Giulio Andreotti (; 14 January 1919 – 6 May 2013) was the 41st Prime Minister of Italy and leader of the Christian Democracy party. Beginning as a protégé of Alcide De Gasperi, Andreotti achieved cabinet rank at a young age and occupied 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 guided Italy's European Union integration, and established closer relations with the Arab world. Admirers of Andreotti saw him as having mediated political and social contradictions, enabling the transformation of a substantially rural country into the fifth-biggest economy in the world. Critics said he had done nothing against a system of patronage that had led to pervasive corruption.