Former minister Raffaele Costa has died. He was 90 years old.

Raffaele Costa, a former minister and father of Enrico Costa – currently the leader of the Forza Italia group in the Chamber of Deputies – has died at the age of 90, having celebrated his birthday just three days ago. A lawyer from Mondovì (Cuneo), Raffaele Costa was first elected to Parliament in 1976 with the Italian Liberal Party, of which he would serve as the last national secretary between 1993 and 1994, prior to its dissolution. Between the First and Second Republics, in the 1990s, he served four times as a minister in the Amato government (for Community and Regional Policies and later for Health), the Ciampi government (for Transport) and the first Berlusconi government (again for Health), where he was the driving force behind the famous ‘blitzes’ to tackle waste in hospitals.

As a member of Forza Italia, in 1997 he narrowly missed out on being elected mayor of Turin, losing by a margin of fewer than five thousand votes to Valentino Castellani. His thirty-year parliamentary career came to an end in 2006 following his last election to the Chamber of Deputies; in the meantime, he had also served as a Member of the European Parliament and as President of the Province of Cuneo, a post to which he was elected from 2004 to 2009. Shortly after the 2010 regional elections, having been elected as a member of the People of Freedom party, he resigned for health reasons. 

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni remembered him as a “key figure in the history of Italian liberalism. My thoughts are particularly with Enrico,” the Prime Minister added, “and with his entire family and the political community of Forza Italia, to whom I extend my sympathy at this time of grief”.  According to Pier Ferdinando Casini, Costa “was many things and held a variety of responsibilities, but he was always and only a liberal in permanent and active service.” 

"I express my deepest condolences on the passing of Raffaele Costa, a leading figure in a long era of Italian public life, who served the institutions with passion, competence and a great sense of duty to the state," said Stefania Craxi, chair of the Forza Italia senators. “A true liberal, a staunch defender of due process and a man of the institutions, Costa was an authoritative and independent voice in the national political debate, distinguished by the balance of his views and his constant defence of individual freedoms, the rule of law and democratic principles. “He led,” she added, “the PLI through the difficult turning point of 1993, seeking to defend the organised legacy of Italian liberalism, and subsequently contributed, through this noble tradition, to the birth and establishment of Forza Italia.”