Popolari per l'Italia

Popolari per l'Italia
Party leader	Mario Mauro
founding	January 28, 2014
European party	EPP
EP Group	EPP (2014)
Website	www.popolariperlitalia.org/

Popolari per l'Italia ( PpI ) is a small Christian Democratic party in Italy that has existed since 2014 .

history

The precursor was the Scelta Civica party, founded in 2013 , in which the supporters of the previously non-party interim premier Mario Monti gathered. These came partly from a Christian Democratic, partly from a liberal tradition as well as partly from the center-right party Il Popolo della Libertà (PdL), partly from the social democratic Partito Democratico (PD). Scelta Civica joined the grand coalition of PD, PdL and Mitte-Lager and belonged to the government of Enrico Letta , which took office in April 2013 . In her she put u. a. with Mario Mauro (formerly PdL) the Defense Minister.

Shortly after the election, disputes over direction broke out as to whether the party should develop more in a liberal or a Christian Democratic direction. Monti resigned as party chairman in October 2013 after falling out with a majority of the Scelta Civica senators over the future direction of the party. After the loss of the identification figure Monti, the fighting intensified even more. On November 15, 2013, the representatives of the Christian Democratic wing, including Minister Mauro and parliamentary group leader Lorenzo Dellai , withdrew from the Scelta Civica party congress.

A week later they announced the founding of the new Popolari per l'Italia party . Popolari is a synonym for “Christian Democrats” in Italy and refers to the historical Partito Popolare Italiano Luigi Sturzos . 13 deputies, 10 senators and one member of the European Parliament ( Potito Salatto ) joined the PpI . Both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives, the party formed a parliamentary group with the Christian Democratic Unione di Centro (UdC) under the common name Per l'Italia ("For Italy"). The official founding of the party took place on January 28, 2014. Mario Mauro was elected party chairman. During the cabinet reshuffle in February 2014, he lost the Ministry of Defense, but the PpI was then represented in the Renzi cabinet with Andrea Olivero as Deputy Minister for Agriculture and three state secretaries .

For the European elections in May 2014, the PpI ran as part of the Nuovo Centrodestra - Unione di Centro list , which only sent three MEPs , none of whom belonged to the PpI. In July 2014, 8 deputies and two senators, led by Lorenzo Dellai and Andrea Olivero, left the PpI again to found the Democrazia Solidale . In September 2014, the PpI were admitted to the European People's Party (EPP). After further resignations, the party had two deputies and three senators in November 2014. In June 2015, Mario Mauro announced the departure of the PpI from the government coalition, but the party's two state secretaries at the time decided to remain in government as non-party members. In January 2016, Senator Mauro was the party's last remaining MP.

On March 20, 2017, Mario Mauro joined the Forza Italia parliamentary group (emerged in 2013 from the PdL, to which Mauro had previously belonged) in the House of Representatives. The PpI became an associate party of Forza Italia. In the regional election in Molise in April 2018, however, she ran with her own list as part of the center-right alliance of Donato Toma (FI), which received 7.1% of the vote and 2 of the 19 seats in the regional council. PpI also ran its own list for the 2019 European elections , but only received 0.3% of the vote. The party was more successful in the local elections held at the same time in the southern Italian cities of Campobasso and Termoli , where they received 15 and 12 percent of the vote.

Web links

• Official website (Italian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Scelta civica, scissione è. Giannini nuovo segretario, Bombassei presidente. In: Repubblica.it , November 16, 2013
2. ^ Roberto Papini: Christianity and Democracy in Europe. The Christian Democratic Movement. In: John Witte: Christianity And Democracy In Global Context. Westview Press, 1993.