Edo Ronchi

{{Short description|Italian engineer and politician (born 1950)}}

{{Infobox officeholder

| image = Edo Ronchi IX Legislatura.jpg

| imagesize =

| caption =

| office = Minister of the Environment

| primeminister = {{ubl|Romano Prodi|Massimo D'Alema}}

| predecessor =

| successor = Willer Bordon

| term_start = 17 May 1996

| term_end = 26 April 2000

| office2 = Member of the Senate of the Republic

| term_start3 = 15 April 1994

| term_end3 = 29 May 2001

| constituency3 = Piedmont

| term_start2 = 28 April 2006

| term_end2 = 28 April 2008

| constituency2 = Veneto

| office4 = Member of the Chamber of Deputies

| term_start4 = 12 July 1983

| term_end4 = 14 April 1994

| constituency4 = Brescia (1983–1992)
Como (1992–1994)

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1950|5|31|df=y}}

| birth_place = Treviglio, Italy

| death_date =

| death_place =

| restingplace =

| party = {{Collapsible list|state=collapsed|{{ubl|AO (1968–1979)|DP (1978–1989)|VA (1989–1990)|FdV (1990–2001)| DS (2001–2007) | PD (2007–2008)}}}}

| alma_mater = Politecnico di Milano

| spouse =

| nationality = Italian

| children = }}

Edo Ronchi (born 31 May 1950) is an Italian engineer and politician. He served as minister of environment and protection of land and sea from 1996 to 2000 in three different cabinets. He was the first Green politician to hold a cabinet post in Italy.

Early life and education

Ronchi was born in Treviglio on 31 May 1950.{{cite book|editor=Bernard A. Cook|title=Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia|volume=2|year=2001|publisher=Garland|isbn=978-0-8153-4058-4|page=1084|location=New York; London}} He holds an electrical engineering degree from the Politecnico di Milano.

Career and activities

Ronchi had a revolutionary communist political leaning.{{cite book|title=Italian Politics: The Center-Left in Power|year=1997|publisher=Westview Press|location=Boulder, CO|isbn= 9780813334431|author=Roberto D'Alimonte

|author2=David Nelken}} Later he became a member of the Federation of the Greens. He joined the party in 1983 and became a member of its steering committee in 1989. He was elected to the Italian Parliament in 1983. In 1989 he was elected to the European Parliament, but resigned from office after serving in the post just for one month to concentrate on his initiative, namely Rainbow Greens, which he had cofounded with Francesco Rutelli earlier in 1989. In 1992 Ronchi became senator and was the leader of the Federation of the Greens in the Italian Senate.

He was named minister of environment on 17 May 1996 to the cabinet headed by Prime Minister Romano Prodi.{{cite journal

|pages=447–451|doi=10.1111/1475-6765.00054-i5}} Ronchi became the first member of the party who assumed a cabinet post in the country.{{cite book|editor=Uday Desai|title=Environmental Politics and Policy in Industrialized Countries|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oa5ykgL3cjAC&pg=PA216|year=2002|publisher=MIT Press|author1=Rudolf Lewanski|author2=Angela Liberatore|chapter=Environmental Protection in Italy: Analyzing the Local, National, and European-Community Levels of Policymaking|location=Cambridge, MA; London|isbn=978-0-262-54137-4

|page=216}}{{cite book|editor1=Miranda Schreurs|editor2=Elim Papadakis|title=Historical Dictionary of the Green Movement|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7QGyAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA131|year=2007|page=131

|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=978-0-8108-6434-4|location=Lanham, MD}}

After serving in the post in the first cabinet of Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema on 21 December 1999 Ronchi was reappointed minister of environment in the second cabinet of D'Alema.{{cite book|editor1=Mark Gilbert|editor2=Gianfranco Pasquino|title=Italian Politics: The Faltering Transition

|publisher=Berghahn Books|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K4jlaPUP1MAC&pg=PA269|year=2000|isbn=978-1-57181-840-9|page=269|location=New York; Oxford|chapter=Documentary Appendix|author=Davide Martelli}} His tenure ended in April 2000 when the cabinet resigned.{{cite news|title=Italy's New Cabinet Bears a Striking Resemblance to the Old One|access-date=10 November 2013|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/27/world/italy-s-new-cabinet-bears-a-striking-resemblance-to-the-old-one.html|date=27 April 2000|author=Alessandra Stanley}} Ronchi was offered by Prime Minister Amato the post of minister of European affairs, but he did not accept the post due to his intention of serving as minister of environment.{{cite news|title=Italian prime minister sworn in|access-date=10 November 2013|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/726811.stm|work=BBC|date=26 April 2000}} However, Ronchi's proposal was not endorsed, and Willer Bordon replaced him as minister of environment. When Ronchi was in office as environment minister Italy signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.

After leaving public office, Ronchi began to work at the Sustainable Development Foundation, and as of 2013 he was on the national advisory board of Ecomondo, an initiative for green movement.{{cite web|title=Technical and scientific committee|url=http://en.ecomondo.com/Meetings_and_events/comitato_scientifico.asp|work=Ecomondo|access-date=10 November 2013|url-status=dead|archive-date=10 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131110105451/http://en.ecomondo.com/Meetings_and_events/comitato_scientifico.asp}}

Electoral history

class=wikitable style="width:65%; border:1px #AAAAFF solid"
width=12%\|Election ! width=25%\|House ! width=30%\|Constituency ! width=5% colspan="2"\|Party ! width=12%\|Votes ! width=25%\|Result
1983 \| Chamber of Deputies \| Brescia–Bergamo \| bgcolor="{{party color\|Proletarian Democracy}}" \| \| DP \| 1,889 \| {{tick\|15}} Elected
1987 \| Chamber of Deputies \| Brescia–Bergamo \| bgcolor="{{party color\|Proletarian Democracy}}" \| \| DP \| 2,482 \| {{tick\|15}} Elected
1992 \| Chamber of Deputies \| Como–Sondrio–Varese \| bgcolor="{{party color\|Federation of the Greens}}" \| \| FdV \| 2,027 \| {{tick\|15}} Elected
1994 \| Senate of the Republic \| Piedmont – Turin 3 \| bgcolor="{{party color\|Federation of the Greens}}" \| \| FdV \| 52,671 \| {{tick\|15}} Elected
1996 \| Senate of the Republic \| Piedmont – Turin 3 \| bgcolor="{{party color\|Federation of the Greens}}" \| \| FdV \| 69,874 \| {{tick\|15}} Elected
2006 \| Senate of the Republic \| Veneto \| bgcolor="{{party color\|Democrats of the Left}}" \| \| DS \| –{{efn\|name=fn1\|Elected in a closed list proportional representation system.}} \| {{tick\|15}} Elected

class=wikitable style="width:65%; border:1px #AAAAFF solid"

width=12%|Election

! width=25%|House

! width=30%|Constituency

! width=5% colspan="2"|Party

! width=12%|Votes

! width=25%|Result

1983

| Chamber of Deputies

| Brescia–Bergamo

| bgcolor="{{party color|Proletarian Democracy}}" |

| DP