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{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2012}}
{{Infobox Prime Minister 
| name               = Alcide De Gasperi
| image              = Alcide de Gasperi 2.jpg
| order              = [[List of Prime Ministers of Italy|30th]] <br> [[Prime Minister of Italy]]
| monarch            = [[Victor Emmanuel III of Italy|Victor Emmanuel III]]<br>[[Umberto II of Italy|Umberto II]]
| president    	     = [[Enrico De Nicola]] <br> [[Luigi Einaudi]]
| term_start         = 10 December 1945 
(contracted; show full)4) was an Italian statesman and politician and founder of the [[Democrazia Cristiana|Christian Democratic Party]]. From 1945 to 1953 he was the prime minister of eight successive coalition governments. His eight-year term in office remains a landmark of political longevity for a leader in modern Italian politics.  A conservative Catholic, he was one of the [[Founding fathers of the European Union]], along with the [[France|Frenchman]] [[Robert Schuman]] and the West German Chancellor [[Konrad Adenauer]].


==Biography==

===Early years===
De Gasperi was born in [[Pieve Tesino]] in [[County of Tyrol|Tyrol]], which at that time belonged to [[Austria-Hungary]], now part of the [[Trentino]] in Italy. His father was a local police officer of limited financial means. From 1896 De Gasperi was active in the Social Christian movement. In 1900 he joined the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy in [[Vienna]], where he played an important role in the inception of the Christian student movement. He was very much inspired by the [[Rerum Novarum]] [[encyc(contracted; show full)are del Trentino}} – UPPT) in the [[Austria]]n [[Reichsrat (Austria)|Reichsrat]], a post he held for 6 years. He was politically neutral during World War I, which he spent in [[Vienna]]. However, he sympathized with the ultimately unsuccessful efforts of [[pope Benedict XV]] (1914–1922) and [[beatification|Bl.]] [[Karl I of Austria]] to obtain an honourable peace and stop the war and mass warfare. When his home region was transferred to Italy in the post-war settlement, he accepted Italian citizenship.

==
=Opposing Fascism===
In 1919 he was among of the founders of the [[Italian People's Party (1919-1926)|Italian People's Party]] ({{lang-it|Partito Popolare Italiano}} – PPI), with Don [[Luigi Sturzo]]. He served as a deputy in the Italian Parliament from 1921 to 1924, a period marked by the rise of [[Italian fascism|Fascism]]. He initially supported the participation of the PPI in [[Benito Mussolini]]’s first government in October 1922.

As Mussolini's hold on the Italian government grew stronger, he soon diverged with the Fascists over constitutional changes to the powers of the executive and to the election system (the [[Acerbo Law]]), and to Fascist violence against the constitutional parties, culminating in the murder of [[Giacomo Matteotti]]. The PPI split, and De Gasperi became secretary of the remaining anti-Fascist group in May 1924. In November 1926, in a climate of overt violence and intimidation by the Fascists, the PPI was dissolved.

De Gasperi was arrested in March 1927 and sentenced to four years in prison. The [[Holy See|Vatican]] negotiated his release. A year and a half in prison nearly broke De Gasperi's health. After his release in July 1928, he was unemployed and in serious financial hardship, until in 1929 his ecclesiastical contacts secured him a job as a cataloguer in the Vatican Library, where he spent the next fourteen years until the collapse of Fascism in July 1943.

===Founding the Christian Democrat Party===
During World War II, he organized the establishment of the first (and at the time, illegal) Christian Democracy party, or ''[[Democrazia Cristiana]]'', drawing upon the ideology of the Popular Party. In January 1943, he published "Ideas for reconstruction" ({{lang-it|Idee ricostruttive}}) which amounted to a party programme for the party. He became the first general secretary of the new party in 1944.

De Gasperi was the undisputed head of the Christian Democrats, the party that dominated Parliament for the next decades. Although his control of the DC appeared almost complete, he had to carefully balance of different factions and interests, especially over relations with the Vatican, over social reform, and over foreign policy.

===Prime Minister===
From 1945 to 1953 he was the prime minister of eight successive Christian Democratic governments. His eight-year rule remains a landmark of political longevity for one leader in modern Italian politics. During his successive governments Italy became a Republic (1946), signed a Peace Treaty with the Allies (1947), a member of the [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization]] (NATO) in 1949 and an ally of the United States, which helped to revive the Italian economy through the [[Marshall Plan]]. In the same years,(contracted; show full)

One his most striking achievements in foreign policy was the [[Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement]] with Austria in September 1946 that established his home region, southern Tirol, as an autonomous region.


In domestic policy, a number of social security reforms were carried out. A law of 27 February 1947 implemented the first post-war regulation of rents, with all rents of economic/popular housing frozen and subject to state control; with minor changes, regulations were effective until a Fair Rent Law of 1978. A law of 28 February 1949 launched a seven-year plan for popular housing to increase the stock of economic housing by means of construction or purchase of economic accommodation. The law also established a special housing fund (INA-Casa) within the National Institute for Insurance (Istituto Nazionale delle Assicurazioni, or INA). A law of 29 July 1947 established a Fund For Social Solidarity within INPS in order to pay graduated supplementary allowances to all pensions, compensating for inflation. A law of 29 April 1949 introduced new provisions for unemployment insurance and labour policy. A Central Commission for Work Training and Assistance for the Unemployed was set up with the task of monitoring the state of the labour market and the conditions of the unemployed, while regulations concerning the replacement of the unemployed into the labour market (collocamento) were introduced. Provincial offices for Labour and Full Employment were also established, with local sections, which organized waiting lists, training courses, and the allocation of available jobs, amongst other services. Unemployment indemnity was increased to Lit. 200 per day (approximately 17% of the average gross industrial wage for 1949) and its duration was extended from 120 t 180 days. Unemployment insurance was extended to agricultural workers, and a special unemployment benefit (sussidio straordinario di disoccupazione) was introduced, paid under exceptional circumstances; flat-rate benefit with ad hoc determined level for 90 to 180 days. Vocational training and professional requalification programmes for the unemployed were also introduced, along with a Fund for Professional Training of Workers.<ref>Growth to Limits: The Western European Welfare States Since World War II Volume 4 edited by Peter Flora</ref>

A law of 28 July 1950 extended compulsory pension insurance to employees earning over Lit. 1,500 per month or approximately 6%of the average gross industrial wage for 1950 (previously, social insurance was compulsory only for employees earning less than this amount). A law of July 1949 introduced broad tax exemptions and increased state subsidies for the construction of economic housing. A law of 10 August 1950 established a fund for the increase of housing stock, known as the “Fondo per l’Incremento Edilizio, which grants cheap loans to private builders. A law of 12 August 1947 extended earnings replacement benefits to cover temporary unemployment. A law of 29 April 1949 introduced new provisions for unemployment insurance and labour policy. A Central Commission for Work Training and Assistance for the Unemployed was established with the task of monitoring the state of the labour market and the conditions of the unemployed. A law of 15 November 1952 increased the number of occupational diseases for which insurance benefits were payable. A law of 8 July 1952 introduced “aggiunte di famiglia, a monthly flat-rate sum for all categories of state employees. A law of 23 March 1948 established the National Institute For Assistance Of The Orphans Of Italian Workers. A law of 23 March 1948 established the National Institute For Italian Pensioners, providing benefits and services for needy pensioners.<ref>Growth to Limits: The Western European Welfare States Since World War II Volume 4 edited by Peter Flora</ref>==Social security reform==
{{main|Social security reforms under Alcide De Gasperi}}⏎


===American support===
De Gasperi enjoyed considerable support in the US, where he was seen as the man who could oppose the rising tide of Communism – in particular the PCI, which was the biggest communist party in a Western European democracy. In January 1947 he visited the US. The chief goals of the trip were to soften the terms of the pending peace treaty with Italy, and to obtain immediate economic assistance. His ten-day tour, engineered by media mogul [[Henry Luce]] – the owner of [[Time Magazine]] – and his wife [[Clare B(contracted; show full) Italy. He also came back with useful information on the incipient change in American foreign policy that would lead to the Cold War and in Italy the break with the Communists and left-wing Socialists and their removal from the government in the [[May 1947 crisis]].<ref>[http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=ies The Italian Stabilization of 1947: Domestic and International Factors], by Juan Carlos Martinez Oliva, Institute of European Studies, 2007</ref>

==
=1948 elections===
{{main|Italian general election, 1948}}
The [[Italian general election, 1948|general elections in April 1948]] were heavily influenced by the cold-war confrontation between the [[Soviet Union]] and the United States. After the Soviet-inspired February 1948 communist coup in [[Czechoslovakia]], the US became alarmed about Soviet intentions and feared that, if the leftist coalition were to win the elections, the Soviet-funded [[Italian Communist Party]] (PCI) would draw Italy into the Soviet Union's sph(contracted; show full) McCormick|Anne McCormick]]. "He seems to be feeling his way among the explosive problems he has to deal with, but perhaps this wary mine-detecting method is the stabilizing force that holds the country in balance."<ref>New York Times, 16 February 1949, quoted in [http://www.arts.mun.ca/congrips/newsletter/61%20-%20Fall%202005.pdf De Gasperi through American Eyes: Media and Public Opinion, 1945–53], by Steven F. White, in: Italian Politics and Society, No.61 Fall/Winter 2005</ref>

==
=Death and legacy===
In 1952, the party overwhelmingly endorsed his authority over the government and over the party. However, it was also the start of his decline. He came under increasing criticism from the emerging left wing in the party. Their main accusations were that he was too cautious in social and economic reform, that he stifled debate, and that he subordinated the party to the interests of government.

(contracted; show full)[[Category:Italian journalists]]
[[Category:Italian philologists]]
[[Category:Cold War leaders]]
[[Category:Italian anti-communists]]
[[Category:Grand Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany]]
[[Category:Burials at San Lorenzo fuori le Mura]]
[[Category:Servants of God]]
[[Category:20th-century venerated Christians]]