At the next free-beer, free-trade event - known formally as the CNE EU Parliamentary Assistants Forum - Italian Senator Franco Debenedetti will speak on the topic, "Berlusconi's Illiberal Legacy: The strange case of Italian Privatisation."

CNE visiting fellow Alberto Mingardi will moderate the event.

Date Monday 29 September 2003 19h30-21h30 Location Fatboys Sports Bar 5 Place Luxembourg Brussels

Senator Franco Debenedetti (b. Turin, 1933) is an engineer by training. He has worked with FIAT, and then with Olivetti, where he has been Vice President and founded Olivetti Information Service. He was elected to the Italian Senate first in 1994 - and then re-elected in 1996 and 2001. He belongs to the Democratici di Sinistra, the Italian progressive party. He has lectured extensively on the topics of economic reform and privatization, and he writes widely for some of Italy's most important daily papers - including La Stampa, Il Riformista, and Il Sole 24 Ore. He is also a columnist for the weekly Panorama. In 2001, he published Sappia la destra (Baldini e Castoldi), a book which deals in detail with the economic legacy of the center-left governments in Italy. In 2002, he edited "Non basta dire no" (Mondadori), a collection of essays on labor market reforms - contributors include Tito Boeri, Pietro Ichino, Giancarlo Lombardi, Bruno Manghi, Paolo Onofri, Antonio Polito, Umberto Ranieri, Michele Salvati, Ferdinando Targetti, Tiziano Treu. Senator Debenedetti is also founder and president of the Interaction Design Institute, in Ivrea, and a board member of CIR, COFIDE, and of the Rodolfo Debenedetti Foundation. For a collection of his articles and press declarations, see his website.

For further information, please contact Alberto Mingardi.