Remembering Emma Bonino

Emma Bonino, Veteran Italian Politician and Relentless Civil Rights Activist, Dies at 78

Emma Bonino, a former European commissioner and member of the European Parliament, has died at the age of 78. Bonino had a decades-long career straddling national politics and the bloc's evolving political system. She served as a lawmaker, senator, and three-time minister throughout her career, spanning Brussels and Rome. Born in rural Piedmont in 1974, Bonino dedicated her life to political activism after having an illegal abortion. She used her position to campaign for campaigns to legalize abortion and divorce, ban nuclear power, and secularize Italy. Boninos also used her MEP status to take her human rights work global, frequently arrested while campaigning beyond the bloc’s borders. She was also involved in a 1998 probe into €2 million worth of fictitious aid contracts awarded by the EU, which found no evidence of any wrongdoing.

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