Pierfrancesco Majorino (born 14 May 1973) is an Italian politician who is a member of the Regional Council of Lombardy since 2023. Previously, he was a member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2019 to 2023. Born in Milan, he was politically active in his teens and grew up in the youth wing of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). He followed up by joining the PCI's legal successor, first the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) and then the Democrats of the Left (DS), and was among the founders of the Milanese section of the Democratic Party (PD).
Majorino served as Assessor for Social Policies of Milan during former deputy Giuliano Pisapia's term as mayor from 2011 to 2016, as well as during the first mayoral term of the former Expo 2015 government commissioner Giuseppe Sala from 2016 to 2019. During his eight years as an assessor, he designed poverty reduction initiatives, migrant reception schemes, and significantly increased municipal funding for disability services and support for female victims of violence. He became particularly well known for his efforts in providing assistance to refugees and expanding the protection of LGBTQ+ rights. He resigned from this position as a result of his election as an MEP in 2019.
In the 2019 European Parliament election, Majorino was elected as an MEP on the electoral list of the PD. On the European Parliament, he served on the Committee on Development. In 2020, he also joined the Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union (EU). In addition to his committee assignments, Majorino was part of the European Parliament's delegations to the EU–Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee and to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean. He was also a member of several European Parliament intergroups, including those on Anti-Racism and Diversity, Fighting against Poverty, Trade Unions, and the URBAN Intergroup.
Majorino resigned as an MEP to run in the 2023 Lombard regional election, where he was the unsuccessful centre-left coalition candidate for president of Lombardy. Subsequently, he led the opposition to Attilio Fontana as a member of the Regional Council of Lombardy, joined the PD Secretariat under deputy Elly Schlein, and is considered among the leading candidates for mayor of Milan. He is also a writer and the author of several novels and essays.
Early life Family and education Born on 14 May 1973 in Milan, Majorino is the son of an anti-fascist and psychoanalyst father (who died in 2025) and a mother employed by the local government. His mother is from Bolzano and his great-grandfather hailed from Naples. He is also the nephew of Giancarlo Majorino, a Milanese poet who was the founder of the House of Poetry in the Liberty building, and who was described as even more left-wing than his father.
Before moving to the Corso Lodi area with his family during his youth, Majorino was born and raised in Via Archimede, and into the Porta Romana neighbourhood. Majorino later described writing as "an obsession of mine", and recalled that when he was eight, he used to "craft poems for the girls I liked". He attended the specialised state technical college (istituto tecnico statale a ordinamento speciale, ITSOS) named after Albe Steiner. He completed his studies, qualifying as an IT technician after obtaining a diploma in Computer Science. Subsequently, Majorino moved to Rome to study sociology at the Sapienza University, although he did not complete his degree. He later expressed regret over this decision, publicly stating that he had unwisely prioritised his political and trade union activism over his university education.
Student movement and activism Majorino began his political career within the student movement, joining the Italian Communist Youth Federation (FGCI) – the youth wing of the PCI – at the age of 14, during his final year of middle school. He subsequently supported the Bolognina turning point promoted by Achille Occhetto, which led to the dissolution of the PCI and the creation of the PDS. During his time at the ITSOS high school, Majorino frequently faced political hostility from far-left student groups (Autonomi), who viewed members of the official PCI youth wing as overly moderate. Despite winning several student body elections, he regularly experienced physical confrontations from these dissident factions. Also in 1991, during his penultimate year of high school and shortly after turning 18, he was elected to the Zone 3 local council. Between 1993 and 1994, he was among the founders of the Unione degli Studenti (UdS) and Rete Studentesca (RS), serving as its national president from 1994 to 1998.
During the Mani pulite anti-corruption investigations led by Antonio Di Pietro and other magistrates in the early 1990s, Majorino, then a young student movement representative, openly supported the Italian judiciary. He organised demonstrations outside the Milan Palace of Justice, including events held in honour of Giovanni Falcone. On 15 June 1992, during an appearance as an audience guest on the television programme Milano, Italia hosted by Gad Lerner, he publicly stated: "We said yes to Antonio Di Pietro, no to the old politics!" In 2010, Majorino defended former Milan chief prosecutor Francesco Saverio Borrelli when the latter was removed from his position as president of the Milan Conservatory by order of the then Minister of Education Mariastella Gelmini. Later in 2012, while serving as Milan's Assessor for Social Policies, he established the Festival of Confiscated Goods from the Mafia, an initiative aimed at promoting the social reuse of seized properties and raising public awareness through conferences and exhibitions. In 2017, when Sala proposed naming a street after Bettino Craxi, Majorino strongly opposed the idea, stating: "I will not change my mind. To me, Craxi is a negative example. There is no need for a street!"
Political career Department for Social Solidarity and councillor of Milan In 1998, the 25-year-old Majorino, who had dropped from university, followed Massimo D'Alema's transition from the PDS to the DS, as well as the birth of The Olive Tree. He joined the board of the Department for Social Solidarity within the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, which was led at the time by the Minister of Social Solidarity and his party colleague Livia Turco. While working at the department, Majorino focused on youth politics and the fight against substance dependence. In this role, he also represented the Department for Social Affairs of the Italian Prime Minister's Office in Albania on the occasion of international meetings for the promotion and evaluation of projects linked to youth creativity and support for vulnerable minors.
Between 2000 and 2003, Majorino served as the coordinator of the Milanese section of the DS, and subsequently as its provincial secretary from 2003 until 2007. In 2001, at the age of 28, Majorino was appointed as the head of organisation for the Milan metropolitan federation of the DS. He was selected for the role by Federico Ottolenghi, who was serving as the federation's provincial secretary at the time. In 2004, Majorino was elected secretary of the DS federation in Milan, a position he held until 2007, under the leadership of Filippo Penati and Franco Mirabelli. During the 2006 Italian local elections on 28–29 May, he ran for the Milan City Council on The Olive Tree list, which included the DS, supporting The Union's mayoral candidate Bruno Ferrante. He was elected as a city councillor, serving in opposition to Letizia Moratti's municipal administration. In 2007, following the dissolution of the DS approved at that year's party congress, he joined the PD, contributing to the foundation of its Milanese branch, and became its floor leader (capogruppo) in the city council in 2008, a position he held until 2011.
During Moratti's term of office, Majorino was among the proponents of establishing the Anti-Mafia Commission, the Civil Union Register for de facto couples, the increase in social housing within the Territory Government Plan, and the creation of the anti-crisis fund as a measure against job insecurity and poverty. During five years of intense political opposition, Majorino demonstrated a highly determined approach. Known for his effective use of the media, his messaging was frequently described as bold and uncompromising. On some occasions, his confrontational style drew criticism; for instance, following a local flood, he held up a banner stating "The real natural disaster for Milan: Mayor Moratti". He frequently criticised the Moratti administration's financial management, later citing in 2015 its budgetary deficits as an ongoing challenge for the municipality. Following the legal investigations involving Penati, Majorino retained his position as the PD floor leader at Palazzo Marino (Milan's city hall). During the scandal, he adopted a staunchly confrontational anti-corruption stance (or justicialist according to his critics) against Penati, although he later privately apologised for the severity of his public attacks.
Assessor for Social Policies of Milan
During the 2011 Italian local elections on 15–16 May, with a second round on 29–30 May, Majorino was re-elected to Milan's city council on the PD list, backing Pisapia. Pisapia was subsequently elected mayor of Milan, returning the city to a centre-left administration after 18 years. This sparked a shift to the left, initiating a streak in which the centre-left coalition won every election in Milan from 2011 onwards. Upon taking office as mayor, Pisapia appointed the then 31-year-old Majorino as Assessor for Social Policies. In this role, he focused extensively on projects outside Milan's historic centre, strongly rejecting the criticisms that the centre-left administration had neglected the city's outer suburbs.
As the lead candidate for the PD, Majorino was re-elected to the city council in 2016, with 7,514 preference votes. Sala, who eventually won the mayoral race, re-appointed him as Assessor for Social Policies. He had been reportedly discussed as a likely deputy mayor to Sala, who ultimately appointed Anna Scavuzzo. Following his reappointment to the municipal executive, political commentators noted that Majorino had emerged as one of the key political figures within the local administration. Along with fellow assessor Pierfrancesco Maran, he was widely regarded by insiders as one of the few authentic political strategists remaining in Milan's centre-left leadership, especially after the third prominent local figure of the same name, Pierfrancesco Barletta, had transitioned into a corporate management career. During this time, he was also seen as close to Andrea Orlando, compared to Maran, who was part of the Renziani majority.