Massimo Carraro is an Italian

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...

 university professor, entrepreneur and politician from Veneto

Veneto

Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...

.

From 1999 to 2004 he was a member of the European Parliament

Member of the European Parliament

A Member of the European Parliament is a person who has been elected to the European Parliament. The name of MEPs differ in different languages, with terms such as europarliamentarian or eurodeputy being common in Romance language-speaking areas.When the European Parliament was first established,...

 for the social-democratic Democrats of the Left

Democrats of the Left

The Democrats of the Left was a social-democratic Italian political party and part of the Olive Tree electoral coalition, which merged with a number of centrist and leftist groups to form the Democratic Party on 14 October 2007...

, despite not being a member of the party. In the 2005 regional election

Venetian regional election, 2005

The Venetian regional election of 2005 took place on 3-4 April 2005.Giancarlo Galan was re-elected for the third time in a row President of the Region, but the support for him was diminished by the presence of a third candidate, Giorgio Panto, who picked votes both from the centre-right and the...

 Carraro was the choice of the centre-left for President, but he was defeated by Giancarlo Galan

Giancarlo Galan

Giancarlo Galan is an Italian politician.After having been a Liberal activist in the Seventies and the Eighties, he was not active in politics until he joined Forza Italia since its foundation in 1994. In the same year he was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies.In 1995 he ran successfully...

, who secured his third consecutive term at the head of Veneto. He left his seat in the Regional Council of Veneto

Regional Council of Veneto

The Regional Council of Veneto is the regional parliament of Veneto.It was first elected in 1970, when the ordinary Regions were instituted, on the basis of the Constitution of Italy of 1948.-Composition:...

and retired from politics in 2006.