Alessandro Butticé

Alessandro Butticé (born in Merano on 11 May 1959) is an Italian Brigadier General (retired) of the Guardia di Finanza, former Senior management and expert in investigations and institutional communication of economic-financial law enforcement and international investigative cooperation. He has been the first military and member of a police force to serve in the EU institutions. Today he is a columnist and Journalist for Il Riformista, Formiche.net, aise.it and other media.
In his career he was commander of the Sapri Unit, Deputy Commander of the Guardia di Finanza at the Rome Airports, Editor-in-chief of the magazine Il Finanziere, Section Head of the Central Unit of Tax Police, before taking up the function in October 1990 as the first officer of the Guardia di Finanza, but also the first military officer and belonging to a police force at the European Commission.
In the Guardia di Finanza he was one of the pioneers, from 1985 to 1990, of a new institutional communication policy of the Corps. The first institutional campaign was conceived by him, in 1988, "Guardia di Finanza, on the side of the honests". With two themes: "with you against ...: who plays with the health of your children" (on the theme of the fight against drugs) and "who wants to make you pay their taxes" (on the theme of the fight against tax fraud), this campaign preceded the Mani pulite season by a few years.
Since his arrival at the European Commission, as the first military man and belonging to a European police force, he has been among the pioneers of the Fraud deterrence and anti-crime services of the European Union (at the Directorate-General for Budget, then the Secretary-General of the European Commission (UCLAF) and contributed to the creation of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) which he was the first spokesperson and the head of communication from its creation, in 1999, to 2009. In this capacity, he contributed to making the Guardia di Finanza an Italian flagship in the world and to correct the image of Italy not only as the home of fraud but also as a virtuous example in the fight against fraud and Financial crime. It has also launched an ethical policy of relations between investigative services and journalists.
He left the European Commission in 2018 and is today a columnist for Il Riformista, Formiche.net and a correspondent from Brussels for aise.it.
He is also President of the Brussels-European Union Section of the National Association of Italian Financiers (ANFI), which he founded in 2013, Delegate for Belgium, the European Union, NATO and international organizations, and for the coordination of other foreign delegates, from the National Association of the decorated of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (ANCRI). 
He is a member, Treasurer 2019/2021 and President-elect 2021/2022, of the Rotary International Club of Brussels West.
===Military career in the Guardia di Finanza===
Butticé entered the Military Guardia di Finanza Academy in 1979, with the 79th Corso "Podgora II". He has three master's degrees in: Master of Laws (1985, University of Salerno, with a thesis on: "International cooperation in the prevention and repression of customs fraud"), Master of Economics (1987, Sapienza University of Rome, with a thesis on: "The Secret of the Banks Today "), Economic and Financial Security Sciences (2004, University of Rome Tor Vergata, with a thesis on "Information and communication as instruments for the protection of the EU's financial interests"), and has a two-year specialisation in Journalism and Mass Communications (1989, Rome, Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli, with a thesis on ""On the side of the honests, yes, but how and why? The institutional communication of law enforcement agencies", with praise and publication of the thesis). 
Among other different formations: "Il problema della sicurezza per l'Europa Occidentale e per l'Italia", Comitato Atlantico (1979); VIII Corso di Orientamento e formazione sulle organizzazioni internazionali della Italian Society for International Organizations in Rome (1983); the XII Study Programme in Japan for Young Europeans of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (1990; "Parler en Public" (1992); Residential Seminar of the College of Europe in Bruge (1995); "Les techniques de management " of the European Commission (1996); "Developing Management Effectiveness", Henley Business School "Management Training Programme", European Commission, Brussels (2005); "Leading For Results programme", INSEAD, Fontainebleau (2017). 
In 1983/84, he commanded the Tenenza della Guardia di Finanza di Sapri. In 1984/85, he was Deputy Commander of the Guardia di Finanza at the Rome Airports. From 1985 to 1990 he was Head of Section, and responsible for institutional communication of the Guardia di Finanza; creator and head of institutional communication ("Dalla parte degli onesti" campaign), editor-in-chief of the Corps' specialised magazines ("Il Finanziere" and "Panorama Tributario e professionale", Copy editing of the "Rivista della Guardia di Finanza"). In 1990, in Rome, at the Nucleo Centrale di Polizia Tributaria (Central Tax Police Unit), as draftee commander, he directed some major national investigations on public expenditure, on behalf of the Attorney general Office of the Court of Audit (Italy).
===The assignments to the European Union===
In 1990/92, in Brussels, at the Directorate-General for Budget DGXIX-B-4 ("Enforcement of regulations and fight against fraud in the field of own resources") of the European Commission, he took part in and coordinated the first inspections of the European Commission in the field of Budget of the European Own Resources, creating contacts with Secretary-General of the European Commission (UCLAF) and implementing the first collaborative relations of the European Commission with the national investigation services. 
From 1992 to 1999, at the Secretary-General of the European Commission he was responsible for legislative and horizontal matters, then as deputy Head of Unit TF6-Fight against Fraud - Trade in Agricultural Products (98–99); Head of an investigation team of Unit TF6 (95–98); responsible for anti-fraud policy and coordination of the first anti-fraud investigations of UCLAF, raising awareness and assisting the Italian authorities, including the judiciary, in setting up the Guardia di Finanza Community Police Centre. During this period he established UCLAF's first collaborative relations with the judicial and police authorities (92/95) and was the negotiator and the person responsible for the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding between UCLAF and the Guardia di Finanza. Organiser and promoter of training actions for officials of the national investigation services and magistrates on fraud against the EU budget and organised and transnational economic crime, he recruited or contributed to the recruitment of several others belonging to the Guardia di Finanza and other Italian and European police forces at OLAF. For this activity, the Director General of the Spanish Civil Guard (Spain), together with the Permanent Representative of Spain to the European Union, decorated him in 1996 with the Cross with White Badge at the order of the Guardia Civil. 
From 1999 to 2009 he was Head of the "Spokesperson, Communication and Public Relations" Unit and Spokesperson of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). Butticè became the right-hand man of the first Director General of OLAF, the German Prosecutor Franz-Hermann Brüner, who will defend to the end, faithful to the vision of OLAF as a service coined in the image of the Guardia di Finanza, champion of legality in the Union. 
In 2013, on the occasion of his farewell from the Guardia di Finanza, Romano Prodi, with whom General Butticé collaborated in the early years of his life, declared:
"Your work was extraordinary, also because everything had to be done from the beginning and it was certainly not an easy task. Nor was it easy to overcome a certain diffidence towards Italy with regard to such a delicate function as the one entrusted to you. For this reason, I find the ending of the letter which recalls your double loyalty to Italy and Europe entirely appropriate”
Thanks to its leading role within OLAF, the Guardia di Finanza reaches the height of its prestige with the European institutions. It promotes a memorandum of understanding between OLAF and the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia, headed at the time by the National Prosecutor Pierluigi Vigna. Many Guardia di Finanza Officers are seconded to OLAF, other Directorates-General and institutions, including in key services such as the Legal Service, which provides legal advice to the President of the European Commission. His vision becomes a tangible reality. OLAF is a structured service that protects the Union's finances with high efficiency and expertise, coordinating anti-fraud actions at both the technical, administrative and judicial repressive levels. As spokesperson and collaborator of Franz-Hermann Brüner, Butticè is constantly working on his next idea; the creation of an OLAF Anti-Fraud Communicators Network (OFCN), which he chaired from 2001 to 2009, when he is awarded spokesperson of the year, donating the prize money received to the International Federation of Journalists, for the benefit of journalists who are victims of acts of violence. He signed a memorandum of understanding with Aidan White (journalist). 
He works ceaselessly for OLAF (even renouncing, in 2006, in order not to deprive its Director General of his support, to hold the position of Deputy Spokesperson of the European Commission, and Head of the Unit of its Spokespersons, at the request of President José Manuel Barroso and Vice-President Franco Frattini for transparency in the management of public resources and the fight against corruption in Europe, even in the less brilliant moments for the service, those that follow the unexpected death of Franz-Hermann Brüner, due to a sudden serious illness.
From 2009 to 2012 Butticé became Head of the "Direct Expenditure and External Aid" Unit of the Investigations and Operations Directorate I of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). In 2012, not liking the appointment of the Director "Policy" of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) as Director General of the Italian magistrate and politician Giovanni Kessler, following his arrival at OLAF, he accepted the proposal of the then Vice-President of the European Commission, Antonio Tajani, to serve as Security and Anti-Fraud Counsellor of the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, with responsibility also for the defence industry and space policy, including Galileo (satellite navigation) and Copernicus Programme and he decides to leave OLAF definitively. 
Between 2013 and 2015, under the Directorate-General of Daniel Calleja Crespo, he assumes the role of Head of the Communication Activities Unit of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Industry and Enterprise, also leading the European Commission's information campaign against counterfeiting of EU industrial products. 
In the two-year period 2015/2017, he held the position of the Human Resources Unit of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, during which he oversaw one of the largest internal restructurings of the European Commission, cutting human resources by 20% in the two-year period.
In 2017/2018, in Brussels, he was Head of the Business Continuity, Security and Administrative Coordination Unit of the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs of the European Commission, before the creation of the new Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space of the European Commission.
After leaving the European Commission in April 2018, he is now an expert in economic and financial police investigations and international investigative cooperation as a speaker at conferences and debates. He is a columnist for Il Riformista and Formiche.net, correspondent for www.aise.it and (until August 2019) co-founder of "Più Europei" and Vice President for Europe-founder of PIUE (Pubblicisti Italiani Uniti per l'Europa). Delegate for Belgium, the EU, NATO and international bodies, and Delegate for the coordination of delegations abroad of the National Association of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (ANCRI).
* , Carmenta, Bologna, 1998 (con prefazione del Commissario Europeo Emma Bonino).
* , Bariletti Editori, Roma, 1990 (con prefazione di Maurizio Costanzo).
* , Comando Generale G. di F., Roma, 1989.
* , Comando Generale Guardia di Finanza, Roma, 1986.
* 
* Journalist, member (since 1989) of the Order of Journalists of Lazio and Molise.
* Expert lecturer with a university contract in specialist administrative law, from 1997 to 2004, at the School of Specialization in European Community Economics Law of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Bari. Theme of the course: "Administrative procedures for the repression of EU financial fraud". 
* Guardia di Finanza Academy and the Scuola di Polizia Tributaria.
* Member of the Appeal Disciplinary Committee of the International Military Sports Council 
* Member (from 1991 to 2008) of the editorial board of the "Guardia di Finanza" Magazine. 
* Member of the board of directors of the Guardia di Finanza Historical Museum (from 1987 to 1992). 
* Founding member and Vice President of the European Association of the Press Offices and Institutional Communication (EAPO&IC).
* Founder (in 2014) and President (from 2014 to date) of the Brussels-EU Section of the National Association of Italian Financiers (ANFI).
* Delegate for Belgium, the EU, NATO and international bodies, and delegate for the coordination of delegations abroad of the National Association of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (ANCRI). 
* Honorary member of the External Relations Club and the Bulgarian Club of Journalists against Corruption.
* Treasurer (2018/2021) and President-elect (2021/2022) of the Rotary International Club of Bruxelles West.
Military Medal of Merit for Long Command
Silver Cross for seniority of service in the Guardia di Finanza, 1995
Category:Italian generals
Category:1959 births
Category:Italian chief executives