Luca Visentini is the proposed successor to Bernadette Ségol as General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation.
A meeting of the ETUC’s Executive Committee voted the 46 year old current Confederal Secretary of the ETUC as ‘General Secretary Designate’, subject to final decision by ETUC Congress in October in Paris.*
Luca Visentini is Italian, has been a member of the Italian union UIL since 1989, and has worked for UIL at local, regional, national and international level including as General Secretary of UIL in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region of north east Italy. He is the author of four books of poetry and a novel.
“It is a huge honour and a great responsibility to be put forward as General Secretary of the ETUC” said Visentini. “Our first priority has to be growth and quality jobs, through a significant change in EU economic policy including an end to austerity. We need a stronger, renewed ETUC.”
If elected by ETUC Congress Visentini will take up his duties full-time in Brussels in October 2015. Congress will also elect a team of 2 Deputy Secretary Generals and 4 Confederal Secretaries.
The ETUC was set up in 1973 and now comprises 88 national trade union confederations in 37 countries, plus 10 European trade union federations.
*ETUC Congress takes place Sep 29 – October 2 in Paris. The exact date of decision on the Secretary General is yet to be confirmed.
