Emma Bonino, a veteran Italian civil-rights campaigner, former foreign minister and former European commissioner, has died at the age of 78, her More Europe party said Friday.
Bonino, a leading figure in Italy’s Radical movement and founder of the More Europe party, had been admitted to Rome’s Santo Spirito hospital in critical condition on Sunday after suffering a respiratory crisis.
Sources close to her said Thursday that she had left the hospital’s intensive care unit and been transferred to a private clinic.
Three years ago, Bonino said she had gone into remission after suffering from lung cancer.
Bonino was elected eight times to the Italian Parliament — six times to the lower house and twice to the Senate — and served four times as a member of the European Parliament.
She was at the centre of many of the Radical Party’s major civil-rights campaigns in Italy, including the campaigns for divorce and abortion in the 1970s.
Meloni, Metsola lead tributes to Emma Bonino
Bonino became one of Italy’s best-known women politicians abroad during her time as European commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection from 1995 to 1999.
She later served as minister for trade and European affairs under Romano Prodi from 2006 to 2008, and as foreign minister under Enrico Letta from 2013 to 2014.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola led tributes to Bonino on Friday.
“Emma Bonino was a strong, recognizable voice in Italian politics for decades, advancing her ideas with determination,” Meloni said on X.
“Our stories and our sensibilities were distant, but this never prevented me from recognizing her weight and her role in the public life of our nation,” Meloni said, adding condolences to Bonino’s family and loved ones.
Metsola said Bonino “never waited for the world to be ready” and “always chose to move forward, showing the way to others.”
“That is how she will be remembered in Italy and in Brussels, where she served as a Member of the European Parliament and as a European Commissioner,” Metsola said. “The Europe she fought for will miss her.”
Former industry minister Carlo Calenda, leader of the centrist Azione party, described Bonino as “the last protagonist of the civil rights battles that led to this country’s modernization.”
“A piece of Italian and European political history has gone,” Calenda added.
