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Onorevole  Romano Prodi
75th and 79th President of the Council of Ministers of Italy
Incumbent
Assumed office  17 May 2006
President	Giorgio Napolitano
Deputy	Massimo D'Alema Francesco Rutelli
Preceded by	Silvio Berlusconi
In office 17 May 1996 – 21 October 1998
President	Oscar Luigi Scalfaro
Deputy	Walter Veltroni
Preceded by	Lamberto Dini
Succeeded by	Massimo D'Alema
Italian Minister of Industry , Commerce and Craftsmanship
In office 25 November 1978 – 20 March 1979
Prime Minister	Giulio Andreotti
Preceded by	Carlo Donat-Cattin
Succeeded by	Franco Nicolazzi
President of the European Commission
In office 16 September 1999 – 30 October 2004
Preceded by	Manuel Marin
Succeeded by	José Manuel Barroso
Member of the Chamber of deputies
Incumbent
Assumed office  21 April 2006
Constituency	XI - Emilia Romagna
Born	09 August 1939 (1939-08-09) (age 68) Scandiano, Italy
Political party	PD
Spouse	Flavia Franzoni
Children	Giorgio Prodi Antonio Prodi
Residence	Palazzo Chigi, Rome
Alma mater	Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Profession	Economist University professor
Religion	Roman Catholic

Romano Prodi (help·info) (born 9 August 1939) is an Italian politician and statesman. Since May 17, 2006, he has served as President of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) of Italy following the victory of his The Union coalition over the House of Freedoms (Casa delle Libertà) 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.

Since October 14, 2007, he's also the first President of the newborn Democratic Party.

Contents 1 Personal 2 Academic career 3 Politics 3.1 Beginnings 3.2 Olive Tree and first cabinet (1996-1998) 3.3 President of the European Commission (1999–2004) 3.4 Prodi's return to Italian politics and his second government 3.4.1 2007 crisis, resignation and reappointment 3.5 Democratic Party 4 See also 5 Notes 6 External links

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, an elementary school teacher. He has six brothers, five of them being like him university professors (one of whom Vittorio Prodi is also a Member of the European Parliament), 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 cardinal.^[1][2] They have two sons, Giorgio and Antonio. He and his family still live in Bologna.

After completing his secondary education at the Liceo Ludovico Ariosto in Reggio Emilia, Prodi graduated in law at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan in 1961, with a thesis on the role of Protectionism in the development of Italian industry. He then carried out postgraduate studies at the London School of Economics.^[3]

In 1963, he became a teaching assistant for Beniamino Andreatta in the Department of Economics and the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Bologna, subsequently serving as associate professor (1966) and finally (1971-1999) as Professor 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.

Prodi's political career began as a left-of-centre reformist Christian Democrat and a disciple of Beniamino Andreatta, another economist turned politician. During the mid-1970s he was appointed Minister of Industry. During Giulio Andreotti's government in 1978 he served as a Technical Minister; through the 1980s and early 1990s he continuously served various government committees.

On April 2, 1978, Prodi and other teachers at the University of Bologna passed on a tip-off that revealed the whereabouts of the safe house where the kidnapped Aldo Moro, the former Prime Minister, was being held captive by the Brigate Rosse Red Brigades. Prodi claimed he had been given this tip-off by the founders of the Christian Democratic Party, contacted from beyond the grave via a séance and a Ouija board. Whilst during this supposed séance Prodi thought the word Gradoli referred to a town on the outskirts of Rome, it probably referred to the Roman address of a Red Brigades safe house, located at no. 96, Via Gradoli. Later, other Italian members of the European Commission claimed Prodi had invented this story to conceal the real source of the tip-off, which they believed to have originated somewhere among the far-left Italian political groups.^[4]

From 1982-1989 and 1993-1994 Prodi, an expert economist and negotiator, was CEO of the powerful state-owned industrial holding company IRI. Though in this position he twice came under investigation - firstly for an alleged conflict of interest in relation to contracts awarded to his own economic research company, and secondly concerning 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 - however he was fully acquitted on both counts.

See also: Italian general election, 1996 and Olive Tree

In 1995 Prodi created and became Leader of the centre-left Olive Tree coalition, and in the 1996 Italian general election he defeated Silvio Berlusconi and his Pole of Freedoms coalition. This led to his nomination as President of the Council of Ministers, as the position of Prime Minister is usually called in Italy. His program consisted in continuing the past governments' work of restoration of the country's economic health, also in order to pursue the then-seeming-unreachable goal of leading the country within the strict European Monetary System parameters and contextually make the country join the Euro. He succeed in this in mere little over six months. This government fell in 1998 when the Communist Refoundation Party withdrew its support. This led to the formation of a new government led by Massimo D'Alema as Prime Minister; there are those who claim that D'Alema deliberately engineered the collapse of the Prodi government so as to become Prime Minister himself (such speculations being the very stuff of Italian politics). As the result of a vote of a no confidence in Prodi's government, D'Alema's nomination was passed by a single vote. This was the first and so far, the only occasion in the history of republican Italy on which a vote of no confidence had ever been called; the Republic's many previous governments had been brought down by a majority "no" vote on some crucially important piece of legislation (such as the budget).

Main article: Prodi Commission

In September 1999 Prodi, a prominent pro-European, became President of the European Commission, thanks to the support of both the Christian Democrat and the Social Democratic parties in the European Parliament. It was during Prodi's presidency, in 2002,that eleven EU member states abandoned their national currencies and adopted the Euro as their single currency; and in 2004, still during Prodi's presidency, the EU was enlarged to admit several more countries, most of them formerly part of the Soviet bloc. Prodi's mandate expired on the 18 November 2004, whereupon he returned to domestic politics.

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

Shortly before the end of his term as President of the European Commission, Prodi returned to national Italian politics at the helm of the centre-left coalition, The Union.

Having no party of his own, in order to officially state his candidacy for the 2006 general election, Prodi ideated an apposite primary election, the first of such kind to be ever introduced in Europe and seen as his creator (Prodi himself) as a democratic move to bring the public and it's opinion closer to the italian politics, 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".^[5]

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 the 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.

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.^[6]

Tens of thousands of people marched in Vicenza against the expansion of Caserma Ederle, which saw the participation of some leading radical left members.^[7] 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, Spain 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.^[8]

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."^[9] 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.^[10]

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.^[11][10] "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.^[12] On February 28, the Senate voted to grant confidence to 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.^[13]

On October 14, 2007, following a dozen years long process strongly desired and led by Prodi himself of a merging of the two main italian center-left parties (Democrats of the Left and Daisy) plus a large civic participation, the new largest center-left italian Democratic Party is born following its first primaries election.

Since then, Romano Prodi serves as first President of the party.

• Enlargement of the European Union
• Euro launch
• European constitution
• Italian general election, 2006
• Lisbon Agenda
• Prodi Commission

• Personal website
• Democratic Party 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

Political offices
Preceded by Carlo Donat-Cattin	Italian Minister of Industry , Commerce and Craftsmanship 1978 - 1979	Succeeded by Franco Nicolazzi
Preceded by Lamberto Dini	Prime Minister of Italy 1996 – 1998	Succeeded by Massimo D'Alema
Preceded by Manuel Marín	President of the European Commission 1999 - 2004	Succeeded by José Manuel Barroso
Preceded by Silvio Berlusconi	Prime Minister of Italy 2006 – present	Incumbent
Assembly seats
Preceded by Title jointly held	Member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies 2006 - present	Incumbent
Order of precedence
Preceded by Fausto Bertinotti President of the italian Chamber of Deputies	Italian order of precedence Prime Minister of Italy	Succeeded by Franco Bile President of the italian Constitutional Court
Party political offices
Preceded by New Party	President of the Democratic Party 2007 - present	Incumbent

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v • d • e European Council

President: Sócrates (PT) · Gusenbauer (AT) · Verhofstadt (BE) · Stanishev (BG) · Topolánek (CZ) · Papadopoulos (CY) · Merkel (DE) · Rasmussen (DK) · Ansip (ET) · Vanhanen (FI) · Sarkozy (FR) · Karamanlis (GR) · Gyurcsány (HU) · Ahern (IE) · Prodi (IT) · Godmanis (LV) · Kirkilas (LT) · Juncker (LU) · Gonzi (MT) · Balkenende (NL) · Tusk (PL) · Popescu-Tăriceanu (RO) · Fico (SK) · Janša (SI) · Zapatero (ES) · Reinfeldt (SE) · Brown (GB) · Barroso (EC)

v • d • e G8 Leaders
Stephen Harper · Nicolas Sarkozy · Angela Merkel · Romano Prodi · Yasuo Fukuda · Vladimir Putin · Gordon Brown · George Bush

v • d • e Prodi I Cabinet (1996-1998)
Veltroni | Dini | Napolitano | Ciampi | Visco | Andreatta | Flick | Bersani | Pinto | Berlinguer | Bindi | Treu | Di Pietro | Costa | Burlando | Ronchi | Maccanico | Fantozzi | Bassanini | Turco | Finocchiaro | Bogi

v • d • e Prodi II Cabinet (2006 - present)
D'Alema | Rutelli | Amato | Padoa-Schioppa | Parisi | Mastella | Bersani | De Castro | Fioroni | Mussi | Turco | Damiano | Ferrero | Di Pietro | Bianchi | Pecoraro Scanio | Gentiloni | Bonino | Chiti | Nicolais | Lanzillotta | Santagata | Pollastrini | Melandri | Bindi

v • d • e European Commission Presidents and their Commissions

ECSC: Jean Monnet (1952) • René Mayer (1955) • Paul Finet (1958) • Piero Malvestiti (1959) • Rinaldo Del Bo (1963) • Albert Coppé (1963) EAEC: Louis Armand (1958) • Étienne Hirsch (1959) • Pierre Chatenet (1962) EEC: Walter Hallstein (1958)2 EC: Jean Rey (1967) • Franco Maria Malfatti (1970) • Sicco Mansholt (1972) • François-Xavier Ortoli (1973) • Roy Jenkins (1977) • Gaston Thorn (1981) • Jacques Delors (1985)2 EU: Jacques Delors (1993) • Jacques Santer (1995) • Manuel Marín (1999) • Romano Prodi (1999) • José Manuel Barroso (2004)

Persondata
NAME	Prodi, Romano
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Politician
DATE OF BIRTH	August 9, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH	Scandiano, Italy
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH