However, the fall of the Prodi government a few days after the publication of this article has left the future of Italy-Pacific Islands relations potentially uncertain.

Although the region has a center-right local government, at the April 2006 elections, Molise gave 50. 5 % of its votes to Romano Prodi of the centre-to-left Olive Tree party.

The site's two major wafer fabs are * an 8 inch ( 200 mm ) fab, opened in April 1997 by Romano Prodi, president of the Italian council and a 12 inch ( 300 mm ) fab that has never been completed and which was transferred in its current state to Numonyx in 2008.

He has two sisters and six brothers, five of them being like him university professors ( one of whom, Vittorio Prodi, is also a Member of the European Parliament ; see also Giorgio Prodi, an oncologist and biosemiotician ).

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

Also on 18 May, 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 ".

He has met and talked personally to leading foreign politicians, including U. S. presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, European Commission President Romano Prodi, NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson, and several influential US senators and congressmen.

The Mitrokhin Commission has been discredited following a manipulation by a network to defame Prime minister Romano Prodi and other political opponents of Berlusconi, by claiming they worked for the KGB.

During the 5th Congress of the Italian Radicals ( held in Padova, November 2 – 5, 2006 ), Capezzone has been harshly challenged by many Radical leaders, because of his criticism to the Prodi II Cabinet ( mostly stigmatized from Minister of European Politics and International Trade, Emma Bonino ) and for an alleged personalistic management of the movement, which allegedly caused a worsening of the economical condition of the party.

In Italy, Gino Strada has taken increasingly critical positions against the Italian governments led by Romano Prodi first, and by Silvio Berlusconi in the most recent years, because of their perceived shortcomings.

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.

As well as the enlargement and Amsterdam Treaty, the Prodi Commission also saw the signing and enforcement of the Treaty of Nice as well as the conclusion and signing of the European Constitution: in which he introduced the " Convention method " of negotiation.

He also worked on behalf of Romano Prodi in his successful bid for Prime Minister of Italy in 2006.

As well as the enlargement and Amsterdam Treaty, the Prodi Commission also saw the signing and enforcement of the Nice Treaty as well as the conclusion and signing of the European Constitution: in which he introduced the " Convention method " of negotiation.

However, Prodi contested the deliberation of this Committee, which allowed Berlusconi to also hold a final televised speech after the debates as Prime Minister.

Romano Prodi, Mario Baldassarri, and Alberto Clò, of the faculty of the University of Bologna passed on a tip about a safe-house where the BR might have been holding Moro on April 2.

Prodi claimed he had been given the tip by the founders of the Christian Democrats, from beyond the grave in a séance and a Ouija board, which gave the names of Viterbo, Bolsena and Gradoli.

Prodi claimed he had been given this tip-off by the founders of the Christian Democracy party, contacted from beyond the grave via a séance and a Ouija board.

Prodi himself led the merger of the two parties, which had been planned over a twelve-year period, and became the first President of the party.

After the sudden fall of Prodi II Cabinet on 24 January 2008, the break-up of The Union coalition and the subsequent political crisis paving the way towards a new general election, Berlusconi hinted on 25 January that Forza Italia would have probably contested its last election and the new party would have been officially founded only after that election.

Barnier served as a European Commissioner for regional policy in the Prodi Commission from 1999 until 31 March 2004 having been made the Foreign Minister of France in the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

In April 2006, Batten stated that a London constituent and former FSB agent, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Litvinenko, had been told that Italian Prime Minister and former President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, had been the KGB's " man in Italy ", demanding an inquiry into the allegations.

Batten told the European Parliament that Litvinenko had been warned by FSB deputy chief General Anatoly Trofimov that there were numerous KGB agents among Italian politicians, and that " Romano Prodi is our man in Italy ".

The Commission, closed in March 2006 without producing a final report, was very controversial, in particular after claiming that Romano Prodi, at that time Prime minister of Italy, and former President of the European Commission, had been " KGB's man in Italy.

Prodi, however, said he would accept only if certain rules had been set.

Prodi refused to participate in any debate until this final speech had been cancelled.

Some observers commented that Berlusconi had been disappointing in this debate, scribbling nervously while he was talking and at a point confusing Iran and Iraq ; while all politicians claimed their candidate had won the debate, it was generally agreed that Berlusconi had not dealt a strong blow to Prodi.

It had been foreseen an easy win for Romano Prodi, with the other candidates running mostly to " measure their strengths " in the coalition, and they often talked about reaching a certain percentage rather than winning.

Clemente Mastella claimed, already on the election day, that too few ballots had been provided in areas where his party is stronger, and that several pre-marked voting papers, pre-marked with votes for Prodi, have been prepared in order to let him lose.

Some notable visiting scholars have been the sociologist Shmuel N. Eisenstadt ( 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001 ), the sociologist Toby Huff ( 2000 ), the indologist Sheldon Pollock ( 2001 ), the historian Paolo Prodi ( 2007-2008 ), the historian Dan T. Carter ( 2009 ), and the sociologist Paul Lichterman ( 2009 ).

Following the 2004 Summer Olympics, President Romano Prodi pointed out that the combined medal total of the European Union was far greater than that of any other country and called for EU athletes to fly the European flag at the following games alongside their own as a sign of solidarity ( which did not happen ).

Göran Persson ( center ) with George W. Bush and Romano Prodi at Gunnebo Slott near Gothenburg, Sweden, 14 June 2001.

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.

On 2 April 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 Red Brigades.

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.

Romano Prodi ( right ) with Göran Persson and George W. Bush at Gunnebo Slott near Gothenburg, Sweden, 14 June 2001.

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

Romano Prodi ( second from the right ) at the 33rd G8 summit | Helligendamm G8 Summit, 6 – 8 June 2007.

Romano Prodi obtained the support for his cabinet on 19 May at the Senate and on 23 May at the Chamber of Deputies.

Former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi claimed under oath that, in a séance held in 1978 with other professors at the University of Bologna, the " ghost " of Giorgio La Pira spelled the name of the street where Aldo Moro was being held by the Red Brigades in a Ouija.

Due to her support of the government of Romano Prodi, she was often criticized by some right-wing senators, who accused her of " saving " the government when the government's exiguous majority in the Senate was at risk.

Italy's highly fragmented party system made it hard to identify an overall trend, but the results were generally seen as a defeat for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and a victory for the centre-left opposition coalition identified with Romano Prodi, who was President of the European Commission until 2004, and was widely expected to re-enter Italian politics at the next election.

A fifth major split happened at the end of January 2008 when Bruno Tabacci and Mario Baccini left the party because Casini seemed eager to re-join Berlusconi for the upcoming election, after that the Prodi II Cabinet had not passed through a vote of confidence.

George W. Bush, Bertie Ahern, and Romano Prodi at their joint press conference at the Castle in 2004.

The Prodi Commission was due to end its mandate at the end of October 2004, so following the 2004 elections to the Sixth European Parliament, candidates for Commission President began to be considered.