BIO/3215*

PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF ITALY ELECTED PRESIDENT OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL

20 January 1999


Press Release
BIO/3215*
ECOSOC/5810


PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF ITALY ELECTED PRESIDENT OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL

19990120 Biographical Note Francesco Paolo Fulci of Italy was today elected President of the Economic and Social Council, after serving as its Vice-President in 1998.

Since April 1993, Mr. Fulci has served as his country's Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He has twice held the post of President of the Security Council. In 1997, he was elected to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

A career diplomat, Mr. Fulci served as Secretary-General of Italy's Executive Committee for Intelligence and Security from 1991 until 1993. Before that, from 1985 to 1991, he was Italy's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Council in Brussels. In March 1990, he assumed the title of Dean of the Ambassadors to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

From 1980 to 1995, Mr. Fulci served as Italy's Ambassador to Canada. Prior to that appointment, from 1976 to 1980, he was Chief of Staff to the Speaker of the Italian Senate, Amintore Fanfani. From 1974 to 1976, he served as Minister Counsellor of the Italian Embassy in Tokyo and, from 1968 to 1974, he was Counsellor and, subsequently, First Counsellor at his country's embassy in Paris. He had earlier served, from 1961 to 1963, as Second Secretary at the Italian Embassy in Moscow.

Mr. Fulci served, from 1965 to 1968, in the Cabinet of the Italian Foreign Minister as Liaison Officer with the Parliament. In 1967, he also set up the new headquarters in Rome of the Italian-Latin American Institute, established by the 20 Latin American countries and Italy. In 1965, Mr. Fulci was a member of the Italian delegation to the twentieth General Assembly, presided over by the Italian Foreign Minister, Mr. Fanfani.

* This supersedes Press Release BIO/2774/Rev.1 of 27 April 1993.

- 2 - Press Release BIO/3215 ECOSOC/5810 20 January 1999

From 1963 to 1965, he was First Secretary at the Directorate General for Political Affairs at the Soviet and Eastern European Desk in the Italian Foreign Ministry. From 1956 to 1958, Mr. Fulci served as an Attaché at the North American Desk in the Directorate General for Economic Affairs of the Foreign Ministry. While serving as First Vice-Consul at the Italian Consulate General in New York, from 1958 to 1961, he was also Assistant to the Chief of the Italian delegation, Foreign Minister Gaetano Martino, at the fifteenth General Assembly session. He entered the Italian foreign service in November 1956.

Mr. Fulci has received commendations from the Governments of France, Germany, Japan, Portugal and Venezuela. In 1992, he was named a Knight of the Great Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Italy. In 1989, Ambassador Fulci was admitted by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta as Knight of Honour and Devotion. He has been awarded three honourary Doctorates of Law, from the University of Windsor in Ontario (1981), from St. Thomas Aquinas College in New York (1996), and from St. John's University in New York (1998).

Mr. Fulci received his law degree in 1953 from the University of Messina. As a Fulbright scholar from 1954 to 1955, he obtained a Master's degree in comparative law at Columbia University, New York. He later received a diploma from The Hague Academy of International Law, and attended the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, from 1955 to 1956.

Born in Messina, Italy, on 19 March 1931, Mr. Fulci is married and has three children.

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For information media. Not an official record.