Democrazia è Libertà - La Margherita

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Democrazia è Libertà -
La Margherita
Party logo
Party executive Francesco Rutelli (Presidente)
founding October 11, 2000 (electoral alliance)
March 24, 2002 (unified party) (emerged from: PPI , I Democratici and RI )
fusion October 14, 2007 (published in: Partito Democratico )
ideology Middle ,
left-wing liberal ,
Christian
-social , pro-European
European party European Democratic Party (from 2004)
EP Group ELDR and EVP-ED (until 2004)
ALDE (from 2004)
MPs
90/630
(2006-2007)
Senators
43/315
(2001-2006)
MEPs
7/78
(2004-2007)
Headquarters ItalyItaly Rome ,
Via Sant'Andrea delle Fratte 16
Website www.margheritaonline.it

Democrazia è Libertà - La Margherita (short DL or Margherita ; German  "Democracy is freedom - Die Marguerite" ) was an Italian party of the political center (or left center), which existed from 2002 to 2007. It had previously existed as an electoral alliance. It united Christian democratic and Christian social, social liberal and social democratic currents and was decidedly pro-European.

La Margherita was created through the merger of the three predecessor parties Partito Popolare Italiano (PPI), I Democratici and Rinnovamento Italiano (RI). She belonged to the broad center-left L'Ulivo alliance and was involved in government from 2006. Margherita leaders were Francesco Rutelli (chairman of the party), Franco Marini (Senate President 2006-08), Enzo Bianco and Arturo Parisi . Romano Prodi (Prime Minister 2006-08) was close to the party, but was not a member.

In October 2007, La Margherita merged with the Democratici di Sinistra and other, smaller parties of the center-left spectrum to form the new Partito Democratico (PD).

prehistory

Francesco Rutelli (2001)

Much of the later Margherita politician had her political career with the Christian Democrats started (DC) that dominated after the Second World War until the political landscape of Italy from 1992 due to the by pulite Mani -Ermittlungen evident entered corruption scandal Tangentopoli disintegrated. The DC renamed itself Partito Popolare Italiano (PPI) in 1994 , but this remained only a fraction of the members and voters of the former DC, predominantly the more Christian social workers wing. Other Margherita members had a green (according to Chairman Rutelli), socialist , social democratic , liberal or republican (i.e. left-wing liberal) past.

From 1995 the forerunner parties of the Margherita belonged to the alliance L'Ulivo , initiated by Romano Prodi , which consisted of parties from the bourgeois center and moderate left, united by opposition to Silvio Berlusconi and his right-wing bloc. The so-called Comitati Prodi (“Prodi Committees”) of non-party supporters of Prodi also belonged to the L'Ulivo alliance . In 1999 they merged with three small parties and a network of mayors close to L'Ulivo (including Rutelli as the then mayor of Rome) to form the I Democratici party . It declared that it wanted to be an Italian version of the Democratic Party of the USA, but by no means achieved its importance (7.7% in the 1999 European elections).

La Margherita as an electoral alliance

From 1998, joint lists of PPI and other bourgeois, Christian and social liberal groups took part in several regional elections. In the regional elections in Trentino-Alto Adige, this list was called Lista Civica della Margherita (“Citizen List of the Marguerite”) in the Province of Trento . She won the election with 22% of the vote and Lorenzo Dellai became Governor of Trentino. Following this model, La Margherita was chosen two years later as the name of an electoral alliance for all of Italy. This consisted of PPI, I Democratici, the liberal reform party Rinnovamento Italiano of the financial expert and former interim premier Lamberto Dini and UDEUR , one of the many splinter parties that emerged from the collapse of Christian Democracy. The top candidate was Francesco Rutelli, who was then named by the L'Ulivo alliance as prime minister of the entire center-left camp.

The Margherita list, which had calculated a 20 percent share of the vote when it was founded, only got 14.5% of the vote and 80 of the 630 seats in the House of Representatives in the parliamentary elections. Overall, the L'Ulivo block was subject to the center-right alliance Berlusconi and had to go into the opposition.

La Margherita as a party

Three of the four parties in the Margherita alliance - I Democratici, PPI and RI - decided in December 2001 to merge into a single party. This merger took place at the founding party convention from March 22nd to 24th, 2002 in Parma . Francesco Rutelli was elected chairman. The UDEUR, however, retained its independence.

For the 2004 European elections, the Margherita candidates ran on the joint center-left list Uniti nell'Ulivo with Democratici di Sinistra , Socialisti Democratici Italiani and Movimento Repubblicani Europei . Until this election, the Margherita MEPs, who had been elected in 1999 for their respective predecessor parties, still belonged to two different groups in the European Parliament: the six Democratici members belonged to the Liberal Group , the five from the PPI and RI to the Christian Democratic EPP-ED . In the run-up to the European elections, La Margherita, together with the French UDF led by François Bayrou , initiated the European Democratic Party (EDP) as an amalgamation of pro-European parties of the political center, which neither expressly themselves as liberals, nor as Christian or social democrats, but as “centrists " Roger that. They complained that the Christian Democratic EPP had opened up too much for conservative rights and had strayed too far from the ideal of a federal Europe. The EDP, on the other hand, positioned itself to be extremely pro-European and socio-politically progressive. After the European elections, the parliamentarians of the EDP (including all seven Margherita representatives) formed a group with the Liberals under the name Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE).

From May 17, 2006 until its dissolution in 2007, the party was involved in the government under Prime Minister Romano Prodi. In his cabinet , La Margherita had four ministers with their own ministry (education, defense, culture and communication) and two without ministry (family and regional and local affairs).

Members

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Umberto Rosso: Margherita al 20 per cento Rutelli garante dell 'intesa. In: La Repubblica.it , October 12, 2000.
  2. ^ David Hanley: Beyond the Nation State. Parties in the Era of European Integration. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke (Hampshire) 2008, p. 121.
  3. ^ Debora Mantovani, in: Jean-Louis Briquet, Alfio Mastropaolo (ed.): Italian Politics. The Center-Left's Poisoned Victory. Berghahn Books, New York / Oxford 2007, p. 284.