ROME, April 28 (Xinhua) -- Enrico Letta was sworn in as new Italian prime minister on Sunday at a ceremony before President Giorgio Napolitano.
His candidacy was backed by the center-left Democratic Party (PD), of which he is a prominent member, and the center-right People of Freedom (PdL) to which the 46-year-old is linked by family ties. His uncle is a key advisor of three-time premier and PdL leader Silvio Berlusconi.
Letta was born in Pisa, a city of central Tuscany region. He undertook a degree in political science and then a doctorate in European Community law before heading the youth wing of the centrist Christian Democracy (DC), which dominated Italian politics in the post-war era.
Described by local media as a moderate Europhile endowed with bridge-building abilities, Letta sided with a new center-left coalition led by former Prime Minister Romano Prodi after the DC imploded amid corruption scandals in the 1990s.
In a country distinguished by its ageing political class, Letta's rise was rapid. At the age of 32, he became the youngest government minister in Italy's history when he was appointed by then Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema as minister for community policy in 1998.
He later served as industry and commerce minister after a government reshuffle, before the center-left lost power in 2001.
From 2004, Letta was a member of the European Parliament until in 2006 was appointed secretary of the council of ministers to the Prodi government succeeding his uncle Gianni, and left Strasbourg for Rome.
In 2007, he lost primaries for the leadership for the newly formed PD against Walter Veltroni. In 2009 the PD Secretary Pier Luigi Bersani appointed Letta as his deputy until Bersani was forced to resign amid rising internal divisions last week.
Married in second wedding to a journalist of Italy's largest circulation newspaper Corriere della Sera, Gianna Fregonara, with whom he has three children, Letta is a supporter of AC Milan, the football club owned by Berlusconi. He is also a reader of Dylan Dog and a music listener.
Letta founded the think tank VeDro in 2005 and is a member of the European committee of the Trilateral Commission. In 2012, he took part at the Bilderberg meeting reunion of Chantilly, Virginia, in the United States.
Summoned to the presidential palace to be offered the mandate to form a government on Wednesday, he arrived driving his own economy Fiat, which was seen by some as a move against the extensive privileges that have caused growing anger of citizens against politicians.
Letta has pledged to reform the parliamentary system, reduce the number of lawmakers and change an electoral law which was considered largely responsible for February's inconclusive national elections. 
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