Alcide De Gasperi: la stagione del centrismo

The article reconstructs the main stages of the government action of Alcide De Gasperi, focusing in particular on its action in foreign policy. The experience of a man born and lived in a border region, in a population that constituted a national minority in the State in which it was incorporated, develops a strong autonomous sensitivity in De Gasperi, teaching him to enhance autonomy as a defense tool from the centralist state and at the same time rejecting the opposing nationalisms. His cultural education contributed decisively to make him a citizen of the world. In the last years of his life, De Gasperi devoted great energy to the European cause. At the start of the European unification process, he sees the limits of functional integration and strongly supports the creation of a European political community, as a framework in which to insert the nascent communities.