Massimo D'Alema

Massimo D'Alema (; born 20 April 1949) is an Italian politician and journalist who was the 53rd prime minister of Italy from 1998 to 2000. He was Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2008. D'Alema also served for a time as national secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS). Earlier in his career, D'Alema was a member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and was the first former Communist party member to become prime minister of a NATO country and the only former PCI prime minister of Italy. Due to his first name and for his dominant position in the left-wing coalitions during the Second Republic, he is referred to as Leader Maximo. He is also the author of several books. A member of the PCI since 1963, D'Alema was a member of the party's central committee and then of the leadership and party secretariat; from 1975 to 1980, he was also secretary of the Italian Communist Youth Federation (FGCI). He was supportive of Achille Occhetto's turning point that dissolved the PCI and established the PDS, and he presided over the establishment of The Olive Tree coalition that won the 1996 Italian general election and the transformation of the PDS into the Democrats of the Left (DS) in 1998, the same year he became prime minister. A member of Italy's Chamber of Deputies from 1987 to 2004 and then from 2006 to 2013, he was also a member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2006. He joined the Democratic Party (PD) upon its foundation in 2007. He opposed Matteo Renzi's secretariat and was contrasted with the Renziani wing within the party, which he left in 2017 to become a founder of Article One. Early life and education D'Alema was born in Rome on 20 April 1949, the son of , a partisan in the Italian resistance movement within the Patriotic Action Groups and communist politician, and Fabiola Modesti. He joined the Italian Communist Party (PCI) at the age of 14 and began his political career in Pisa, where he was studying philosophy; he was praised as enfant prodige by the then PCI leader Palmiro Togliatti and took part to the protests of 1968, alongside his friend Fabio Mussi. Career