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Piero Fassino

Turinese politician, secretary of the DS, government minister, mayor of Turin from 2011 to 2016, and the first mayor of the Metropolitan City.

Image from the publication of Il Post
From the publication of Il Post, 2011-06-10

Piero Fassino (Avigliana, 1949) is an Italian politician, mayor of Turin from 2011 to 2016 and the first mayor of the Metropolitan City. Formed in Turin's Communist Party, he was secretary of the Democrats of the Left, minister of Foreign Trade and of Justice, president of ANCI, and a member of parliament over several terms.[1]

From the Turin federation to government

Fassino's career began in Turin: from 1983 to 1987 he was secretary of the city's Communist federation. In 1987 he joined the PCI's national secretariat, where he remained until 1991, and in the transition to the Democratic Party of the left he became one of its national leaders, until 1998.[1] First elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1994, he was undersecretary for Foreign Affairs in the first Prodi government (1996-1998), minister of Foreign Trade in the D'Alema governments (1998-2000) and minister of Justice in the second Amato government (2000-2001).[1]

From 2001 to 2007 he led the Democrats of the Left as secretary.[1] In those years his name became central to the Unipol affair: a recording of his phone call with Giovanni Consorte, then head of the insurance company, was published exclusively by "il Giornale" on 31 December 2005, and the phrase "we have a bank" became famous. The tape had been brought to Paolo Berlusconi at the end of 2005 by the businessman Fabrizio Favata and his former partner Roberto Raffaelli, who agreed to a plea bargain; in June 2011 the preliminary hearing judge in Milan sentenced Favata to two years and four months for handling stolen goods, extortion and attempted extortion, with 40,000 euros in damages awarded to Fassino for moral injury.[2]

The mayoral candidacy

At the end of 2010, as Sergio Chiamparino's second term was drawing to a close, Turin's centre-left was looking for a successor. When Francesco Profumo, rector of the Politecnico, withdrew from the race, it was Chiamparino himself who said he hoped "the conditions could be created for a candidacy by Piero Fassino"; among the first to back him were MP Stefano Esposito and the Turin secretary of the FIOM union, Giorgio Airaudo.[3]

On 27 February 2011 Fassino won the centre-left primary with about 55% of the vote, ahead of Davide Gariglio, Gianguido Passoni, Michele Curto and Silvio Viale, in a vote that brought nearly 53,000 electors to the polls, more than the 2007 and 2009 primaries.[4] During the campaign Chiamparino drew an informal portrait of him in an interview with La Stampa:[5]

"He enjoys life more than people think: he eats, drinks, plays football, dances"

Sergio Chiamparino on Piero Fassino, March 2011

In the local elections of May 2011 Fassino was elected in the first round.[6]

Mayor of Turin (2011-2016)

His term opened under the weight of the City's finances. At the end of 2011 the mayor announced that the City would exceed the limits of the internal stability pact: breaching the cap, he explained, avoided 120 million euros in cuts to services and allowed 200 million euros to be paid to suppliers, with a commitment to return within the parameters within a year. He justified the choice in harsh terms toward the national rule: "It was not an easy choice, but a necessary one. We will not stay within the limits because it is a stupid tool for controlling local authorities' spending."[7]

From July 2013 to October 2016 Fassino was also president of ANCI, the association of Italian municipalities.[1] With the reform of local authorities he became Turin's first metropolitan mayor: in the early months of 2015 he brought to the territory, together with the new body's statute, the division of the Metropolitan City into eleven homogeneous zones.[8]

Interviewed by "Corriere della Sera" in October 2014 about changes in politics, he observed that "Parliament has lost its centrality because political decision-making has changed along the two variables of space and time," and dismissed longing for the past with a formula: "You don't live on nostalgia, you die of it."[9]

The 2016 defeat

In the June 2016 municipal elections, Fassino, also backed by Giacomo Portas's Moderates, came first in the first round with 41.83% of the vote.[10] In the runoff of 19 June, however, he was overtaken by Chiara Appendino of the Five Star Movement, who won the city; Fassino stopped at 45.44%.[1] Il Post called it a "surprise" victory.[10]

The Book Fair and the legal proceedings

In 2020 Fassino was committed to trial, along with sixteen other people, in the investigation into the management of the Book Fair: he was accused of bid rigging over the award of the event for the 2016-2018 three-year term.[11] On 21 March 2024 the Turin court acquitted him at first instance with the formula "the act does not constitute a crime," together with the former regional culture councillor Antonella Parigi; for other defendants the offence was declared time-barred, while five people were convicted of falsifying the 2015 budget of the Foundation for the Book, Music and Culture.[12]

In April 2024 he was reported over a suspected attempted theft at a duty-free shop at Fiumicino airport; in October 2024 the preliminary investigations judge in Civitavecchia declared the offence extinguished following remedial conduct, after a payment of 500 euros in damages.[13][14]

The return to Parliament

After his time at the City, Fassino returned to the Chamber of Deputies, re-elected in 2018 and in 2022, and has published, among other works, Pd davvero (2017), TAV. Perché sì, written with Chiamparino in defence of the Turin-Lyon line (2018), and Dalla rivoluzione alla democrazia (2021).[1] In August 2023, during the Chamber's budget debate, he showed his July pay slip in the chamber — 10,435 euros gross and 4,718 net — to argue that MPs do not enjoy "gold-plated salaries"; he later clarified that the basic allowance is supplemented by a per diem and expense reimbursements.[15]

Related articles: Chiara Appendino, Chivasso, Città metropolitana di Torino, Mayors of Turin, Sergio Chiamparino, Turin International Book Fair

Pages linking here

Sources

  1. Treccani
  2. Il Post — 10 June 2011
  3. Il Post — 29 November 2010
  4. Il Post — 27 February 2011
  5. Il Post — 21 March 2011
  6. Il Post — 23 May 2011
  7. Il Post — 30 December 2011
  8. Mole24 — 28 January 2015
  9. Il Post — 11 October 2014
  10. Il Post — 19 June 2016
  11. Il Post — 2 October 2020
  12. Il Post — 21 March 2024
  13. Il Post — 26 April 2024
  14. Il Post — 11 October 2024
  15. Il Post — 3 August 2023

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