Giuliano Amato

Giuliano Amato (born 13 May 1938) is an Italian politician who twice served as Prime Minister of Italy, first from 1992 to 1993 and again from 2000 to 2001.

Upon Arnaldo Forlani's death in July 2023, Amato became the country's earliest-serving Prime Minister.

Later, he was Vice President of the Convention on the Future of Europe that drafted the European Constitution and headed the Amato Group.

He is commonly nicknamed dottor Sottile, which means "Doctor Subtilis", the sobriquet of the Scottish Medieval philosopher John Duns Scotus, a reference to his political subtlety.

Amato began his political career in 1958 when he joined the Italian Socialist Party.

He received a first degree in law from the University of Pisa in 1960 while attending the prestigious Collegio Medico-Giuridico of the Scuola Normale Superiore, which today is Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies.

As a Fulbright grantee, he received a master's degree in comparative law from Columbia Law School in 1963.

After teaching at the Universities of Modena, Perugia and Florence, he worked as professor of Italian and Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Rome La Sapienza from 1975 to 1997.

He was a Member of Parliament from 1983 to 1993.

He was Undersecretary of State to the Prime Minister's office from 1983 to 1987, Deputy Prime Minister from 1987 to 1988, and Minister for the Treasury from 1987 to 1989.

From June 1992 to April 1993, Amato served as Prime Minister.

During those ten months, a series of corruption scandals rocked Italy and swept away almost an entire class of political leaders.

Amato himself was never implicated, notwithstanding how close he was to Bettino Craxi, a central figure in the corruption system.

As Prime Minister, Amato responded effectively to two devaluations of the lira in the wake of currency speculation that led Italy to be expelled from the European Monetary System by cutting the budget deficit drastically, thus taking the first steps in the road that would bring Italy to adopt the Euro.

At a point, his government was harshly contested because of a decree that suddenly moved the competence for corruption investigations into the hands of the police, which, being controlled directly by the government, would have not been independent.

Fearing that the new system would have effectively blocked investigations of political corruption, Italians took to the streets in massive, spontaneous rallies.

President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro refused to sign the decree, deeming it blatantly unconstitutional.

While his justice minister Giovanni Conso took the blame, it has been disputed whether Amato was a victim of circumstances or whether he really wanted to save the corruption-ridden system.

At the end of his period as Prime Minister, Amato gave a speech to the Parliament in which he solemnly promised that at the end of his term, he would retire from politics, stressing that his was a true commitment and that he would not break this promise as some politicians (whom he characterized as "mandarins") used to do.

However, this promise was short-lived; Amato has regularly come under criticism for having made such a solemn commitment and failing to keep it.

Amato was President of the Italian antitrust authority from November 1994 to December 1997, Minister for Institutional Reforms in Massimo D'Alema's first government from October 1998 to May 1999, and, once again, Treasury Minister in D'Alema's second government from December 1999 to April 2000.

Amato was nearly nominated for the Presidency of the Republic and was a close contender to replace Michel Camdessus as head of the International Monetary Fund.

Amato served as Prime Minister again from April 2000 to May 2001.

He promoted economic competitiveness as well as social protection.

In addition to economic reforms, he pushed ahead with political and institutional reforms, trying to deal with a weak executive and fragmented legislature.

In December 2001, European Union leaders at the European Council in Laeken appointed Amato and former Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene to be Vice Presidents of the Convention on the Future of Europe to assist former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in the drafting of the new European Constitution.

Amato was a Member of the Senate representing the constituency of Grosseto in Tuscany from 2001 to 2006.

He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002.

From 2006 to 2008, he was the Minister of the Interior in Romano Prodi's government.

In 2006, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the Olive Tree list, and he was named Minister of the Interior in Romano Prodi's centre-left government.

Since 2010, he also leads advanced seminar classes at the Master in International Public Affairs of the LUISS School of Government.

He served on the Constitutional Court of Italy from September 2013 to September 2022, to which he was appointed by President Giorgio Napolitano.

He also served as President of the Court from 29 January 2022 to 18 September 2022.

Born in Turin into a Sicilian family, Amato grew up in Tuscany.

On 12 September 2013, President Giorgio Napolitano appointed Amato as judge on the Constitutional Court of Italy, where he has served since then.

On 16 September 2020 Amato ran for the position of President of the Constitutional Court, but lost in the second round of voting against Mario Rosario Morelli who obtained nine votes, while Giancarlo Coraggio obtained five and Amato received one.

He was subsequently made Vice President by Morelli.

He was confirmed in this position by Coraggio who became president in December 2020.

Amato is married to Diana Vincenzi, a professor of Family Law at the University of Rome.

They have two children, Elisa and Lorenzo, and five grandchildren, Giulia, Marco, Simone, Elena and Irene.