, one of the most important in the Meloni government. She had, in vain, asked Fabio Panetta, member of the executive board of the European Central Bank (ECB). But he will be “perfectly suited to this role”, assured his predecessor Daniele Franco.
Suffice to say that Giorgia Meloni was looking for continuity with the Draghi government and to reassure international investors. “We want to create a government of the highest caliber that is authoritative,” she continued to hammer.
Giorgia Meloni and Giancarlo Giorgetti during a parliamentary session in Rome on October 13, 2022 (AFP/Alberto PIZZOLI)
Giancarlo Giorgetti will have a hard time reconciling the League’s costly electoral promises with the need to reduce Italy’s colossal debt, in a context of rising interest rates, soaring energy prices and impending recession.
A graduate in business economics from Bocconi University in Milan, he will have to look into the flagship measures of the right-wing coalition: flat tax, tax amnesties, shield on energy prices for households and businesses and raising the retirement age.
– At the antipodes of Salvini –
If Ms. Meloni was reluctant in the face of possible budget deviations, Mr. Giorgetti does not exclude them, marking there one of the rare disagreements with Mario Draghi. “It would not be an expense made lightly, but it would be to pay for the damages of the war” in Ukraine, he argued.
Matteo Salvini, number one in the League, during a press conference in Milan, the day after the elections, September 26, 2022 (AFP / Miguel MEDINA)
At the antipodes of Matteo Salvini, this eternal number two in the League, very reserved, flees the limelight and is absent from social networks, preferring to act behind the scenes. “I don’t like being in the front row,” he says.
A fervent supporter of English football club Southampton, he served in Giuseppe Conte’s first government (2018 to 2019), including the League and the populist Five Star movement, notably as Secretary of State for Sport.
A practicing Catholic and Americanophile, wearing thick tortoiseshell glasses, he was born on December 16, 1966 in Cazzago Brabbia (north) to a fisherman father and a textile worker mother. From 1995 to 2004, he was mayor of this town of less than 800 inhabitants.
Giorgetti as economy minister? “He could also be a general in the armed forces, he could do anything, he’s a friend of mine, there’s no role he can’t fill,” commented Ignazio La Russa, co-founder of Fratelli d ‘Italia, before his appointment.
© 2022 AFP
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