Reformed Neo-Fascist becomes Italian foreign minister

Gianfranco Fini, a right-wing leader who has turned his party from Neo-Fascist to mainstream conservative, was appointed Italy’s new foreign minister today.

He replaces Franco Frattini, who has become Italy’s new European commissioner.

The 52-year-old Fini, himself a former Neo-Fascist, has steadily remodelled his image to come across as a moderate conservative. He is widely credited with ridding his party, the National Alliance, of its Fascist legacy.

The National Alliance’s predecessor, the Italian Social Movement, was founded on the ashes of Benito Mussolini’s Black Shirts. Today, National Alliance is the second-largest party in Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s ruling coalition.

The Foreign Ministry post crowns Fini’s rehabilitation, while also marking a victory for his party, which had demanded more of a say in the government.

An effective public speaker and able politician, Fini had made no secret of his desire to become foreign minister and has worked hard in the past years to gain international credibility.

In 2002, he retracted a 1994 statement calling Mussolini the 20th century’s greatest statesman.

A year later, during a long-sought trip to Israel, he condemned “the shameful chapters in the history of our people” and denounced as “disgraceful” the anti-Jewish laws promulgated in 1938 under Fascist rule.

He received a warm welcome by Israeli leaders – in sharp contrast with the welcome he got during a 1999 visit to the Auschwitz Nazi death camp, where he was pelted with eggs and snowballs by protesters.