Giulio Andreotti

Giulio Andreotti OMI SMOM OCSG OESSH (January 14, 1919 – May 6, 2013) is an Italian politician and statesman who serves as the 41st Prime Minister of Italy (1972–1973, 1976–79 and 1989–92) and leader of the Christian Democracy party; he is the sixth longest-serving Prime Minister since the Italian Unification and the second longest-serving post-war Prime Minister, after Silvio Berlusconi.

Andreotti is widely considered the most powerful and prominent politician of the so-called First Republic.

Beginning as a protégé of Alcide De Gasperi, Andreotti achieves cabinet rank at a young age and occupies all the major offices of state over the course of a forty-year political career, being seen as a reassuring figure by the civil service, business community, and Vatican.

In foreign policy, he guides Italy's European Union integration and establishes closer relations with the Arab world.

Admirers of Andreotti sees him as having mediated political and social contradictions, enabling the transformation of a substantially rural country into the world's fifth-biggest economy.

Critics say he has done nothing to challenge a system of patronage that had led to pervasive corruption.

Andreotti staunchly supports the Vatican and a capitalist structure, while opposing the Italian Communist Party.

Following the popular Italian sentiment of the time, Andreotti also supports the development of a strong European community playing host to neo-liberal economics.

Though Andreotti belongs to the right-wing, he is not averse to the implementation of the European Social Fund and Regional Fund in building the European economy.

At the height of his prestige as a statesman, Andreotti is subjected to damaging criminal prosecutions.

Charged with colluding with Cosa Nostra, courts cannot prove that he has maintained his links with them after 1980, and rules the case out of time.[

The most sensational allegation comes from prosecutors in Perugia, who charge him with ordering the murder of a journalist.

He is found guilty at a trial, which lead to complaints that the justice system has "gone mad".

After being acquitted of all charges (actually, in part due to statute-barred limitations), Andreotti remarks, "Apart from the Punic Wars, for which I was too young, I have been blamed for everything that's happened in Italy."

Andreotti serves in numerous ministerial positions, including as Minister of the Interior (1954 and 1978), Minister of Finance (1955–58), Minister of Treasury (1958–59), Minister of Defense (1959–66 and 1974), Minister of Budget and Economic Planning (1974–76) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1983–89) and is a Senator for life from 1991 until his death in 2013.

He is also a journalist and author.

Andreotti is sometimes called Divo Giulio (from Latin Divus Iulius, "Divine Julius", an epithet of Julius Caesar after his posthumous deification).

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