Union of the Centre (2002)
The Union of the Centre, whose complete name is Union of Christian Democrats and Centre Democrats, is a Christian-democratic political party in Italy.
Antonio De Poli is the party's current secretary, while Lorenzo Cesa its president. For years, Pier Ferdinando Casini was the most recognisable figure and de facto leader of the party, before eventually distancing from it in 2016. The UdC is a member of the European People's Party and the Centrist Democrat International, of which Casini was president from 2004 to 2015.
The party was formed as "Union of Christian and Centre Democrats" in December 2002 upon the merger of the Christian Democratic Centre, the United Christian Democrats and European Democracy. In 2008 the party was the driving force behind the "Union of the Centre", an alliance comprising, among others, The Rose for Italy of Bruno Tabacci and Savino Pezzotta, the Populars of Ciriaco De Mita and the Liberal Clubs of Ferdinando Adornato. Since then, the party's official name was neglected in favour of the alliance's and, since most of the UdC member parties have joined the UDC too, the UDC and the UdC started to overlap almost completely to the point that they are now indistinguishable.
The CCD was an early ally of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia in 1994 and was part of the centre-right Pole/House of Freedoms since its establishment. Consequently, the UDC was consistently part of the centre-right until 2006. Later, it was affiliated neither to the centre-right nor the centre-left at the national level. Despite this, the party continued to take part in several regional, provincial and municipal governments with the old and the new Forza Italia, while forming alliances also with the centre-left Democratic Party in some regions and cities. In the 2013 general election the UdC was part of With Monti for Italy, the coalition formed around Mario Monti's Civic Choice, and obtained a mere 1.8% of the vote, down from 5.6% in 2008 and 6.8% in 2006. In December 2014 the party, which sat in Enrico Letta's government and Matteo Renzi's government, formed Popular Area with Angelino Alfano's New Centre-Right. In December 2016 the UdC left the alliance, did not join Paolo Gentiloni's government and suffered the final split by Casini and his followers. The party has since returned into the centre-right coalition's fold and took part to the 2018 and 2022 general elections within centrist joint lists. More recently, the UdC distanced from Forza Italia and formed an alliance with the League.
History
Background
In the 2001 Italian general election, the Christian Democratic Centre, led by Pier Ferdinando Casini, and the United Christian Democrats, a 1995 split from the Italian People's Party led by Rocco Buttiglione were part of the winning centre-right House of Freedoms coalition, but their joint list won a mere 3.2% of the vote. In the event, the two parties suffered the competition of European Democracy, led by Sergio D'Antoni and formed largely by further splinters from the PPI, which obtained 2.4% of the vote.After the election, Casini was elected President of the Chamber of Deputies and was replaced by Marco Follini as secretary of the CCD. Soon after, Silvio Berlusconi appointed Carlo Giovanardi and Buttiglione as ministers in his second government.
A few months later, the CCD and the CDU jointly scored 19.7% of the vote in a regional election in Sicily, which was a stronghold for both parties, and Salvatore Cuffaro was elected President of Sicily with a landslide 59.1% of the vote. DE won 4.5% of the vote and D'Antoni was elected to the Sicilian Regional Assembly.
Foundation and early years
On 6 December 2002, the CCD, the CDU and DE were merged into the "Union of Christian and Centre Democrats". During the party's first congress, Follini was elected secretary, D'Antoni deputy secretary and Buttiglione president.At the 2004 European Parliament election, the UDC won 5.9% of the vote and five MEPs. Consequently, the party successfully lobbied for Follini's appointment as Deputy Prime Minister in Berlusconi's government with the goal of strengthening and balancing the coalition, while diminishing the influence of the Northern League.
At the 2005 regional elections, the UDC and the House of Freedoms faced a severe defeat by winning only two regions out of 14. Follini asked Berlusconi to resign and form a new government. In the new executive, Buttiglione became minister of Culture, while Follini stepped down from his previous post to concentrate on the party. On 15 October 2005 Follini suddenly resigned from his position as party secretary and was replaced on 27 October by Lorenzo Cesa, an ally of Casini.
The party took part to the 2006 general election with a new logo, characterised by the inclusion of the name of Casini, who also headed party electoral lists in most constituencies. Despite the defeat of the House of Freedoms, the UDC improved its electoral performance by gaining 6.8% of the vote. In the following Sicilian regional election Cuffaro was re-elected President, but the UDC's share of the vote was reduced to 13.0%, due to two factors: the presence of president's list named after Cuffaro and the strong showing of the Movement for Autonomy .
Transition and splits
In October 2006, Follini, a harsh critic of Berlusconi, finally left the party to form a new grouping, called Middle Italy, which was eventually merged into the centre-left Democratic Party upon its foundation in October 2007. This was the fourth split suffered by the UDC in two years after three much bigger splits: the first led by Sergio D'Antoni, who joined The Daisy in 2004; the second by Gianfranco Rotondi, who launched the Christian Democracy for Autonomies in 2005; the third by Raffaele Lombardo, who formed the Sicilian-based MpA later that year.After the departure of Follini, however, Casini became highly critical of Berlusconi too and further distanced the UDC from him. A fifth major split happened at the end of January 2008 when Bruno Tabacci and Mario Baccini left the party because Casini seemed eager to re-join Berlusconi for the upcoming election, after that the Prodi II Cabinet had not passed through a vote of confidence. Shortly afterwards, when Casini refused to merge his party into Berlusconi's then-new political movement, The People of Freedom, the UDC was joined by The Rose for Italy of Tabacci, Baccini and Savino Pezzotta, as well as by two leading members of Forza Italia, Ferdinando Adornato and Angelo Sanza. On the other side, the UDC was left by those who wanted to continue the alliance with Berlusconi: Giovanardi and his faction joined the PdL, citing that the 72% of UDC voters wanted the party to do so. They were soon followed by many others.
Union of the Centre
On 28 February 2008, the UDC announced that it would contest the 2008 general election under the banner of the "Union of the Centre", in alliance with The Rose for Italy and other smaller groups, notably including the Populars around Ciriaco De Mita, former leader of Christian Democracy, the Liberal Clubs, the Christian Democratic Party, Veneto for the EPP, the Democratic Populars and the Autonomist Democrats. Despite having lost many votes to the PdL, the UDC was able to woo some new voters from the centre-left and gained 5.6% of the vote, 36 deputies and three senators. Soon after the election, Baccini, one of the leaders of The Rose, surprisingly left the UdC to join the PdL.After the election, Casini relaunched his plan for a new "centrist" party, as an alternative to both the PdL and the PD. This is what he called the "party of the nation", open to "centrists", "Christian democrats", "liberals" and "reformers", even though he presented it as a party based on Christian values, as opposed both to the PD and the PdL, which, despite being a centre-right party, also included social-liberal factions. Casini long criticised the PdL for not being "Catholic" enough, particularly criticising Berlusconi, who once spoke of "anarchy of values" in describing the catch-all nature of the PdL, and Gianfranco Fini, who was known for his social-liberal stance on stem-cell research, abortion and right-to-die issues, and explicitly wooed the "Christian democrats of the PD" to join him.
In the 2009 European Parliament election, the UdC won 6.5% of the vote and five of its candidates were elected to the European Parliament, including De Mita and Magdi Allam. In the 2010 regional elections, the UdC chose to form alliances both with the centre-right and the centre-left in different regions, depending on local conditions, losing ground everywhere but in those southern regions where it was in alliance with the centre-right.
Centre-left coalitions
In December 2010, the UdC was a founding member of the New Pole for Italy, along with Future and Freedom and the Alliance for Italy. The NPI alliance was short-lived and the three parties, which were supporters of Mario Monti's technocratic government in 2011–2013, parted ways. In 2012 the UdC suffered the split of another Sicilian-based group, Cantiere Popolare, which would be a strong competitor for the party in Sicily, along with the evergreen MpA.The UdC contested the 2013 general election as part of the With Monti for Italy coalition, alongside FLI and Monti's Civic Choice. The election was a huge defeat for the UdC, which obtained a mere 1.8% of the vote, eight deputies and two senators. After the election, the party joined Enrico Letta's government with Gianpiero D'Alia as minister of Public Administration and Matteo Renzi's government with Gianluca Galletti as minister of the Environment.
In February 2014, during the party's fourth congress, Cesa was narrowly re-elected secretary over D'Alia, who was then elected president.
The UdC ran in the 2014 European Parliament election on a joint list with the New Centre-Right, a mainly Christian-democratic outfit emerged from a split from the PdL in its final days. The list obtained 4.4% of the vote and three MEPs, two for the NCD and one for the UdC.
In December 2014, the alliance with the NCD was strengthened with the formation of the Popular Area joint parliamentary groups.