Paolo Gentiloni

Paolo Gentiloni Silveri (born 22 November 1954) is an Italian politician who has served as European Commissioner for Economy in the von der Leyen Commission since 1 December 2019.

Gentiloni was born in Rome in 1954, during his childhood he attended a Montessori institute, where he became a friend of Agnese Moro, the daughter of Aldo Moro, a Christian democratic leader and Prime Minister.

During the early 1970s he attended the Classical Lyceum Torquato Tasso in Rome; he graduated in political sciences at the Sapienza University of Rome.

Gentiloni was a professional journalist before entering politics.

During the 1970s, Paolo Gentiloni was a member of the Student Movement (Movimento Studentesco), a far-left youth organization led by Mario Capanna; when Capanna founded the Proletarian Democracy party, Gentiloni did not follow him, and joined the Workers' Movement for Socialism (Movimento Lavoratori per il Socialismo; MLS), a far-left Maoist group, of which he became the regional secretary for Lazio.

In 1981 Gentiloni followed the MLS into the Proletarian Unity Party (Partito di Unità Proletaria; PdUP), remaining a member until its dissolution three years later.

Gentiloni slowly abandoned far-left ideals, sharing more moderate views and becoming particularly involved in green politics and ecologism.

During those years he became a close friend of Chicco Testa who helped Gentiloni to become director of La Nuova Ecologia ("The New Ecology"), the official newspaper of Legambiente.

As director of this ecologist newspaper he met the young leader of Federation of the Greens, Francesco Rutelli and became, along with Roberto Giachetti, Michele Anzaldi and Filippo Sensi, a member of the so-called "Rutelli boys", a group formed by Rutelli's closest advisors and supporters.

In 1989 he married Emanuela Mauro, an architect; they have no children.

Gentiloni speaks fluent English, French and German.

In 1993 he became Rutelli's spokesman during his campaign to become Mayor of Rome; after the election, which saw a strong victory by Rutelli against Gianfranco Fini, leader of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, Gentiloni was appointed Great Jubilee and Tourism Councillor in the Rome City Council.

Rutelli was reelected in 1997, with 985,000 popular votes, the highest share in the history of the city.

After a lengthy career in local politics, Gentiloni was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 2001.

Gentiloni held his office until January 2001, when Rutelli resigned to become the centre-left candidate to the premiership in the 2001 general election.

However Rutelli was soundly defeated by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi with 35.1% of votes against 49.6%.

In the 2001 general election, Gentiloni was elected as a Member of Parliament and started his national political career.

In 2002 he was a founding member of the Christian leftist The Daisy party, being the party's communications spokesman for five years.

From 2005 until 2006, he was Chairman of the Broadcasting Services Watchdog Committee; the committee oversees the activity of state broadcaster RAI, which is publicly funded.

He served in the Cabinet under Romano Prodi as Minister of Communications from 2006 to 2008.

He was reelected in the 2006 election as a member of The Olive Tree, the political coalition led by the Bolognese economist Romano Prodi.

After the centre-left's victory, Gentiloni served as Minister for Communications in Prodi's second government from 2006 until 2008.

As minister Gentiloni planned to reform the Italian television system, with the defeat of the Gasparri Law, the previous reform proposed by the centre-right lawmaker Maurizio Gasparri.

The reform provided, between other things, the reduction of advertising.

The "Gentiloni Reform" bill of 12 October 2006, established the existence of a market dominance where a subject exceeded 45% of advertising sales and abolished the "integrated communication system" (SIC) introduced by the Gasparri Law.

In 2007, he was one of the senior founding members of the Democratic Party, and went on to become party president from 2019 to 2020.

However, in 2007, the government suffered a crisis and lost its majority, so the reform had never been approved.

The law also lowered the maximum advertising threshold for TV from 18% to 16%, to encourage redistribution, and provided for the transfer to digital of one network each for RAI and Mediaset by 2009, thus freeing up frequencies and imposing the obligation to sell (Europa 7 affair).

However, the bill will not be approved.

Gentiloni later served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2014 to 2016 in the Cabinet of Matteo Renzi.

Following Renzi's resignation in the wake of a failed constitutional referendum, the Democratic Party held discussions on his replacement.

He previously served as prime minister of Italy from December 2016 to June 2018.

Eventually, Gentiloni won support from his colleagues, and President Sergio Mattarella appointed him Prime Minister on 12 December 2016.

Despite being considered a caretaker Prime Minister upon his appointment, during his time in office Gentiloni successfully delivered major reforms that had been delayed for many years, including the implementation of the advance healthcare directive and the passage of a new electoral law.

He also introduced stricter rules on immigration and social security, in an attempt to counteract the European migration crisis.

In foreign policy, Gentiloni built on his time as Foreign Minister by projecting a strong Europeanist stance, whilst at the same time building close relations with the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, and notably overseeing a normalisation of Italian relations with India after years of tensions.

Gentiloni resigned as Prime Minister following the 2018 election.

In September 2019, he was nominated by the Conte Government to become Italy's new European Commissioner, and was given the key portfolio of overseeing the European Union Economy.

A descendant of Count Gentiloni Silveri, Paolo Gentiloni is related to the Italian politician Vincenzo Ottorino Gentiloni, chamberlain of Pope Pius X, who was the leader of the conservative Catholic Electoral Union and a key ally of the long-time prime minister Giovanni Giolitti.

If the Kingdom of Italy still existed, Gentiloni would have the titles of Nobile of Filottrano, Nobile of Cingoli, and Nobile of Macerata.