Italian economist, professor, and politician (born 1936)
Paolo Savona (born 6 October 1936) is an Italian economist, professor, and politician. He was the Italian Minister of European Affairs from 1 June 2018 until 8 March 2019, his second stint in government after 1993–1994. During the 2010s, Savona became one of the most fervent Eurosceptic economists in Italy.
Institutional career.
Savona was born in Cagliari, Sardinia, on 6 October 1936. After obtaining a degree in economics from the University of Cagliari in 1961, his career started at the Servizio Studi (internal research service) of the Bank of Italy. In that context, he worked together with Guido Carli (Governor, 1960–1975) and Paolo Baffi (Governor, 1975–1979), he attended classes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he came to work with Franco Modigliani. Together with Michele Fratianni, he studied international money creation. He also specialised at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. In 1976, Carli became the President of General Confederation of Italian Industry (Confindustria) and asked Savona to follow him as Director-General, a post that he kept until 1980.
In the following years, he became President of Credito Industriale Sardo (1980–1989), Secretary-General for Economic Planning at the Ministry of Budget (1980–1982), Chief Executive Officer and then Managing Director of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (1989–1990), President of the Fondo Interbancario di Tutela dei Depositi (1990–1999), Impregilo, Gemina, Aeroporti di Roma and Consorzio Venezia Nuova (2000–2010). After having been vice president of Capitalia, at the moment of the merging with UniCredit, he was named president of Banca di Roma. Between 2000 and 2010, he was also a Board Member of RCS MediaGroup and Telecom Italia. Politically, Savona was inspired by Ugo La Malfa and thus involved in the Italian Republican Party (PRI), where he was close to Giorgio La Malfa, until the early 1990s.
Savona served as Minister of Industry, Commerce and Craftmanship in the government led by Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (1993–1994), as Head of the Department for EU Policies of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers during the Silvio Berlusconi's third cabinet (2005–2006), under Minister Giorgio La Malfa, and, consequently, Coordinator of the Technical Committee for the Lisbon Strategy, which prepared the draft of the Italian plan for Growth and Occupation, presented to the European Commission in October 2005. In 2010, he was appointed President of Fondo Interbancario di Tutela dei Depositi for the second time and served as the Chairman of the Fintech startup Euklid Ltd until 2018. Savona also had several public offices in Italy and abroad, among which: member of the OECD Committee for the standardisation of financial statistics, and of the BIS Standing Committee on Eurodollars; President of the Technical-Scientific Council for Economic Planning, and of the Commission on Nuclear Power in Italy.
In May 2018, the Five Star Movement and the League proposed Savona for the role of Italian Minister of Economy and Finances. President Sergio Mattarella opposed his appointment, considering his outspoken support for Italy's covert exit from the euro an overwhelming risk for the country's economy. The two parties refused to replace Savona with any other candidate, forcing the appointed prime minister Giuseppe Conte to give up on his task of forming a government. Mattarella subsequently called Carlo Cottarelli to the Quirinal Palace on 28 May with the intention of giving him the task of forming a new government.
The appointing of Cottarelli sparked furious reaction from the leadership of the Five Star Movement, who accused Mattarella of committing a coup d'état against the will of the Italian people. On the evening of 27 May 2018 Di Maio announced that the M5S would initiate an impeachment procedure against President Mattarella for attempting to overthrow the Constitution; Giorgia Meloni, leader of Brothers of Italy, also announced an impeachment procedure against Mattarella for high treason. The move sparked a constitutional crisis: the Democratic Party announced for a demonstration in defence of Mattarella, denouncing Di Maio and Salvini as "authoritarian subsersives", while the Five Star Movement also announced a demonstration against Mattarella, calling him "antidemocratic".
On 30 May 2018, it was agreed that Savona would serve as Italian Minister of European Affairs after both parties agreed to reinstate Conte as their choice for the prime minister and instead nominate economics professor Giovanni Tria, an associate of Savona, as Minister of Economy and Finances, thus ending the crisis. Savona frequently denied being a Eurosceptic, saying that his Eurosceptic views had been exaggerated in the press, and that he never called for an exit from the eurozone and supported a strong, united Europe, commenting: "I want a different Europe, one that is stronger but fairer. Wild controversy has been made out of my ideas. I believe in European political union."
On 8 March 2019, Savona left his post as Minister of European Affairs in order to become president of the Italian Companies and Exchange Commission, the government authority responsible for regulating the Italian securities market.
Academic career.
Savona was the academic dean of the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations, and director of the PhD in Geopolitics and Economic Geopolitics of the e-University Guglielmo Marconi, of Rome. He served also as Professor emeritus of Economic Politics at the LUISS "Guido Carli" University.
Savona founded and directed with Michele Fratianni the Open Economies Review, and he is at present the Scientific Editor of the following journals: Economia Italiana, Journal of European Economic History and Review of Economic Conditions in Italy. He taught in the universities of Perugia and Rome Tor Vergata, and at Public Administration Superior School.
Savona's favourite research topics are the international monetary system, the effects of the growth of the derivatives market on the efficacy of the economic policy, and the gaps in productivity between the centre-north of Italy and its south. He is the author and joint author of several papers and books on the problems of the real, monetary and financial economy, and on methodological issues. Among his research, great relevance is attributed to the first econometric model of Italian economy M1BI, the first analyses on the international monetary base and Eurodollar, and on the macroeconomic effects of derivative contracts, which have all anticipated in a systematic way the happening of the dramatic events experienced by the Italian and international economy in the last forty years.
Awards.
Savona won the prize awarded by Associazione per il Progresso Economico in 1976, the Premio Capalbio 1998 in economy, the Premio IDI 1999 for the small and middle enterprise, the Premio Pisa 1999 for essay writing with the book Che cos'e' l'economia, the Premio Speciale 2000 for the sector 'Economy' as part of Premi della Cultura awarded by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, the Premio 2008 in International economy awarded by Camera di Commercio di Genova, the Premio Scanno 2009 in economy, the VII Premio Donato Menichella 2009 for socio-economic studies, and the Premio Fata Morgana 2010 in economy and finance. He is Chinese Eisenhower Fellow of Taiwan and Jemolo Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University.
References.
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