European Federalist Free Entrepreneurs

The European Federalist Free Entrepreneurs – Entrepreneurs' Trade Union (Liberi Imprenditori Federalisti Europei – Sindacato Imprenditori, LIFE) is an association of entrepreneurs based in Veneto, one of the regions of Italy.

The LIFE aims at representing and defending the interests of small and medium-sized businesses (which are under-represented in big-business dominated Confindustria, Italian employers' federation), and takes a libertarian stance against big government, red tape, high taxation and monopolies. Its current leader is Lucio Chiavegato, who replaced Fabio Padovan in May 2013.

The LIFE was founded in 1994 by a group of Venetist entrepreneurs (among them Fabio Padovan, Lucio Chiavegato and Diego Cancian) who were demanding fiscal federalism for Veneto, as an answer to what they called "the fiscal and bureaucratic oppression" by the Italian government, perceived as centralist and distant from the interests and the rights of the "Venetian people". In particular, they decided to organize themselves as a trade union, saying that they were the most oppressed workers in Italy.

Since its foundation, the LIFE started to evolve to be a more broadly-based association and indeed in the last years it gained strength among entrepreneurs of Lombardy, Piedmont and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. During its history it cooperated both with regionalist movements all around Northern Italy and with the free-market libertarian Bonino List and, in general, with the Italian Radicals, maintaining even a radio program at Radio Radicale.

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