Following is a brief biography
of Italy's new foreign minister, Paolo Gentiloni.
The 59-year-old former communications minister will replace
Federica Mogherini, who quit the post Friday, a day before
becoming the European Union's new high representative for
foreign affairs and security policy.
Gentiloni and Mogherini are both senior members of Premier
Matteo Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
Gentiloni will probably be sworn in later on Friday, and
will likely address the Senate for the first time on November 6.
A native of Rome and a journalist by trade, Gentiloni in
his youth joined the Party of Proletarian Unity (PDUP), which
combined extreme left, socialist and Catholic elements.
He later grew into more moderate views, becoming a founding
member of centre-left party La Margherita (The Daisy) in 2002.
The Daisy later merged into what would become the now-ruling PD,
with Gentiloni as one of the 45 members of its national founding
committee in 2007.
The former editor of The New Ecology, the monthly magazine
of leading environmentalist organization Legambiente, Gentiloni
became a Rome city councilor and then spokesman to
newly-elected Mayor Francesco Rutelli in 1993.
In 2001, when Rutelli finished his second term in office,
he was elected to the Lower House of parliament and became
chairman of the Broadcasting Services Watchdog Committee in
2005.
Re-elected as an MP in 2006, he became communications
minister during the center-left government of Romano Prodi.
Within the PD, he was among the first of the old guard to
side with Renzi. He ran in the 2012 PD primaries for Rome mayor,
which were won by current Mayor Ignazio Marino.
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