Roberta Pinotti

Roberta Pinotti (born 20 May 1961) is an Italian politician. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as the Italian Minister of Defence in the governments of Matteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni from 22 February 2014 to 1 June 2018.

Early life Pinotti was born in Genoa, in 1961; she holds a degree in modern literature at the University of Genoa and is a teacher of Italian in high schools. During her adolescence, she was a member of the Association of Italian Catholic Guides and Scouts.

Political career Pinotti began her political career at the end of the 1980s as a district counselor of Italian Communist Party. In 2012 she was a candidate for the centre-left primary election to become Mayor of Genoa, but she arrived only third after the leftist Marco Doria and the upcoming Mayor Marta Vincenzi.

In 2013, Pinotti was appointed undersecretary of state (sottosegretario di Stato) in the Ministry of Defence in the government led by Enrico Letta. After her stint as Minister of Defence, Pinotti became a Senator of the Democratic Party of Italy.

Minister of Defence When the new Secretary of the Democratic Party Matteo Renzi forced Letta to resign and became the new prime minister on 22 February 2014, he appointed Pinotti as Minister of Defence; In February 2015 she returned to the United Arab Emirates in occasion of the International Defence Industry Exhibition (IDEX), attended by several Italian companies, and met again with Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Pinotti received criticism in February 2015 over navy recruitment adverts which used slogans written in English. Later that month, she hinted that Italy was ready to lead a coalition force to defeat ISIS in Libya, saying: "We have been discussing it for months, but now an intervention has become urgent."

On 12 December 2016, when Renzi resigned as prime minister after the constitutional referendum, Pinotti was confirmed as defence minister by the new prime minister Paolo Gentiloni. In 2017, the Parliament approved the "White Book", a plan of reorganization of the heads of the Ministry of Defence and the related structures; the plan also provided a reform of the Italian Armed Forces and a reorganization of the training system.