Francesca Romana D'Antuono

Francesca Romana D'Antuono (born 29 August 1987) is an Italian politician. In October 2021, she was elected co-president of Volt Europa together with Reinier van Lanschot at the 2021 General Assembly.

Career
D'Antuono was born in Vico Equense, in the Southern Italian region of Campania, on 29 August 1987, and grew up in Rome. She studied pharmacy at the Sapienza University of Rome from 2006 to 2010, followed by studies at the Université de Genève. This was followed by training in marketing, management and healthcare policy in 2014 to 2015. In the following years, D'Antuono worked first for Astra Zeneca in Milan, then for the Menarini Group in Florence, each time as a product or brand manager.

From 2019 to 2020, D'Antuono was Volt Firenze's city coordinator and led Volt Italia's public relations team. Since July 2020, D'Antuono lives in Berlin where she worked for Berlin-Chemie before moving to a full-time role in Volt Europa. In October 2021, she was elected co-president of Volt Europa together with Reinier van Lanschot at the General Assembly.

Woman rights
D'Antuono is advocating for the inclusion and advancement of women in leadership positions and aims for equal political representation. She criticises gender bias in the medical sector, such as the fact that less is known about diseases and the effect of medicines on the female body, that diseases are diagnosed less quickly and that the risk of misdiagnosis or wrong treatment by doctors is higher.

Minorities
She calls for social efforts to integrate people with disabilities into society from their early lives and reduce factors for discrimination such as segregation of people with disabilities in schools or accommodation facilities specifically for people, as called for by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In a series of contributions, D'Antuono criticises the handling of racism and hostility towards the LGBTQ community in Italy. She calls for self-reflection in society and for a critical approach to history.

Democracy
D'Antuono supports the democratisation of the European Parliament's elections by applying the same electoral system in all member states to ensure equal opportunities and representation within the EU. She also supports the introduction of transnational lists for European elections. In the 2022 Portuguese legislative election, together with Reinier Van Lanschot and Duarte Costa, respectively the former Volt co-president and Volt candidate of Portugal, she mounted an address to the sitting president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa – warning of constitutional problems and a dwindling confidence in the electoral system after massive problems with voting became known. In response, they proposed to reform the electoral system and to examine the possibility of electronic voting in addition to personal voting and postal voting.

European defence policy
In a guest contribution, she called for the expansion of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) and pleaded for a permanent EU armed corps that could be deployed quickly and autonomously in crises. She recommended that for future missions, obstacles should be removed quickly in order to be able to use existing structures and to find joint responses to crises. She also envisages coalitions of the willing for the establishment of a first permanent EU battle group.

Personal life
Under the pseudonym Francesca del Mar, D'Antuono wrote several short stories and two books. In August 2021, she became the mother of a son.