Patrician born to govern

Date: 21/12/1995

“Don't forget that you are an Agnelli” - the admonishment, incessantly repeated by an English nanny - marked the formative years of Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Susanna Agnelli.

Born in 1922, the year in which Mussolini came to power, the minister who will take centre stage for much of Italy's presidency of the EU is the granddaughter of Giovanni Agnelli ('il Senatore'), who founded FIAT in 1899 and younger sister of Gianni Agnelli ('l'Avvocato'), current chairman of the family business.

Suni, as she is known to friends, entered politics relatively late and modestly in 1974 when, at the age of 52 and a mother of six, she became Mayor of Monte Argentario, a post that she held for ten years.

But the real breakthrough came two years later when the then leader and founder of the Italian Republican Party (PRI), Ugo La Malfa, wanted an Agnelli to run for Parliament on the PRI ticket.

Gianni declined, citing FIAT engagements, while his younger brother Umberto chose to side with the Christian Democrats.

Thus it was that the invitation was passed on to Suni, who accepted and became member of parliament for the town of Varese in April 1976.

For the 1979 elections, La Malfa moved Agnelli back to her native Turin, where she was not only re-elected to the Italian parliament, but also became one of her country's MEPs.

Four years later, Agnelli entered the Italian senate. The grandfather's title that had sounded so awesome to the young Suni was now hers. In memory of 'il Senatore', she never tolerated the feminisation of the title into 'Senatrice'.

Agnelli was re-elected to the senate in 1987. By then, she was an active member of the PRI's inner sanctum and had served as an under secretary of state for foreign affairs in several governments.

During those years, Agnelli developed strong loyalty to the several-times Italian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti.

It was a loyalty which was to lead to an eventual break from the PRI and her gradual detachment from political life.

The 'divorce' finally came in April 1991, when the then leader of the PRI and son of La Malfa, Giorgio, took the party out of the ruling coalition government led for the seventh time by Andreotti, thus contributing to the collapse of the whole political structure that had governed Italy for the entire post-war period. In the 1992 and subsequent elections, Agnelli was no longer a candidate.

She made a sudden political comeback, however, in January 1995, with the fall of media magnate Silvio Berlusconi's government and the creation of a technocratic government lead by Lamberto Dini, Berlusconi's former treasury minister and former number two at the Bank of Italy.

The new prime minister wanted to break free from the foreign policy pursued by the former incumbent, Forza Italia's Antonio Martino, believing his policy of 'renationalising' EU affairs and his hostility towards Economic and Monetary Union and further European integration had done enough damage to the country's standing among its EU partners.

Dini decided to go in search of a convinced pro-European to fill the post.

At the time, rumour had it that the initial offer was once again made to Agnelli's elder brother Gianni. 'L'Avvocato' allegedly dismissed the offer, pleading the usual FIAT engagements, and suggested his sister instead. The combination of her past experience at the foreign affairs ministry and the international prestige of the family name won Agnelli the much-coveted job.

To the foreign ministry, she brought her sense of pragmatism, the experience of a seasoned public administrator and a vast network of contacts acquired both in the worlds of high international finance, as a member of the Agnelli family, and international relations, as an under secretary of state.

Agnelli's sense of pragmatism makes her a woman of few words, but always frank and to the point. This reputation for blunt speaking was consolidated early in her life when, after the fall of Mussolini, she visited the deposed foreign minister and her personal friend, Galeazzo Ciano, then under house arrest. As she recalled in her autobiographical book Vestivamo alla marinara (We Always Wore Sailor Suits), Ciano asked her whether she thought that he would be shot. “Yes,” she replied. “And who do you think will shoot me, the Allies or the Germans?” asked Ciano. “I am afraid that they both might” was the frank answer from Agnelli, a prediction which was all too soon proven correct.

Another episode from her book shows an early developed sense for high-level diplomacy and lobbying.

In 1943, aged 21, Agnelli decided to sit for her final A level exams. At the time, however, there was a law banning students who had not attended school regularly from sitting the exams before the age of 23.

War had disrupted Agnelli's school attendance - she had volunteered as a Red Cross nurse - and therefore would not have qualified for the exam for another two years. Demonstrating a fierce determination not to be deterred, Agnelli swung into action after someone suggested that three ministers could table a draft law that would enable students who had spent more than three months at the front to sit for the exams at the age of 21.

Agnelli promptly put the suggestion to the minister of education, who agreed to draft the law. Industry Minister Count Cini was won over next and Agnelli's mother helped her muster the support of the third minister required. The law duly entered into force soon enough to enable Agnelli to obtain her A levels that summer.

These days, Agnelli's approach to diplomacy displays a clear preference for bilateral contacts.

There are fears in Italian government circles that this might put her slightly at odds with the multilateral par excellence world of the Council of Ministers during her country's presidency of the Union.

She is reputed to have little patience and physical endurance for long meetings and may well find it hard to chair Council meetings in Brussels, where the first 'tour de table' may take up the whole morning.

Moreover, her Yes or No approach leaves little margin for manoeuvre in negotiations.

The 'Agnelli syndrome', a sense of superiority inevitably bred in the bone of the offspring of one of the greatest European industrial dynasties, may add further strain to forthcoming meetings of EU foreign ministers.

Agnelli's recent visit to Sarajevo, following the conclusion of the peace talks in Ohio, offered fresh evidence of her tendency to “bypass” the intricacies of diplomatic protocol. While in Sarajevo as a guest of Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, she took the opportunity to meet the spokesman of the Bosnian Serb 'government', without either seeking clearance or even informing the official Bosnian government.

Hostile commentators pointed to the “family business interests” in Serbia as the motive behind this policy of appeasement towards the Bosnian Serbs.

It is precisely this conflict of interest between her name and her function that may prove to be Agnelli's Achilles' heel.

Prominent Forza Italia and Forza Europa members are quick to stress that this conflict of interest is tantamount to the one that forced their leader, Berlusconi, out of government and are on the look-out for more faux pas.