Prime Ministers Of Italy

"(About the passages about the Rotkopf company's planes) As for the flights, it is absurd to say that I could have paid for a scheduled flight. As a member of parliament, I do not pay for scheduled flights. If I took a ride to attend three rallies instead of one, the savings were for the taxpayers, not me. We used these flights for work reasons because one of our colleagues told us that this option was available. If I had known what had come to light, I would certainly have gone on foot."

"I am in favor of bipolarism; I consider it a value. Despite all its limitations, it has brought about a change in the ruling class, which remains the most significant achievement of the Second Republic. But it has been a crude form of bipolarism, marked by the figure of Berlusconi, and today it needs to be rebuilt on European foundations."

"There is no right-wing liberal movement in Italy. It has always been corporatist and statist, and Berlusconism was no exception."

"Banks do not stand for election, and if they did, they would not have enough votes to govern these days."

"Scalfaro represented one of the most significant experiences of the generation that won democracy against fascism and rebuilt the country, making Italy a modern nation respected throughout the world [...]. I had the opportunity to work with him at various times during my political and institutional career. I remember him as an uncompromising defender of the role and prerogatives of Parliament, as an uncompromising defender of legality and of an ethical vision of political commitment. I remember him as Head of State, a scrupulous and authoritative interpreter of his role as guardian of the Constitution."

"I am a supporter of Zeman. He is a divisive figure with a strong personality, someone who loves beautiful football."

"We must bring politics back to Europe. [...] This separation between democratic politics and decision-making is the tragedy of Europe. [...] Grand narratives also need to become decisions. If, on the other hand, real power is entrusted to technocracies and politics becomes an empty exercise, I believe that democracy is at risk. [...] The real problem is this: it is not about getting rid of politics, but about politics reclaiming its function, which is to guide social processes and change people's lives."

"(About the Italian resistance movement) This party is legitimate because it has roots in national history. [...] We are the heirs of that something that united the country's different democratic traditions ."

"(Concernong the 2012 Democratic Party primary elections) If you follow Matteo Renzi's path, you are headed for political disaster. (November 8, 2012)"

"Letta is just a transitional leader for a temporary government with a specific agenda. He will not be useful a second time around. For the future, I imagine Gianni Cuperlo as secretary of the party and Matteo Renzi at Palazzo Chigi."

"I don't think that Renzi's media success corresponds to extraordinary wealth and novelty of content. (October 29, 2013)"

"Ultimately, what made Fidel Castro hugely popular in Latin America was the fact that he had the courage to do what almost all Latin Americans would like to do but don't have the courage to do: challenge the United States of America. [...] And that made him a star. Then he took advantage of it."

"In this changing world, Europe should be the bearer of a new Atlantic vision. [...] But today, traditional Atlantic policy has become weak: it can become strong again if it becomes a policy for the “whole” Atlantic, and not just the North Atlantic. Because a policy for the whole Atlantic includes Latin America and Africa. This would represent a major opening on the part of Europe towards continents that are emerging as new possible protagonists. We must counterbalance the Asian century and the risk that the epicenter of global growth will shift to the Pacific [...]"

"Stiglitz writes clearly [...] inequality is a political choice [...] the growth of inequality is destroying the foundations of democracy. [...] Either politics, force, [...] is capable of undermining these enormous privileges, or these riches will take over politics, because they condition it."

"It's easy to beat up poor, desperate people. Finding the money to do what they promised is difficult, and they are unable to do so. The government has taken out its frustration on the easy target: the weak."

"I do not participate in the criminalization of the M5S, partly because the neo-fascist drift of the Lega is undoubtedly more worrying."

"(In 2021, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party) I was secretary of the Italian Communist Youth, and I was sent by our party secretary, Enrico Berlinguer, to China at the end of 1978. I remember that we were staying at the Beijing Hotel, which was perhaps the largest building in Beijing at the time. I remember the morning rustle of thousands and thousands of bicycles passing through Tiananmen Square, with the occasional car passing by. In a very short period of time, [China] has made an extraordinary leap towards modernity and progress, which will certainly remain the great historical achievement of the Communist Party. I believe that the most important thing China has managed to do is to lift at least 800 million people out of poverty: this is an extraordinary achievement. No country in the history of humanity has ever managed to achieve such an immense transformation in people's lives, in the sense that today China is a country where the scourge of poverty and hunger has been defeated or reduced to a totally marginal phenomenon; and this is an extraordinary historical achievement. Of course, [...] I also appreciate what has happened in recent years, because there has been a significant commitment to changing the Chinese model of development, especially in the sense of a development that is more compatible with the environment, more respectful of the environment, and more attentive to domestic consumption."

"Bersani is an authoritative leader, determined to build a party and a leadership team, after it was thought for too long that it was enough to demolish what was there to build something new."

"[...] Of course, he hasn't read Mao Tse-tung. Mao often used the example of the chopsticks that the Chinese use to eat: one moves to pick up the food, but the other remains still. The same applies to politics. Tactics, propaganda, and initiatives can change, but strategy cannot; it cannot change every week."

"Erdogan is bombing our values, not just the Kurds. [...] The authority of the great democracies and the Western world is at stake. And unfortunately, we cannot count on the Americans, who are in the hands of a leadership whose credibility is now close to zero. This increases the responsibility of Europeans."

"1921 is celebrated as the birth of the Italian Communist Party, but in reality it was a defeat, a split in the workers' movement, just as fascism was rising."

"Massimo D'Alema has given the reviled journalists such a barrage of criticism of the PD that even Beppe Grillo would be envious. The difference is that the broadside fired by the first person to be scrapped in the Renzi era is not delivered in the shouting language of a blog, but recited in the cold, lucid language of political battle and party struggle."

"Berlusconi should not be wary of him [Massimo D'Alema], but rather of people like Bossi."

"Berlusconi dresses his people up as nineteenth-century gymnasts and takes them to Bermuda? D'Alema summons VIPs to a convent. What's the difference?"

"[In a world where:] There is the graceful Vendola with his silver tongue and earring, who plays the communist and wants to take the place of Bersani, who does everything without doing anything; there is Veltroni, the American of Piazza Fiume, bard of Kennedy and bard of Che Guevara, who hated each other. There is the super “Baffino” D'Alema, who takes himself so seriously and whom no one takes seriously anymore. There is Rutelli, who no longer knows which jacket to wear, having already worn them all. Yesterday for divorce or abortion, today for the Pope and the Council of Trent."

"There has always been a reverential shyness towards him on the part of journalists."

"D'Alema, after all, is the most communist of them all: he wants to come to power and stay there without democracy."

"D'Alema is a hyena; those who preach hatred sooner or later fall."

"(On the comparison with Palmiro Togliatti) D'Alema has great political intelligence, but he has less experience, and this leads him to be more impetuous and less attentive to repercussions."

"D'Alema, a great strategist, historical insights always arise from great mistakes, such as when Columbus confused America with the Indies."

"D'Alema is worth ten Cofferati. But he had a great opportunity to change the left and didn't take it. Lack of courage."

"He is a fraud who does not want to give the people a constituent assembly. The left is deceitful: it wants to enjoy the fruits of the majority system while wearing the mask of reform."

"[In 2014] I had to listen to Massimo D'Alema say that Matteo Renzi is not left-wing. Why, is he? It's ridiculous."

"He is not interested in projects unless they are a justification for political action, [...] caricaturing the character of Elikon in Camus' Caligula."

"The bishops have been enlisted in Franceschiello's army, the army of the party-state. The corporal at the head is Massimo D'Alema, followed in the second row by the bishops on their mares, behind them are the union employees and, at a respectful distance, el conductor Berluscons, head down, wearing dark glasses, hooked to the trough of National Socialism."

"I have nothing personal against D'Alema, Bindi, Veltroni, and the others: but they didn't make it. And so I say it, with the utmost respect and humility, but I say it: enough is enough, it's time for others to take over. Their time is truly over."

"[On the role of secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left] At a time like this, we need a party leader with many skills."

"Europe has been absent, silent, and largely ignored. Europe could have been more present if its voice had been entrusted to President D'Alema, whose prestige, knowledge, and experience should not be discarded."

"Massimo D'Alema is talented and intelligent. He is not a man who aims for a vague and confused democratic party like Veltroni. He is a left-wing leader who is different from us. Precisely for this reason, we could form an alliance with him because there would be no confusion."

"I didn't want a pat on the back from him, but someone as intelligent as him cannot afford to allow his party and the center-left to drift toward disaster."

"[To the question: Why do you like D'Alema so much?] Because, like me, he went around at night with a bucket of flour glue to attack election posters. Because he's a national and democratic communist, a staunch supporter of Berlinguer, and therefore almost like me, not like my beautiful niece Bianca Berlinguer, who is beautiful, talented, and a supporter of Veltroni. And he's got balls. He's a true anti-establishment figure, and that's why he's threatened by the judiciary."

"You know, it's a bit like in ancient Greece, where slaves cultivated the fields while citizens could engage in philosophy. Except that Greece gave us Socrates, Aristotle, and Thales, while these [far-left students] gave us D'Alema."

"[On D'Alema's appointment as prime minister] I am pleased and also a little proud. Because D'Alema is a leader, first of the Communist Party and then of the PDS, with great qualities."

"“Spezzaferro” seems like a Belle Époque tenente, a late 19th-century coiffeur pour dames straight out of a Maupassant short story or a novel by Guido da Verona. But he has the makings of a leader. He is the best fig in the basket of the former Marxist-Leninist party, cleaned up by the ascetic Berlinguer and renamed, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, by the mustachioed Occhetto."

"Biondani Paolo, Gerevini Mario e Malagutti Vittorio, Capitalismo di rapina, Chiarelettere, Milano, 2007. ISBN 9788861900233"

"Those who steal should be put in jail. Unfortunately, this cannot be done because the majority generally protects them. This is the real scandal that newspapers should be reporting on, but they don't, because they are complicit."

"There is a desire for normalization, for a return to an old system of power, one on which the mafia has taken root and built its power. This is what alarms us. These are the facts we denounce. (October 5, 1989)"

"(About the Maastricht Treaty) It is clear that the idea of monetary unification and the free movement of capital without integration of development, budgetary, and social policies is deeply questionable, in crisis, and wrong. It is not only a limitation but also a neoliberal distortion of the process of European unity. (October 29, 1992)"

"Ah-ah! It's unthinkable that Dr. Berlusconi would enter politics. He has to take care of his debts. Stay put, he wouldn't get many votes anyway. This isn't Brazil! (1993)"

"I'll say it again: Amato is a liar and a poor man. He's someone who has to do anything to stay where he is, in his chair. But what can I do? Should I tell him to fuck off?"