Gianpiero DAlia
Who was the head of Union of the Centre (2002) from Mar 2014 to Nov 2016?
Union of the Centre ( 2002 ) The Union of the Centre ( , UdC ) , whose complete name is Union of Christian and Centre Democrats ( Unione dei Democratici Cristiani e Democratici di Centro , UDC ) , is a Christian-democratic political party in Italy . Lorenzo Cesa is the partys current secretary ; Pier Ferdinando Casini was for years 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 Peoples Party ( EPP ) and the Centrist Democrat International ( CDI ) , 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 ( CCD ) , the United Christian Democrats ( CDU ) and European Democracy ( DE ) . In 2008 the party was the driving force behind the Union of the Centre ( UdC ) , 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 partys official name was neglected in favour of the alliances 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 undistinguishable . The CCD was an early ally of Silvio Berlusconis 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 Montis 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 Lettas government and Matteo Renzis government ( 2013–2016 ) , formed Popular Area with Angelino Alfanos New Centre-Right . In December 2016 the UdC left the alliance , did not join Paolo Gentilonis government and suffered the final split by Casini and his followers . The party has since returned into the centre-right coalitions fold and took part to the 2018 general election within a joint list named Us with Italy . After the election , the UdC has become a sort of associate party of Forza Italia , being part of the latters group in the Senate . History . Background . In the 2001 Italian general election the Christian Democratic Centre ( CCD ) , led by Pier Ferdinando Casini , and the United Christian Democrats ( CDU ) , a 1995 split from the Italian Peoples Party ( PPI ) 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 ( −2.6pp from 1996 ) . In the event , the two parties suffered the competition of European Democracy ( DE ) , led by Sergio DAntoni 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 ( CCD ) and Buttiglione ( CDU ) 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 ( +0.7pp from the previous regional election ) in Sicily , which was a stronghold for both parties , and Salvatore Cuffaro ( CDU ) was elected President of Sicily with a landslide 59.1% of the vote . DE won 4.5% of the vote and DAntoni 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 ( UDC ) . During the partys first congress , Follini was elected secretary , DAntoni 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 Follinis appointment as Deputy Prime Minister in Berlusconis government with the goal of strengthening and balancing the coalition , while diminishing the influence of Lega Nord . At the 2005 regional elections the UDC and the House of Freedoms faced a severe defeat by winning only 2 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 step down from his previous post in order 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 UDCs share of the vote was reduced to 13.0% , due to two factors : the presence of presidents list named after Cuffaro ( which obtained 5.7% and elected mostly UdC members ) and the strong showing of the MpA ( 12.5% ) . 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 ( PD ) 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 DAntoni , who joined The Daisy ( DL ) in 2004 ; the second by Gianfranco Rotondi , who launched the Christian Democracy for the Autonomies ( DCA ) in 2005 ; the third by Raffaele Lombardo , who formed the Sicilian-based Movement for Autonomy ( 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 Berlusconis then-new political movement , The People of Freedom ( PdL ) , 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 ( FI ) , 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 ( the Liberal Populars ) 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 ( UdC ) , in alliance with The Rose for Italy and other smaller groups , notably including the Populars around Ciriaco De Mita , former leader of Christian Democracy ( DC ) , the Liberal Clubs , the Christian Democratic Party , Veneto for the European Peoples Party , 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 ( all UDC members but four ) and three senators . Soon after the election , Baccini , one of the leaders of The Rose , surprisingly left the UdC in order 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 ( or stood alone ) 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 ( NPI ) , along with Future and Freedom ( FLI ) and the Alliance for Italy . The NPI alliance was short-lived and the three parties , which were supporters of Mario Montis technocratic government in 2011–2013 , parted ways . In 2012 the UdC suffered the split of another Sicilian-based group , Popular Construction ( CP ) , 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 Montis Civic Choice ( SC ) . 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 Lettas government with Gianpiero DAlia as minister of Public Administration ( 2013–2014 ) and Matteo Renzis government with Gianluca Galletti as minister of the Environment ( 2014–2016 ) . In February 2014 , during the partys fourth congress , Cesa was narrowly re-elected secretary over DAlia , who was then elected president . The UdC ran in the 2014 European Parliament election on a joint list with the New Centre-Right ( NCD ) , 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 ( AP ) joint parliamentary groups . Re-foundation . In 2016 Casini did not renew his membership to the party , which was thus deprived of its most recognisable leader . Additionally , while still being part of the government and AP , the UdC chose not to support the yes in the 2016 constitutional referendum and to distance from the NCD , rejecting any notion of a joint party . In the run-up of the referendum the party was also abandoned by president DAlia . After the referendum , which saw a huge defeat of the yes side , the UdC left AP altogether , but , other than Casini and DAlia , the party lost another deputy and , more important , minister Galletti . Antonio De Poli replaced DAlia as president . In 2017 the UdC was joined by three senators from other parties . The partys new course was marked also by the return of Follini . For the 2017 Sicilian regional election the UdC re-joined the centre-right at the regional level . The decision led some leading former UdC members in Sicily to return into the partys fold , but was criticised by the partys deputy secretary Giuseppe De Mita , his uncle Ciriaco and Follini , who would jointly launch Italy is Popular , lead it into the Popular Civic List and join the centre-left coalition . In the run-up of the 2018 general election the UdC officially re-joined the centre-right coalition also at the national level , aiming at teaming up with other Christian-democratic parties , notably including the Union of Democrats for Europe ( UDEUR ) , as well as the Italian Liberal Party ( PLI ) and Energies for Italy ( EpI ) . Thus , the UdC joined Us with Italy ( NcI ) , a pro-Berlusconi centrist electoral list formed by AP splinters ( two groups , a Christian-democratic one led by Maurizio Lupi and a liberal one led by Enrico Costa ) , Direction Italy ( DI ) , Civic Choice ( SC ) , Act! , CP and the MpA , with the goal of reaching 3% , required to win seats from proportional lists under a new electoral law . NcI was later joined also by IdeA , UdCs partner in the Chamber of Deputies . In the election the NcI obtained a mere 1.3% of the vote and the UdC had three senators elected from single-seat constituencies : De Poli , Paola Binetti and Antonio Saccone . Soon after the election , the party quit NcI and formed a pact with FI . Ideology . Although it is the most vocal supporter of social conservatism in Italy ( opposition to abortion , euthanasia , same-sex marriage , LGBT adoption and legality of cannabis are some of its main concerns ) and can be easily connected with the Christian right , the UdC is usually identified with the political centre in Italy , thanks to its roots in the Christian Democracy ( DC ) . However The Economist once described it as a right-wing , sometimes reactionary party , which stretches a long way from the centre . Moreover , it wrote that many UDC members are diehard corporatists who [ ... ] get most of their votes from the south , where many households depend either on welfare or on public-sector employment . Indeed , the party is stronger in the South and especially in Sicily , where public-sector employment is widely spread . The UDC was an independent-minded and often reluctant member of the House of Freedoms coalition from 2002 to 2008 . The partys leading figure , Pier Ferdinando Casini , was critical of Silvio Berlusconis leadership over the Italian centre-right and presented himself as a moderate alternative to populism , which , in his view , denoted the alliance between The People of Freedom ( PdL ) and Lega Nord . UDCs main goal , similarly to that of the Democratic Movement in France , has been to form governments beyond the left-right divide ( e.g. : Monti Cabinet and Letta Cabinet ) and , possibly , reassembling the remnants of the old DC and control Italian politics from the centre . In this respect , Casini and his followers have long tried to form the nucleus of a third force in Italian politics ( e.g. : New Pole for Italy , With Monti for Italy , Popular Area ) . This centrist option has not succeeded yet : the UdC has remained a much lighter force compared to Berlusconis parties ( Forza Italia , the PdL and finally the new Forza Italia ) , which have drawn most former DC voters , and Italians like confrontational politics based on alternative coalitions and many would support a two-party system , in place of the typically Italian fragmented political spectrum . Finally , several political scientists think that the return of DC is all but likely as the political unity of Catholics ( the core idea on which DC was based ) is not repeatable and it would be anti-historical to try uniting all strains of political Catholicism in a single party . Moreover , although UdC members are keen on presenting themselves as moderates , their solid social conservatism has harmed their prospects , while FI/PdL/FI has been popular also among secularised middle-class voters . Knowing that , Casini tried to open his party , through the UdC , also to non Christian-democratic centrists , liberals and reformers , while wooing former DC members affiliated with other parties , especially the PdL and the centre-left Democratic Party ( PD ) . After Casinis exit from the party in 2016 , the UdC is likely to return to its traditional Christian-democratic roots , as declared by Cesa in a speech to the partys national council . On specific issues , it is relevant to state that the UdC is one of the main supporters of nuclear energy in the Italian political arena . Factions . At the 2007 national congress there were basically four factions within the party . - Casiniani . Led by Pier Ferdinando Casini , Lorenzo Cesa and Rocco Buttiglione , the faction included also Mario Tassone ( co-leader with Buttiglione of a sub-group composed of former members of the United Christian Democrats ( CDU ) , which controlled more than 15% of party delegates ) , Michele Vietti , Luca Volontè , Francesco DOnofrio , Maurizio Ronconi , Francesco Bosi and Antonio De Poli , and gained the support of at least 45% of party members . - Tabaccini . This group , which had the support of the 30% of party members , was basically the left-wing of the party , including leading politicians such as Bruno Tabacci , Mario Baccini and Armando Dionisi , who were formerly close allies of Marco Follini . They proposed to start a co-operation with the Democratic Party ( PD ) or the formation of a centrist party open to figures like Luca Cordero di Montezemolo and Mario Monti . - Cuffariani . This third group consisted in the southern faction of Salvatore Cuffaro , former President of Sicily and was somewhat critical of the centralist-styled leadership of the party . This group , which included Calogero Mannino , Francesco Saverio Romano , Giuseppe Naro and Giuseppe Drago , held the 10% of the party delegates and supported the Casini-Cesa line , although its members had been often friendlier to Berlusconi . In September 2010 most Cuffariani , led by Romano , left the UDC to form The Populars of Italy Tomorrow ( PID ) and support the Berlusconi IV Cabinet . - Giovanardiani . It was the group led by Carlo Giovanardi and Emerenzio Barbieri , who wanted closer ties with Forza Italia and the other parties of the House of Freedoms coalition , including Lega Nord . At the congress the bid of Giovanardi for the leadership was supported by the 13.8% of delegates . Before leaving the UDC in February 2008 in order to join the PdL , Giovanardi and Barbieri organised their faction as Liberal Populars . The three main schisms suffered by the party between 2004 and 2006 , Middle Italy ( IdM ) , Movement for Autonomy ( MpA ) and Christian Democracy for the Autonomies ( DCA ) , were led by the most vocal supporters of each of the last three factions mentioned above , respectively Marco Follini , Raffaele Lombardo and Gianfranco Rotondi . By 2010 virtually all Giovanardiani and Cuffariani had left the party through the Liberal Populars and the PID . Popular support . The UDC/UdC has been historically stronger in the South and in regional elections . The electoral results of the UDC/UdC in the 10 most populated regions of Italy are shown in the table below . The score for the 2006 Sicilian regional election refers to the combined result of the UDC ( 13.0 ) and of LAquilone–Lista del Presidente ( 5.7% ) , the personal list of Salvatore Cuffaro , UDC regional leader and President of Sicily . The elected members of this list were mostly UDC members . Leadership . - Secretary : Marco Follini ( 2002–2005 ) , Lorenzo Cesa ( 2005–2021 ) - Deputy Secretary : Sergio DAntoni ( 2002–2004 ) , Mario Tassone ( 2004–2013 ) , Erminia Mazzoni ( 2005–2007 ) , Salvatore Cuffaro ( 2005–2010 ) , Armando Dionisi ( 2007–2008 ) , Michele Vietti ( 2007–2010 ) , Antonio De Poli ( 2014–2016 ) , Mauro Libè ( 2014–2016 ) , Giuseppe De Mita ( 2014–2017 ) - Head of Political Secretariat : Lorenzo Cesa ( 2002–2005 ) , Armando Dionisi ( 2005–2007 ) , Antonio De Poli ( 2007–2014 ) - Spokesperson : Michele Vietti ( 2006–2007 ) , Francesco Pionati ( 2007–2008 ) , Antonio De Poli ( 2008–2014 ) - President : Rocco Buttiglione ( 2002–2014 ) , Gianpiero DAlia ( 2014–2016 ) , Antonio De Poli ( 2016–present ) - Administrative Secretary : Salvatore Cherchi ( 2002–2005 ) , Giuseppe Naro ( 2005–2014 ) , Salvatore Ruggeri ( 2014–present ) - Organizational Secretary : Mario Baccini ( 2002–2005 ) , Renato Grassi ( 2005–2006 ) , Amedeo Ciccanti ( 2006–2007 ) , Giuseppe Galati ( 2007 ) , Francesco Saverio Romano ( 2007–2010 ) , Antonio De Poli ( 2011–2014 ) - Party Leader in the Chamber of Deputies : Luca Volontè ( 2001–2008 ) , Pier Ferdinando Casini ( 2008–2012 ) , Gian Luca Galletti ( 2012–2013 ) , Giampiero DAlia ( 2013 ) , Giuseppe De Mita ( 2013–2014 ) , Rocco Buttiglione ( 2014–2018 ) - Party Leader in the Senate : Francesco DOnofrio ( 2001–2008 ) , Gianpiero DAlia ( 2008–2013 ) , Antonio De Poli ( 2013–present ) - Party Leader in the European Parliament : Vito Bonsignore ( 2004–2008 ) , Iles Braghetto ( 2008–2009 ) , Carlo Casini ( 2009–2014 ) , Lorenzo Cesa ( 2014–2019 )