page_title: Romano Prodi
section_title: After the premiership
hierarchical_section_title: Romano Prodi / After the premiership
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Romano Prodi in Sala Depero a Trento per la Giornata dell'Autonomia 2014.
context_page_description: Romano Prodi OMRI is an Italian politician who served as the 10th President of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He served twice as Prime Minister of Italy, first from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and then from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008. He is considered the founder of the Italian centre-left and one of the most prominent and iconic figures of the so-called Second Republic. Prodi is often nicknamed Il Professore due to his academic career.
  A former professor of economics and international advisor to Goldman Sachs, Prodi ran in 1996 as lead candidate of The Olive Tree coalition, winning the general election and serving as Prime Minister of Italy until 1998. Following the victory of his coalition The Union over the House of Freedoms led by Silvio Berlusconi in the April 2006 Italian elections, Prodi took power again. On 24 January 2008, he lost a vote of confidence in the Senate house and consequently tendered his resignation as Prime Minister to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, but he continued in office for almost four months for routine business, until early elections were held and a new government was formed.
context_section_description: On 19 March 2008, during the political campaign for the snap general election, Romano Prodi stated "I called it a day with Italian politics and maybe with politics in general."
  On 12 September 2008, Prodi was named by the UN as head of a joint AU-UN panel aimed at enhancing peacekeeping operations in Africa.
  On 6 February 2009, he was appointed Professor-at-Large at the Watson Institute for International Studies of Brown University. Since 2010 Romano Prodi is the chair for Sino-European dialogue at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS – Shanghai&Beijing), China's leading business school.
  On 9 October 2012, Romano Prodi was appointed by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as his Special Envoy for the Sahel. He served in that position until 31 January 2014.
  Prodi is also a member of the Club de Madrid, an international organization of former democratic statesmen, which works to strengthen democratic governance and leadership. He is a former member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group.
caption: Prodi in 2014
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D700", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.6.12", "Image DateTime": "2014:09:05 13:02:43", "Image Artist": "NICCOLO' CARANTI", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "NICCOLO' CARANTI", "Image ExifOffset": "318", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "3834", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5672", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1600", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:09:05 11:28:24", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:09:05 11:28:24", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "200", "EXIF SubSecTime": "16", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "16", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "16", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1534", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2157", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "4256", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2832", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3686", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "200", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "2a8903592a999245ade2f5230c63d065"}