Editing Romano Prodi (section)

==First term as Prime Minister (1996–1998)==
On 25 May 1994, Prodi went to Palazzo Chigi to announce his resignation as IRI President to the new Prime Minister [[Silvio Berlusconi]];<ref>[http://archivio.corriere.it/Archivio/interface/landing.html Quel summit Prodi-Berlusconi]</ref> the resignation had been formalised on 31 May and became effective on 22 July.<ref>[http://archivio.corriere.it/Archivio/interface/landing.html Iri, comincia il dopo Prodi]</ref>

On 11 August, Prodi announced to the ''[[Gazzetta di Reggio]]'' of his intent to enter politics.<ref>[http://archivio.corriere.it/Archivio/interface/landing.html Prodi: "Pronto a lavorare per il Centro"]</ref> A few months earlier, Prodi had rejected a proposal from the [[Italian People's Party (1994)|Italian People's Party]] (PPI) to run for the [[1994 European Parliament election in Italy|1994 European election]].<ref>[http://archivio.corriere.it/Archivio/interface/landing.html Europee, si candidano tutti i leader]</ref>

===The Olive Tree and 1996 election===
{{see also|1996 Italian general election|The Olive Tree (Italy)|Prodi I Cabinet}}
[[File:Romano Prodi 1996.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Prodi during the electoral campaign in 1996]]
On 13 February 1995 Prodi, along with his close friend [[Arturo Parisi]], founded his political alliance [[The Olive Tree (Italy)|The Olive Tree]].<ref>[http://archivio.corriere.it/Archivio/interface/landing.html E Berlusconi prepara un "contratto con gli Italiani"]</ref> Prodi's aim was to build a centre-left coalition composed by centrist and leftist parties, opposed to the centre-right alliance led by Silvio Berlusconi, who resigned from the office of prime minister few weeks before, when [[Lega Nord]] withdrew his support to the government. The movement was immediately supported by [[Mariotto Segni]], leader of the centrist [[Segni Pact]]; after few weeks the post-communist [[Democratic Party of the Left]] of [[Massimo D'Alema]], the PPI and the [[Federation of the Greens]] also joined the Olive Tree coalition.

On 19 February 1996, the outgoing Prime Minister [[Lamberto Dini]] announced that he would run in the election with a new party called [[Italian Renewal]], allied with Prodi's Olive Tree rather than Berlusconi's [[Pole for Freedoms]]. Shortly after, Berlusconi claimed that Dini "copied his electoral programme".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://cronologia.leonardo.it/storia/a1996a2.htm |title=Cronoligia, anno 1996 – Mese di Febbraio |access-date=3 May 2017 |archive-date=8 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208075245/http://cronologia.leonardo.it/storia/a1996a2.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

On election day, Prodi's Olive Tree coalition won over Berlusconi's Pole for Freedoms, becoming the first coalition composed of a post-communist party to win a general election since the [[Second World War]]. In the Senate, The Olive Tree obtained the majority; in the Chamber, it required the external support of [[Communist Refoundation Party]]. On 17 May 1996, Prodi received from President [[Oscar Luigi Scalfaro]] the task of forming a new government.<ref>[http://www.repubblica.it/online/fatti/rifondazione/prodi/prodi.html La storia del governo Prodi]</ref> He ultimately formed a [[Prodi I Cabinet|23-member cabinet]] that included 16 PDS ministers (including Deputy Prime Minister [[Walter Veltroni]]) and 10 PDS junior ministers–the first (former) Communists to take part in government in half a century.

===Policies===
Prodi's economic programme consisted in continuing the past governments' work of restoration of the country's economic health, in order to pursue the then seemingly unreachable goal of leading the country within the strict [[European Monetary System]] parameters in order to allow the country to join the [[Euro]] currency. He succeeded in this in little more than six months.

During his first premiership, Prodi faced the [[1997 Albanian civil unrest]]; his government proposed the so-called [[Operation Alba]] ("Sunrise"), a multinational peacekeeping force sent to [[Albania]] in 1997 and led by [[Italy]]. It was intended to help the Albanian government restore law and order in their troubled country after the [[1997 rebellion in Albania]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.un.int/slovenia/pk-alba.html |title=Operation Alba |access-date=8 May 2017 |archive-date=21 October 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081021051920/http://www.un.int/slovenia/pk-alba.html |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref>

[[File:Defense.gov News Photo 980507-D-2987S-047.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Prodi with [[United States Secretary of Defence]] [[William Cohen]]]]
Following the degenerating loss of administrative control by the Government in the first days of March 1997, culminating in the desertion of most Police and many Republican Guard and Army units, leaving their armouries open to the inevitable looting which soon followed, several Nations autonomously helped evacuate their Nationals in [[Operation Silver Wake]] and [[Operation Libelle]].

The [[UN Security Council]] therefore agreed the [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 1101]] as a stop-gap operation to manage this and buy time, laying the foundations for a planned reconstruction, which after six weeks of debate fell to the [[Western European Union]], creating the Multinational Albanian Police Element around a command structure of Italian [[Carabinieri]], which actually undertook the work of Judicial and Police reconstruction, extending into the elimination of the economic causes of the crisis.

The Italian [[3rd Army Corps (Italy)|3rd Army Corps]] assumed responsibility for the stop-gap mission as Operation Alba, the first multinational Italian-led Mission since World War II. Eleven contributing European Nations<ref>{{cite book|last= Colonel Marchio|first= Riccardo|url=http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA378201|title= "Operation Alba": A European Approach to Peace Support Operations in the Balkans|year= 2000 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130723175151/http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA378201| url-status= dead| archive-date= 23 July 2013|page= iii}} "This operation, in which 11 European countries took part"</ref> brought humanitarian aid to a country that was in a dramatic economic and political situation.<ref>NATO, [http://www.nato.int/nrdc-it/about/emblem.htm NRDC-IT Emblem], accessed November 2011</ref> In 1997, Prodi declared that "the problem of the safety of the country seems to be no longer one of external safety, but an internal one: the safety of [[citizen]]s in their everyday life".<ref>{{Cite book|title= Crime and Security | author1=  Benjamin Goold |publisher= Taylor & Francis |year=2017 |isbn= 9781351570732 | pages=399}}</ref>

===Resignation===
Prodi's government fell in 1998 when the [[Communist Refoundation Party]] withdrew its external support. This led to the formation of a [[D'Alema I Cabinet|new government]] led by [[Massimo D'Alema]] as prime minister. There are those who claim that D'Alema, along with People's Party leader [[Franco Marini]], deliberately engineered the collapse of the Prodi government to become prime minister himself.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/2001/maggio/29/Marini_cosi_Alema_facemmo_cadere_co_0_0105295076.shtml|title=Così io e D'Alema facemmo cadere Prodi|date=May 2001}}</ref> As the result of a vote of no confidence in Prodi's government, D'Alema's nomination was passed by a single vote. This was the first occasion in the history of the Italian Republic 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).