Honored Persons

 

Giorgio Napolitano

Giorgio Napolitano (born June 29, 1925 in Naples) was Italian President from 2006 - 2015 and the only person re-elected to this position. The now almost 93-year-old former communist is thus the long-serving president of Italy. In January 2015, he resigned for reasons of age and was replaced by Sergio Matarella. Critics accuse Napolitano of turning the presidency from a more formal, ceremonial office into a political one. Napolitano served as president during part of the long reign of Silvio Berlusconi, later during the reign of Enrico Letta and Mario Renzi (both from the Democratic Party of Italy, the Partito Democratico Italiano (PDI)). As early as 1953, he had joined the Italian Parliament as a member of parliament. He belonged to the moderate, reformist camp of the Italian Communists (PCI), who played an important role in Italy in the decades following the Second World War. Napolitano was involved in 1991 in the transformation of the Communist Party into the so-called Democratic Left Party (Partito Democratico della Sinistra) and continued to hold leadership positions. This way he served in the Cabinet of Romano Prodi from 1996 to 1998 as Minister of the Interior. Before that, he was a Member of the European Parliament. In November 2011, during his time as President, he worked in connection with the resignation of longtime Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconis. Giorgio Napolitano is the Italian patron of Alpine Peace Crossing.