Roberto Fico (; born 10 October 1974) is an Italian politician and member of the

Five Star Movement The Five Star Movement ( , M5S) is a political party in Italy, led by Giuseppe Conte. It was launched on 4 October 2009 by Beppe Grillo, a political activist and comedian, and Gianroberto Casaleggio, a web strategist. The party is primarily d ...

. He served as the Chairman of the RAI Supervision Commission from 2013 to 2018 and

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

of the Italian

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourb ...

from 2018 to 2022.

Early life

Fico was born in

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

in 1974 to a middle-class family. He studied

communication studies Communication studies (or communication science) is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in differ ...

at the

University of Trieste The University of Trieste (, or UniTS, Formerly Regia Università degli Studi or The Royal University of Studies) is a public research university in Trieste in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region in northeast Italy. The university consists of 10 ...

and did an

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...

exchange at the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

, graduating in 2001 with a

thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

regarding the social and linguistic identity of Neapolitan

neomelodic music Neomelodic music, or musica neomelodica, sometimes just neomelodico is a Music genre, musical style originating from the Italy, Italian city of Naples. Drawing on older forms such as canzone napoletana and sceneggiata, the genre features emo ...

. After the university he worked for some press offices, in a

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

, as

tour operator A tour operator is a business that typically combines and organizes lodging, accommodations, meals, sightseeing and transportation components, in order to create a package tour. They advertise and produce brochures to promote their products, holi ...

manager, in a call-center, in a butcher's shop and as a small importer of

fabrics Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, and different types of fabric. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not ...

from

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

Political career

On 18 July 2005, he founded one of the forty "Friends of

Beppe Grillo Giuseppe Piero "Beppe" Grillo (; born 21 July 1948) is an Italian comedian, actor, Blogger (person), blogger, and politician. He has been involved in politics since 2009 as the co-founder (together with Gianroberto Casaleggio) of the Italian Fi ...

" meetups in Naples, which led to the formation of the

was born. In 2010, he ran as President of

Campania Campania is an administrative Regions of Italy, region of Italy located in Southern Italy; most of it is in the south-western portion of the Italian Peninsula (with the Tyrrhenian Sea to its west), but it also includes the small Phlegraean Islan ...

region, but only received 1.35% of the votes in the

election An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...

. In 2011, he was the M5S candidate for

Mayor of Naples The mayor of Naples is an elected politician who, along with the Naples’s City Council of 40 members, is accountable for the strategic government of Naples. Overview According to the Constitution of Italy, Italian Constitution, the mayor of N ...

, getting only 1.38% of votes, not exceeding the first round. In December 2012, Fico arrived first, with 228 preferences obtained on the web, in the parliamentary primary election of the M5S, and thus he was nominated for the first position on the M5S list of the constituency Campania 1. In February 2013, he was elected to the 17th

Italian Parliament The Italian Parliament () is the national parliament of the Italy, Italian Republic. It is the representative body of Italian citizens and is the successor to the Parliament of the Kingdom of Sardinia (1848–1861), the Parliament of the Kingd ...

. In 2013, Fico was voted by his parliamentary group to the Presidency of the

without being elected. On 6 June 2013, he was elected Chairman of the RAI Supervision Commission. Fico has renounced the function allowance to which he would have been entitled as Chairman of the RAI Supervision Commission and the personal

car A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people rather than cargo. There are around one billio ...

. As president of the RAI Supervision Commission, during his presidency, he introduced the live

streaming Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...

broadcast on the web TV of the Chamber of Deputies of all the auditions, the publication on the Parliament website of the questions addressed by the commissioners to RAI and the related answers and the determination of a maximum of 15 days for the answers to the questions by the public radio and television company. Among the acts approved by the Commission, there was a resolution aimed at resolving and avoiding possible conflicts of interest. As a deputy, he also presented a draft law on the governance of RAI; one of the points, the plan for corporate transparency, has merged into the RAI reform approved in 2015 by the Parliament. Following the implementation of this plan, the company had to make public the remuneration of senior

managers Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administr ...

, editorial departments and journalistic publications.

President of the Chamber of Deputies

In March 2018, he was re-elected in the constituency of

Napoli Naples ( ; ; ) is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its province-level municipality is the thir ...

– Fuorigrotta with 57.6% of votes. On 24 March 2018, Fico was elected as President of the Chamber of Deputies, supported by his own party, the League,

Forza Italia (FI; ) was a centre-right liberal-conservative political party in Italy, with Christian democratic,Chiara Moroni, , Carocci, Rome 2008 liberalOreste Massari, ''I partiti politici nelle democrazie contempoiranee'', Laterza, Rome-Bari 2004 (esp ...

and

Brothers of Italy Brothers of Italy (, FdI) is a National conservatism, national-conservative and Right-wing populism, right-wing populist political party in Italy, that is currently the country's ruling party. After becoming the largest party in the 2022 Ita ...

. On 23 April 2018, after the failure of the mandate to President of the Senate, Elisabetta Casellati, to start a government between the M5S and the centre-right coalition, he was given an exploratory mandate by President

Sergio Mattarella Sergio Mattarella (; born 23 July 1941) is an Italian politician and jurist who has served as the president of Italy since 2015. He is the longest-serving president in the history of the Italian Republic. Since Giorgio Napolitano's death in 20 ...

to try and reconcile the issues between the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party, in order to break the post-election

political deadlock In politics, gridlock or deadlock or political stalemate is a situation when there is difficulty passing laws that satisfy the needs of the people. A government is gridlocked when the ratio between bills passed and the agenda of the legislatur ...

and form a fully functional new government. His first year as President was characterized by a strong opposition to the policies promoted by Interior Minister

Matteo Salvini Matteo Salvini (; born 9 March 1973) is an Italian politician who has been serving as Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Italian Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Minister of Infrastructure and Transport since 2022. He has been List of F ...

, which were particularly severe on immigration and security.

Political views

Fico often stated that he was in favor of extending the right to

marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

and

adoption Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, fro ...

same-sex couples A same-sex relationship is a romantic or sexual relationship between people of the same sex. ''Same-sex marriage'' refers to the institutionalized recognition of such relationships in the form of a marriage; civil unions may exist in countries ...

. He also supports

euthanasia Euthanasia (from : + ) is the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering. Different countries have different Legality of euthanasia, euthanasia laws. The British House of Lords Select committee (United Kingdom), se ...

for the terminally ill and the so-called ''

jus soli ''Jus soli'' ( or , ), meaning 'right of soil', is the right of anyone born in the territory of a state to nationality or citizenship. ''Jus soli'' was part of the English common law, in contrast to ''jus sanguinis'' ('right of blood') ass ...

'', which is the right of anyone born in the territory of a state to nationality or citizenship. Fico is considered the leader of the left-wing faction of the Five Star Movement, often in opposition to

Luigi Di Maio Luigi Di Maio (; born 6 July 1986) is an Italian politician who has been serving as European Union Special Representative, EU Special Representative for the Persian Gulf, Gulf region since 1 June 2023. Di Maio also served as Italian Minister of ...

Electoral history

First-past-the-post elections

References

External links

* * *
Official website
on

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fico, Roberto 1974 births Living people Politicians from Naples University of Trieste alumni Five Star Movement politicians Deputies of Legislature XVII of Italy Deputies of Legislature XVIII of Italy Presidents of the Chamber of Deputies (Italy)