United Christian Democrats
|
United Christian Democrats
Cristiani Democratici Uniti |
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|---|---|
| Leader | Rocco Buttiglione |
| Founded | 23 July 1995 |
| Dissolved | 6 December 2002 |
| Split from | Italian People's Party |
| Merged into | Union of Christian and Centre Democrats |
| Ideology | Christian democracy |
| Political position | Centre-right |
| European affiliation | European People's Party |
| European Parliament group | European People's Party |
The United Christian Democrats (Italian: Cristiani Democratici Uniti, CDU) was a minor Christian democraticpolitical party in Italy. The CDU was a member of the European People's Party from 1995 until 2002.
The party was started in 1995 by splinters of the Italian People's Party (PPI) who wanted to join forces with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI). The split was led by Rocco Buttiglione (outgoing secretary of the PPI), Roberto Formigoni and Gianfranco Rotondi. The CDU's symbol used the crossed shield (scudo crociato) of Christian Democracy. In the 1995 regional elections the CDU formed joint lists with FI and Roberto Formigoni was elected President of Lombardy, while in 1996 it formed an alliance with the Christian Democratic Centre (CCD) for the 1996 general election, in which the CCD-CDU list scored 5.6%.
In June 1998 Buttiglione led the party into the Democratic Union for the Republic (UDR), a new Christian-democratic outfit launched by Francesco Cossiga and Clemente Mastella, who had left CCD to form the Christian Democrats for the Republic (CDR). In October, when Buttiglione briefly decided to support the centre-left government of Massimo D'Alema, alongside with the UDR, Roberto Formigoni, Raffaele Fitto, Maurizio Lupi and several regional councillors in Veneto, Lombardy and Piedmont left the party to form the Christian Democrats for Freedom, which was later merged into Forza Italia.
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