Romano Prodi

Romano Prodi
File:Tony Blair with Romano Prodi at G8, cropped to Prodi.jpg
79th Prime Minister of Italy
Incumbent
Assumed office 17 May 2006
President	Giorgio Napolitano
Preceded by	Silvio Berlusconi
75th Prime Minister of Italy
In office 17 May 1996 – 21 October 1998
President	Oscar Luigi Scalfaro
Preceded by	Lamberto Dini
Succeeded by	Massimo D'Alema
10th President of the European Commission
In office 16 September 1999 – 30 October 2004
Preceded by	Manuel Marin
Succeeded by	José Manuel Durão Barroso
Personal details
Born	(1939-08-09) August 9, 1939 Scandiano, Italy
Political party	Olive Tree (non-aligned)
Spouse	Flavia Franzoni
Profession	economist, university professor

(born 9 August 1939) is an Italian politician. Since May 17, 2006, he has served as President of the Council of Ministers of Italy following the victory of his The Union coalition over the House of Freedoms led by Silvio Berlusconi in the April 2006 Italian elections.

Prodi previously ran in 1996 as Olive Tree candidate, winning the election and serving as Prime Minister until 1998. He then served as President of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004.

Personal

Prodi was born in Scandiano, in the province of Reggio Emilia (Emilia-Romagna). He is the eighth of nine children of Mario Prodi, an engineer originally from a peasant family, and Enrica, elementary teacher. He has six brothers, five of them university professors (including a Member of the European Parliament, Vittorio Prodi), and two sisters.

Prodi, a devout Roman Catholic, married Flavia Franzoni in 1969. He was married by then-priest Camillo Ruini, now a well-known Catholic Church cardinal. They have two sons, Giorgio and Antonio. He and his family still live in Bologna.

Academic career

After completing his secondary education at the Liceo Ludovico Ariosto in Reggio Emilia, Prodi graduated in law at the Sacro Cuore Catholic University of Milan in 1961, with a thesis on the role of Protectionism in the development of Italian industry, and carried out postgraduate studies at the London School of Economics, even though he was unable to obtain any degree.

In 1963, he became a teaching assistant for Beniamino Andreatta in the department of economics and the faculty of Political Science of the University of Bologna, then serving as associate professor (1966) and lastly professor (1971-1999) of industrial organisation and industrial policy. Prodi has also been a visiting professor at Harvard University and a researcher at the Stanford Research Institute. His research covers mainly competition regulations and the development of small and medium businesses. He is also interested in relations between states and markets and the dynamics of the different capitalistic models.

Prodi has received almost 20 honorary degrees from institutions in Italy, the rest of Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa.

Politics

Beginnings

Prodi poses with Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson and George W. Bush at Gunnebo Slott near Gothenburg, Sweden, June 14 2001

Prodi used to be a left-wing reformist Christian Democrat and disciple of Beniamino Andreatta, another economist turned politician. During the mid-1970s, he was appointed Minister of Industry. In 1978 during Giulio Andreotti's government as technical minister; he held posts on various commissions through the 1980s and early 1990s.

On April 2, 1978, Prodi and other members of the faculty of the University of Bologna passed on a tip about a safe house where Aldo Moro, the former Prime Minister kidnapped by the Red Brigades, was detained. Prodi claimed he had been given the tip by the founders of the Christian Democratic Party, contacted from beyond the grave via a séance and a Ouija board. While Prodi thought the word Gradoli referred to a town on the outskirts of Rome, it likely referred to the Roman address of a BR safehouse, located at via Gradoli 96. Later, other Italian members of the European Commission claimed that Prodi had invented this story to conceal the real source of the tip, which they believed to have originated in the Italian extraparliamentary left.

Prodi served as chairman of the powerful state-owned industrial holding company IRI - from 1982 to 1989 and again from 1993 to 1994. He twice came under investigation for alleged corruption while he was head of IRI. He was accused of conflict of interest first in connection with contracts awarded to his own economic research company, and secondly over the sale of the loss making state owned food conglomerate SME to the multinational Unilever - for which he had for a time been a paid consultant; but, for both accusations, he obtained a full acquittal.

Olive Tree and first cabinet (1995-1998)

See also: Italian general election, 1996 and Olive Tree

In 1995 he became Chairman of the centre-left Olive Tree coalition, and in the 1996 election defeated Silvio Berlusconi and the Pole of Freedoms, being consequently appointed as President of the Council of Ministers, or as the position is commonly called, Prime Minister. His government fell in 1998 when the Communist Refoundation Party withdrew support, allowing the formation of a new government under Massimo D'Alema (many claim that D'Alema caused the collapse of Prodi in order to become Prime Minister himself). This happened by only one vote in the Chamber of Deputies in the vote of a mozione di sfiducia, an act with which either House of Parliament can withdraw its support to the Government (it has been the first and so far the only time such a vote has been called in the history of republican Italy, many Governments having fallen by dimission after the rejection of an important bill, such as the general budget of the State).

President of the European Commission (1999–2004)

Main article: Prodi Commission

File:Ortoli Prodi Barroso Delors.jpg

Prodi with François-Xavier Ortoli, José Manuel Durão Barroso and Jacques Delors

Prodi, a well-known European Union supporter, was appointed on September 1999 as the President of the European Commission, with a large support from both Christian Democrat and Social Democrat European parties. During his presidency, in 2002 eleven EU countries officially adopted the euro as their new currency, replacing a number of national currencies. Successively, in 2004 the European Union was enlarged to several Eastern Europe countries, most of them formerly part of the communist bloc. Prodi's mandate expired 18 November 2004.

Back to Italian politics and second cabinet

Romano Prodi campaigning in Bari for the 2006 general election

See also: Italian general election, 2006 and Prodi II Cabinet

After the end of his time at the Presidency of the European Commission, Prodi returned to Italian politics at the helm of the centre-left coalition, The Union.

In order to officially state his candidacy for the 2006 general election, Prodi agreed to participate in an apposite primary election, held on October 2005, which he won with over 70% of votes. Over four million people for the occasion went to cast a vote in the primary election. He thus led his coalition to the electoral campaign preceding the election, eventually won by a very narrow margin of 25,000 votes, and a final majority of two seats in the Senate, on April 10. Prodi's appointment was somewhat delayed, as the outgoing President of the Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, ended his mandate in May, not having enough time for the usual procedure (consultations made by the President, appointment of a Prime Minister, motion of confidence and oath of office). After the acrimonious election of Giorgio Napolitano to replace Ciampi, Prodi could proceed with his transition to government. On May 16 he was invited by Napolitano to form a government. The following day, Prodi and his cabinet were sworn in.

Romano Prodi and his cabinet were sworn in on 17 May 2006. Prodi's cabinet drew in politicians from across his centre-left winning coalition, in addition to Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, an unelected former official of the European Central Bank with no partisan membership.

Romano Prodi obtained the support for his cabinet on 19 May at the Senate and on 23 May at the Chamber of Deputies. Also on May 18, Prodi laid out some sense of his new foreign policy when he pledged to withdraw Italian troops from Iraq and called the Iraq war a "grave mistake that has not solved but increased the problem of security".

The coalition led by Romano Prodi, thanks to the electoral law which gives the winner a sixty seat majority, can count on a good majority in the Chamber of Deputies but only on a very narrow majority in Senate. The composition of the coalition is very varied, throwing parties of Communist inspiration like "Comunisti Italiani" (Party of Italian Communists) and "Rifondazione Comunista" (Communist Refoundation party) together with parties of Catholic and liberal inspiration, like "Margherita" (Daisy) and "UDEUR" (Democratic Union for Europe), led by Clemente Mastella, a former member of Christian Democratic Party. Therefore, according critics, it is difficult to have a single policy in different key areas, such as economics and foreign politics (for instance, Italian military presence in Afghanistan). In his earlier months as PM, Prodi had a key role in the creation of a multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon following the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.

2007 crisis, resignation and reappointment

Prodi's government faced a crisis over policies in early 2007, after just 9 months of government. Three ministers in Prodi's Cabinet boycotted a vote in January to continue funding for Italian troop deployments in Afghanistan. Lawmakers approved the expansion of the US military base Caserma Ederle at the end of January, but the victory was so narrow that Deputy Prime Minister Francesco Rutelli criticised members of the coalition who had not supported the government. At around the same time, Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, of the coalition member Popular–UDEUR, said he would rather see the government fall than support its gay rights legislation.

Tens of thousands of people marched in Vicenza against the expansion of Caserma Ederle, which saw the participation of some leading radical left members. Harsh debates followed in the Italian Senate on February 20 2007. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Massimo D'Alema declared during an official visit in Ibiza that, without a majority on foreign policy affairs, the government would resign. The following day, D'Alema gave a speech at the Senate representing the government, clarifying his foreign policy and asking the Senate to vote for or against it. In spite of the fear of many senators that Prodi's defeat would return Silvio Berlusconi to power, the Senate did not approve a motion backing Prodi's government foreign policy, two votes shy of the required majority of 160.

After a Government meeting on February 21, Romano Prodi tendered his resignation to the President Giorgio Napolitano, who cut short an official visit to Bologna in order to receive the Prime Minister. Prodi's spokesman indicated that he would only agree to form a new Government "if, and only if, he is guaranteed the full support of all the parties in the majority from now on." On February 22, centre-left coalition party leaders backed a non-negotiable list of twelve political conditions given by Prodi as conditions of his remaining in office. President Napolitano held talks with political leaders on February 23 to decide whether to confirm Prodi's Government, ask Prodi to form a new government or call fresh elections.

Following these talks, on February 24, President Napolitano asked Prodi to remain in office but to submit to a vote of confidence in both houses. "I will seek a vote of confidence as soon as possible, with renewed impetus and a united and determined coalition," Prodi said after meeting with President Giorgio Napolitano. On February 28, the Senate voted to grant confidence to Mr. Prodi's Government. Though facing strong opposition from the center-right coalition, the vote resulted in a 162–157 victory. He then faced a vote of confidence in the lower house on 2 March, which he won as expected with a large majority of 342–198.

See also

• EU enlargement
• Euro launch
• European constitution
• Italian general election, 2006
• Lisbon Agenda
• Prodi Commission

External links

• Personal website
• Olive Tree Coalition website
• Official Site of the President of the European Commission - Includes a curriculum vitae, from which some of the information in this article was drawn

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