Oskar Peterlini
Oskar Peterlini (born 19 September 1950), Lecturer at the Free University of Bozen Bolzano, is a Representative of the German-speaking South Tyrolean Minority in South Tyrol, Italy. He was a member of the Italian Senate in the Italian Parliament from 2001 to 2013, Member of the Regional Parliament of Trentino South Tyrol from 1978 to 1998 and its president from 1988–1998. He was also President of the district of the South Tyrolean Unterland of the South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP) from 2001 to 2010. Life. Peterlini was born on 19 September 1950 in Bolzano South Tyrol  and lives today in the village of Bronzolo. He studied Economics at the Universities of Modena and Innsbruck, and graduated in Business Management at the University of Venice "Ca' Foscari", and specialized in Portfolio Management at the New York New York Institute of Finance. Recently he was awarded the Doctor in Social and economic science at the Faculty of Political science and Social sciences of the University of Innsbruck. He achieved his PhD with a Thesis about the Italian Constitutional reform and its impact on the special autonomies and with a research project about the electoral systems and their effect  on linguistic minorities. The brother of Oskar Peterlini is the journalist Hans Karl Peterlini. Oskar has four children. Career. Peterlini was from 1972 to 1979, first secretary then leader of the youth movement Junge Generation of the Südtiroler Volkspartei. He was elected 1978 as youngest member to the Regional Parliament of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and the Provincial Parliament Lantag of South Tyrol. Peterlini was a member of the regional Parliament from 1978 till 1998 and served as its president from 1988 to 1998. He was chairman of the Budget and Economic Legislative Committee from 1983 to 1993. Among his  achievements were an innovative law for the youth (Jugendförderungsgesetz), one for family support and the first Italian law for animal protection. His most important work was the creation of a complementary pension system called Pens Plan for inhabitants of the Trentino South-Tyrol Region, whose activities he developed and coordinated starting from 1989. In 2001 he was elected to the Italian Senate as representative of the Südtiroler Volkspartei in an electoral cooperation with the Ulivo party. He was re-elected in 2006 in cooperation with Romano Prodis coalition and 2008 in cooperation with the Partito Democratico, which itself is a  successor party to the Ulivo and the Unione of Prodi parties: 2001 (SVP-Ulivo), 2006 (SVP-Unione) and 2008 (SVP-Autonomie). He has been the President of the parliamentary group "Per le Autonomie" from 2006 to 2008. From 2001 to 2006 he has been member of the presidency of the legislative Committee for Welfare, from 2008 to 2013 also for School and Culture, and from 2006 to 2013 a member (at times Deputy Member) of the Committee for Constitutional Affairs of the Italian Senate. He is member of the parliamentary delegation of the Central European Initiative and President of its  Cultural Commission. Important Achievements. Oskar Peterlini is the projector of the complementary pension system in the Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region named Pensplan. In a collaboration between the region, unions and management he initiated the Pensplan system, which includes the service company of the Region called Centrum Pensplan, the pension founds Laborfonds and Plurifonds and the fund management company Pensplan Invest. Publications. Peterlini is the author of several books and publications relating to the Italian Constitution, the Special Statute of the Autonomous Region of Trentino South-Tyrol, about Federalism, Electoral Systems and about the New Complementary Pension System in Italy  and in the Trentino South-Tyrol Region.