Flavio Delbono
Encyclopedia
Flavio Delbono is an Italian
politician and economist
. He served as the mayor
of Bologna
from 25 June 2009 until 28 January 2010, when he was forced to resign as he was being investigated for crimes such as embezzlement
, fraud
and aggravated abuse of office following allegations made by his former lover.
, a small town in the Province of Mantua
in Lombardy
. His father was a municipal policeman and his mother was a seamstress. After graduating from the Liceo scientifico
, Delbono studied economics at the University of Parma
, graduating in 1982. He received a dottorato di ricerca
in economics from the University of Siena
in 1986, and a D.Phil. from Linacre College, Oxford
in 1988. While at Oxford, Delbono studied under the future Nobel laureate
Amartya Sen
.
Delbono joined the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University
SAIS Bologna Center as an adjunct professor of international economics in 1987. In 1992, at the age of 33, Delbono was appointed as professor of Political Economy at the University of Bologna
. His predecessors in this position include Romano Prodi
and Stefano Zamagni.
for the city of Bologna
with specific responsibility for the budget. In 2000, the newly elected President of the Emilia-Romagna
region, Vasco Errani, named Delbono as the regional assessor for finance and organisation. In 2003 he was also named as vice-president of Emilia-Romagna. Following Errani's re-election in May 2005, Delbono was reconfirmed as vice-president and given additional responsibility for the region's relationship with Europe.
On 19 June 2008, Delbono was unanimously elected in Brussels
as the President of the Lisbon Regions Network—a 15-member pan-European group concerned with implementing the Lisbon Strategy
.
for mayor of Bologna. Delbono's candidacy was backed by several prominent figures in Bolognese politics, including: Sergio Cofferati
, Romano Prodi, Pier Luigi Bersani
, Renato Zangheri and Salvatore Caronna.
The primary elections took place on 13 and 14 December 2008. Delbono received 49.73% of the 24,920 votes cast in the primary; Maurizio Cevenini received 23.29%, Virginio Merola received 21.44% and Andrea Forlani received 5.1%.
and Lega Nord, and the UDC's Giorgio Guazzaloca, a former mayor of Bologna. Delbono received 49.4% of the vote in the first round, forcing a second round
against Cazzola, who had received 29.1%. Delbono received 60.67% of the votes in the second round. Delbono was officially proclaimed as mayor of the city of Bologna on 25 June 2009.
, fraud
and aggravated abuse of office. The investigation followed Delbono's former assistant's claim that he had spent public money on her— the pair had been having an affair. Investigators subsequently questioned Delbono about the purchase of a property near St. Julian's
, Malta
. Delbono denied all the allegations made against him and said that resigning as mayor was the right thing to do. He has announced that he will return to lecturing and is working to clear his name. His resignation was confirmed on 28 January following the approval of an emergency budget, the election to appoint Delbono's successor must take place by 28 March 2010.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
politician and economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
. He served as the mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
of Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
from 25 June 2009 until 28 January 2010, when he was forced to resign as he was being investigated for crimes such as embezzlement
Embezzlement
Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted....
, fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
and aggravated abuse of office following allegations made by his former lover.
Biography
Delbono was born in SabbionetaSabbioneta
Sabbioneta is a town and comune in the province of Mantua, Lombardy region, northern Italy. It is situated about 30 km north of Parma, not far from the northern bank of the Po River...
, a small town in the Province of Mantua
Province of Mantua
The Province of Mantua is a province in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. Its capital is the city of Mantua.-Communes:It includes 70 comuni , ranging in area from Viadana, with 102.19 km², to Mariana Mantovana, with 8.81 km²....
in Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
. His father was a municipal policeman and his mother was a seamstress. After graduating from the Liceo scientifico
Liceo Scientifico
Liceo Scientifico is a secondary school type in Italy. Along with Liceo Classico, it is considered the peak of the Italian upper secondary education. The access to this school is possible after the successful completion of the three year middle school and the corresponding final examination...
, Delbono studied economics at the University of Parma
University of Parma
The University of Parma is one of the oldest universities in the world, founded in the 11th century. It is organised in twelve faculties. The University of Parma has currently about 30,000 students.-History:...
, graduating in 1982. He received a dottorato di ricerca
Dottorato di ricerca
The dottorato di ricerca is the highest Italian academic degree, the equivalent of a Ph.D.The dottorato is a relatively recent addition to the Italian academic landscape, having been instituted in 1980....
in economics from the University of Siena
University of Siena
The University of Siena in Siena, Tuscany is one of the oldest and first publicly funded universities in Italy. Originally called Studium Senese, the University of Siena was founded in 1240. The University has around 20,000 students, nearly half of Siena's total population of around 54,000...
in 1986, and a D.Phil. from Linacre College, Oxford
Linacre College, Oxford
Linacre College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the UK, currently offering graduate entry only. It is located on St Cross Road at the corner of St Cross Road and South Parks Road, next to the University Parks and opposite the Tinbergen Building, which is shared by...
in 1988. While at Oxford, Delbono studied under the future Nobel laureate
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics, but officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel , is an award for outstanding contributions to the field of economics, generally regarded as one of the...
Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
.
Delbono joined the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
SAIS Bologna Center as an adjunct professor of international economics in 1987. In 1992, at the age of 33, Delbono was appointed as professor of Political Economy at the University of Bologna
University of Bologna
The Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating university in the world, the word 'universitas' being first used by this institution at its foundation. The true date of its founding is uncertain, but believed by most accounts to have been 1088...
. His predecessors in this position include Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008...
and Stefano Zamagni.
Political and administrative career
From 1995 to 1999, Delbono served as an assessorAssessor (Italy)
In Italy an Assessor is a member of a Giunta, the executive body in all levels of local government: regions, provinces and communes....
for the city of Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
with specific responsibility for the budget. In 2000, the newly elected President of the Emilia-Romagna
Emilia-Romagna
Emilia–Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. The capital is Bologna; it has an area of and about 4.4 million inhabitants....
region, Vasco Errani, named Delbono as the regional assessor for finance and organisation. In 2003 he was also named as vice-president of Emilia-Romagna. Following Errani's re-election in May 2005, Delbono was reconfirmed as vice-president and given additional responsibility for the region's relationship with Europe.
On 19 June 2008, Delbono was unanimously elected in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
as the President of the Lisbon Regions Network—a 15-member pan-European group concerned with implementing the Lisbon Strategy
Lisbon Strategy
The Lisbon Strategy, also known as the Lisbon Agenda or Lisbon Process, was an action and development plan devised in 2000, for the economy of the European Union between 2000 and 2010....
.
Primary campaign
On 13 October 2008, Delbono announced his intention to stand in the Democratic Party primary electionPrimary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....
for mayor of Bologna. Delbono's candidacy was backed by several prominent figures in Bolognese politics, including: Sergio Cofferati
Sergio Cofferati
Sergio Cofferati is an Italian politician who, after serving as mayor of Bologna for the Democrats of the Left from 2004 to 2009, and thus has been elected as Member of the European Parliament in 2009 for the Italian Democratic Party....
, Romano Prodi, Pier Luigi Bersani
Pier Luigi Bersani
Pier Luigi Bersani is an Italian politician and the current Secretary of the Democratic Party of Italy, the main center-left political party in Italy . He was Minister of Industry, Commerce and Craftmanship from 1996 to 1999, Minister of Transports from 1999 to 2001, and Minister of Economic...
, Renato Zangheri and Salvatore Caronna.
The primary elections took place on 13 and 14 December 2008. Delbono received 49.73% of the 24,920 votes cast in the primary; Maurizio Cevenini received 23.29%, Virginio Merola received 21.44% and Andrea Forlani received 5.1%.
Campaign for mayor of Bologna
On 9 January 2009, Delbono announced that he would be resigning as vice-president of Emilia-Romagna and assessor of Bologna in order to focus on his election campaign. Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli was announced as his successor as vice-president on 3 February. The mayoral election was held on 21 and 22 June; Delbono's opponents included Alfredo Cazzola, the candidate of The People of FreedomThe People of Freedom
The People of Freedom is a centre-right political party in Italy. With the Democratic Party, it is one of the two major parties of the current Italian party system....
and Lega Nord, and the UDC's Giorgio Guazzaloca, a former mayor of Bologna. Delbono received 49.4% of the vote in the first round, forcing a second round
Two-round system
The two-round system is a voting system used to elect a single winner where the voter casts a single vote for their chosen candidate...
against Cazzola, who had received 29.1%. Delbono received 60.67% of the votes in the second round. Delbono was officially proclaimed as mayor of the city of Bologna on 25 June 2009.
Scandal and resignation
Delbono was forced to announce his resignation as mayor on 25 January 2010 following the revelation that he was being investigated for crimes such as embezzlementEmbezzlement
Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted....
, fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
and aggravated abuse of office. The investigation followed Delbono's former assistant's claim that he had spent public money on her— the pair had been having an affair. Investigators subsequently questioned Delbono about the purchase of a property near St. Julian's
St. Julian's
St Julian's is a town in Malta situated along the coast, north of the country's capital, Valletta. It is known for tourism-oriented businesses, such as hotels, restaurants and nightclubs, centred mostly in an area known as Paceville.-General:...
, Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
. Delbono denied all the allegations made against him and said that resigning as mayor was the right thing to do. He has announced that he will return to lecturing and is working to clear his name. His resignation was confirmed on 28 January following the approval of an emergency budget, the election to appoint Delbono's successor must take place by 28 March 2010.