“Bettino Craxi was a relevant personality of the last decades of the Italian twentieth century. Italian and European parliamentarian, secretary of the Italian Socialist Party for more than fifteen years, president of the Council of Ministers, he made his mark on the country’s guidelines in a season characterized by great social transformations and profound changes in global balances. An authoritative interpreter of our European, Atlantic, Mediterranean foreign policy supportive of the development of the most disadvantaged countries, open to multilateralism, along these lines he faced difficult passages, strengthening the identity and value of the Italian position. A prestige that was later personally recognized to him with prominent positions at the United Nations.” Thus the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Bettino Craxi’s death. “The policies and reforms of which he became the interpreter on the domestic level determined changes that affected public finance, the country’s competitiveness, and the balance and prospects of government. A marked determination characterized his political battles, both in the inter-party confrontation and in the social and trade union arena, catalyzing mixed feelings in the country. He gathered broad consensus when he succeeded in bringing to a conclusion the process of revising the Concordat between the State and the Catholic Church, on whose inclusion in the Constitution the Socialists had expressed themselves, at the time of the Constituent Assembly, in negative terms. The crisis that invested the political system, undermining its credibility, closed a season with investigations and trials, provoking a radical change in representation. Judicial events that characterized that stormy passage in the life of the Republic. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Socialist leader’s passing, I wish to express feelings of closeness to his family members and to those who shared political commitment and personal friendship with him,” the head of state concluded.
(ITALPRESS).
-Photo: Quirinal-
Mattarella “Craxi imprinted a mark in the country’s addresses”
