Wasting no time, the leaders of the 15 members of the European Union last week nominated former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi to be the new president of the European Commission. Mr. Prodi replaces Mr. Jacques San ter, who resigned March 15 along with the 19 other commission ers after an independent report slammed the commission for serious mismanagement and fraud. On paper, Mr. Prodi is the right man for the job. Success will depend on more than his ef forts, however. The commission's shortcomings reflect indi vidual flaws and institutional failures. For all the complaints about its performance, it is still unclear whether EU member states are prepared to remedy those defects.

Mr. Prodi's nomination came as no surprise: He was the front-runner from the time Mr. Santer's resignation was imminent. His credentials are impressive. For 28 months he headed a center-left coalition government that included communists. During that period, he delivered what many people thought was impossible: He righted the Italian economy, reducing the government deficit from 6.7 percent of GDP to 3 percent and tamed inflation. His efforts allowed Italy to meet the tough criteria for European Monetary Union when it went into effect Jan. 1 this year.

A technocrat, Mr. Prodi also has a reputation as a reformer who carried out some big privatizations during his tenure. Just as important are the managerial skills that allowed him to keep his fractious coalition together for nearly two and a half years, making it the second-longest lived government in Italy's postwar history.