Sergio Balanzino

Sergio Silvio Balanzino (20 June 1934 – 25 February 2018 ) was an Italian diplomat.

He studied as a Brittingham Foreign Scholar at the University of Wisconsin in Madison 1956–1957. After graduating in Law from the University of Rome La Sapienza he joined the Italian foreign service in 1958.

Biography A law graduate from the Sapienza University of Rome, he entered the diplomatic service following a competitive examination in 1959 and served at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Italy) in the Directorate General of Economic Affairs. He then served in Paris at the Italian Representation to the OECD, in various consulates in Switzerland and at the Embassy in Nairobi.

He was First Counselor in Athens from 1975 to 1978, consul in Ottawa until 1980 and ambassador of Italy to Canada from 1990 to 1994 appointed by the Sixth Andreotti government.

In February 1994 he was appointed deputy Secretary General of NATO, where he remained until 2001. During the terminal illness of Secretary General Manfred Wörner in 1994 and after the resignation of his successor Willy Claes in 1995, he briefly assumed the interim of the NATO General Secretariat.

He taught at the Loyola University Chicago campus in Rome.

Honours