Members of the European Parliament by Position: Presidents of the European Parliament, Paul-Henri Spaak, Alcide de Gasperi, Robert Schuman

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 115. Not illustrated. Chapters: Presidents of the European Parliament, Paul-Henri Spaak, Alcide de Gasperi, Robert Schuman, President of the European Parliament, Mario Scelba, Jerzy Buzek, Simone Veil, Alain Poher, Hans-Gert Pottering, Josep Borrell, Pierre Pflimlin, Pat Cox, Giuseppe Pella, Henry Plumb, Baron Plumb, Emilio Colombo, Hans Furler, Enrique Baron Crespo, Nicole Fontaine, Egon Klepsch, Piet Dankert, Jose Maria Gil-Robles, Walter Behrendt, Klaus Hansch, Victor Leemans, Gaetano Martino, Jean Duvieusart, Cornelis Berkhouwer, Georges Spenale. Excerpt: Alcide De Gasperi (3 April 1881 19 August 1954) was an Italian statesman and politician and founder of the Christian Democratic Party. From 1945 to 1953 he was the prime minister of eight successive coalition governments. His eight-year rule remains a landmark of political longevity for a leader in modern Italian politics. He is considered to be one of the Founding fathers of the European Union, along with the Frenchman Robert Schuman and the German Konrad Adenauer. De Gasperi was born in Pieve Tesino in Trentino, at that time belonging to Austria-Hungary, now part of the Province of Trento 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 encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891. In 1904 he took an active part in the student demonstrations in favour of an Italian-language university. Imprisoned with other protesters during the inauguration of the Italian juridical faculty in Innsbruck, he was released after twenty days. In 1905, De Gasperi obtained a degree in philology. In 1905 he ...