Giuseppe Conte
Giuseppe Conte (Italian pronunciation: [dʒuˈzɛppe ˈkonte]; born 8 August 1964) is an Italian jurist, academic, and politician who served as prime minister of Italy from June 2018 to February 2021.[3][4] He has been the president of the Five Star Movement (M5S) since August 2021.[5]
Giuseppe Conte
Luigi Di Maio (2018–19)
Matteo Salvini (2018–19)
Vito Crimi (acting)
8 August 1964
Volturara Appula, Apulia, Italy
Independent (before 2021)
M5S (since 2021)
Valentina Fico (div.)[1]
Olivia Paladino[2]
1
Conte spent the greater part of his career as a private law professor and was also a member of the Italian Bureau of Administrative Justice from 2013 to 2018. Following the 2018 Italian general election, he was proposed as the independent leader of a coalition government between the M5S and the League, despite his having never held any political position before.[6] After both parties agreed on a programme of government, he was sworn in as prime minister on 1 June by President Sergio Mattarella, appointing the M5S and League leaders as his joint deputies.[7][8] In August 2019, the League filed a motion of no confidence in the coalition government and Conte offered to resign as prime minister; the M5S and the Democratic Party agreed to form a new government, with Conte remaining at its head.[9][10][11] This made Conte the first prime minister to lead two separate Italian governments made up of right-wing and left-wing coalition partners.[12][13]
Despite having begun his political career as a technocrat,[14] appointed to implement the government programme of M5S and the League, during the final months of his first cabinet and throughout his second one Conte became an increasingly influential and popular figure in Italian politics.[15] During his premiership, he introduced important reforms including the introduction of a guaranteed minimum income, a constitutional reform to reduce the number of parliamentarians, nationalizations of ASPI (Italy's highway company), Alitalia (the Italian flag carrier), and Ilva (Italy's largest steel company),[16][17][18] as well as a stricter policy towards illegal immigration.[19] In 2020, Italy became one of the countries worst affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. His government was the first in the Western world to implement a national lockdown to stop the spread of the disease.[20][21] Despite being widely approved by public opinion, the lockdown was also described as the largest suppression of constitutional rights in the history of the Italian Republic.[22] Conte's extensive use of prime ministerial decrees to impose restrictions aimed at containing the pandemic gave rise to criticism from journalists, political analysts, and opposition politicians, even if it was widely appreciated by public opinion, as shown by several opinion polls.[23][24][25] The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was especially severe in Italy.[26] In July 2020, to assist with the COVID-19 recession, Conte and other European leaders approved the Next Generation EU package, by which Italy will receive 209 billion euros in grants and loans from the European Recovery Fund.[27]
When Matteo Renzi's Italia Viva withdrew its support for Conte's government, it started the 2021 Italian government crisis in January.[28] Although Conte was able to win confidence votes in Parliament in the subsequent days, he chose to resign after failing to reach an absolute majority in the Senate.[29] When negotiations to form Conte's third cabinet failed, the former president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi was asked to form a national unity government.[30]
Conte was the fifth prime minister appointed without prior political experience, after Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Silvio Berlusconi, Lamberto Dini, and Mario Monti, as well as the first from Southern Italy since Ciriaco De Mita in 1989.[31][32] Conte was also the longest-serving independent prime minister in the history of Italy, even though he was widely seen as close to the M5S.[33][34] Because of his leadership style, Conte has often been considered one of the leading examples of techno-populism,[35][36] while his first cabinet was described by many publications, such as The New York Times and la Repubblica, as the "first modern populist government in Western Europe".[37][38][39] Conte has often been called "the people's lawyer" (l'avvocato del popolo), as he described himself during his first speech as prime minister.[40][41]
Early life and career[edit]
Conte was born on 8 August 1964 into a middle-class family at Volturara Appula, near Foggia.[42][43] His father Nicola was a public employee in the local municipality, while his mother Lillina Roberti was an elementary school teacher.[44][45]
After his family moved to San Giovanni Rotondo, Conte attended the Classical Lyceum "Pietro Giannone" in San Marco in Lamis and then studied law at the Sapienza University of Rome, where he graduated in 1988, with honours.[46][47][48] In 1992, he formally qualified as a lawyer,[49] before, for a short term, studying abroad. In the same year, he moved to the United States to study at Yale Law School and Duquesne University, and at the International Culture Institute in Vienna in 1993. He later researched or lectured at Sorbonne University in 2000, Girton College, Cambridge in 2001 and New York University in 2008.[50][51]
He began his academic career during the 1990s when he taught at Roma Tre University, at LUMSA University in Rome, at the University of Malta, and at the University of Sassari in Sardinia.[47] Conte is currently professor of private law at the University of Florence and at Rome's LUISS.[52][53] He sits on the board of trustees of John Cabot University in Rome.[54] Conte's claim to have completed studies at New York University has been questioned, with the institution stating that "A person by this name does not show up in any of our records as either a student or faculty member."[55]
In 2010 and 2011, Conte served on the board of directors of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and in 2012 he was appointed by the Bank of Italy as a member of the "Banking and Financial Arbitrage" commission.[56] He served also in the scientific committee of the Italian Foundation of Notaries.[57]
On 18 September 2013, he was elected by the Chamber of Deputies as a member of the Bureau of Administrative Justice, the self-governing body of administrative magistrates, on which he also served as vice president.[58]
Personal life[edit]
Conte married Valentina Fico, a lawyer from Rome and daughter of a former director of the Santa Cecilia conservatory,[383] with whom he has a child, Niccolò, born in 2007;[384] however, they divorced after a few years.[385] By 2018, Conte was engaged with Olivia Paladino,[386] daughter of the Roman entrepreneur Cesare Paladino and the Swedish actress Ewa Aulin.[387]
Conte is an avid supporter of A.S. Roma, a passion that arose when he studied in Rome at the Sapienza University.[388] He is a Roman Catholic and a follower of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina.[389] In addition to his native Italian, Conte also speaks English.[390][391][392]