Fabrizio Barca (born 8 March 1954) is an Italian senior civil servant and politician, who served as a state minister without portfolio for territorial cohesion in the Monti government from 2011 to 2013.

Early life and education

Barca was born in

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

, the son of a senior member of the old Italian Communist Party (PCI). He is a graduate of La Sapienza University of Rome. Barca obtained a

MPhil A Master of Philosophy (MPhil or PhM; Latin ' or ') is a postgraduate degree. The name of the degree is most often abbreviated MPhil (or, at times, as PhM in other countries). MPhil are awarded to postgraduate students after completing at least ...

in economics from

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

in 1979. He also carried out research activities at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1989 to 1990 and at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in 1994.

Career

Barca is a lecturer in corporate finance and Italian economy history. He worked as a lecturer at the universities of Bocconi,

Modena Modena (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It has 184,739 inhabitants as of 2025. A town, and seat of an archbis ...

, Paris (SPO),

Siena Siena ( , ; traditionally spelled Sienna in English; ) is a city in Tuscany, in central Italy, and the capital of the province of Siena. It is the twelfth most populated city in the region by number of inhabitants, with a population of 52,991 ...

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

and

Parma Parma (; ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmesan, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,986 inhabitants as of 2025, ...

. Barca often taught economic development, corporate finance and Italian economic history at these universities. He carried out an interesting study on the

Mezzogiorno Southern Italy (, , or , ; ; ), also known as () or (; ; ; ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern regions. The term "" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or culture of the historic ...

. Barca's public posts included the division chief at the research department of the

Bank of Italy The Bank of Italy (Italian language, Italian: ''Banca d'Italia'', , informally referred to as ''Bankitalia'') is the National central bank (Eurosystem), national central bank for Italy within the Eurosystem. It was the Italian central bank from ...

, chief of the department of development and cohesion policies at the treasury and the president of

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an international organization, intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and international trade, wor ...

's territorial policies committee (1999). During his tenure at the Italian treasury, he worked with

Carlo Azeglio Ciampi Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (; 9 December 1920 – 16 September 2016) was an Italian politician, statesman and banker who was the President of Italy from 1999 to 2006 and the Prime Minister of Italy from 1993 to 1994. A World War II veteran, C ...

, then treasure minister. In fact, Ciampi appointed Barca to this position. The reason for his appointment was his being part of young leading Italian economists in the 1990s and his reputation which he had gained during his tenure at the Bank of Italy. Barca worked as a special advisor to the European Union commissioner responsible for regional policy. In April 2009, he developed an independent report for the European Commission, entitled ''An agenda for a reformed cohesion policy''. In addition, Barca was the director of the department of development policies in the Ministry of Economy and Finance until his appointment as minister in 2011. On 16 November 2011, Barca was appointed minister of territorial cohesion to the cabinet led by Prime Minister

Mario Monti Mario Monti (; born 19 March 1943) is an Italian politician, economist and academic who served as the Prime Minister of Italy from 2011 to 2013, leading a Technocratic government (Italy), technocratic government in the wake of the European sov ...

. In July 2012, Barca endorsed and launched a new website that was Italy's first national web portal concerning the implementation of investments covering the period of 2007-2013 by regions and state central administrations along with cohesion policy resources. All data therein were published as

open data Open data are data that are openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shareable by anyone for any purpose. Open data are generally licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-so ...

, which makes it Italy's largest open data project. Barca's tenure ended on 28 April 2013, and he was succeeded by Carlo Trigilia in the post. Just before leaving office, Barca joined the Democratic Party in April 2013. Since 2018, Barca has been coordinator of the Forum Disuguaglianze e Diversità, a civil society organisation aimed at designing public policies and collective actions in order to reduce inequalities and enhance everyone's substantive freedom.

Work

In 2014, Barca published his memoir in which he described the party he desired.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Barca, Fabrizio 20th-century Italian economists 21st-century Italian economists 1954 births Living people Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Academic staff of Bocconi University Academic staff of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia Academic staff of the University of Parma Academic staff of the University of Rome Tor Vergata Academic staff of the University of Siena Democratic Party (Italy) politicians Government ministers of Italy Politicians from Turin Sapienza University of Rome alumni