Lamberto Dini (born 1 March 1931) was Prime Minister of Italy from 17 January 1995 to 17 May 1996, succeeding Silvio Berlusconi and preceding Romano Prodi. He was a technocratic and centrist head of government, having the backing of the Lega Nord and the leftist parties (apart from the Communist Refoundation Party).
Biography[]
Lamberto Dini was born in Florence, Tuscany, Italy on 1 March 1931, and he studied economics there and at the universities of Michigan and Minnesota. From 1959, he worked at the IMF until he was appointed general director of the country's central bank, the Bank of Italy, in 1979. From 1980 to 1994, he was also a member of the European Currency Commission. In 1994, he joined Silvio Berlusconi's government as Minister for the Treasury. After Berlusconi's failure to cope with the country's central problems of high public spending deficits and corruption, Dini formed a new government of technocrats devoid of any party members on 17 January 1995. He proved surprisingly adept at finding majorities in Parliament despite Berlusconi's bitter opposition. He eventually succeeded in passing a new budget in March 1995 and, more importantly, a pension reform to introduce a new system of benefits by the year 2008. However, he failed in his third goal, the introduction of anti-cartel laws directed against Berlusconi's control of the media, which was rejected in a plebiscite by 57%. Pressure from the established parties forced him to resign, but he became a prominentmember of the Olive Tree government after its victory in the 1996 elections, serving as Foreign Minister from 1996 to 2001.