A congressional primary election was held on 25, 26 and 27 January 2019 at Milan to elect the new leadership of the More Europe party and to decide upon the political direction of the party.
After the result of the 2018 general election, the three parties that cooperated to the electoral joint list agreed to move on and convert the electoral list into a full-fledged party. The main candidates to the Secretary are the former MEP Marco Cappato, current member of the Chamber of Deputies and former MEP Benedetto Della Vedova.
With 55.7% of the votes, Benedetto Della Vedova was elected as Secretary of More Europe.
Background 2018 general election
The electoral list was launched in November 2017 by two liberal and pro-Europeanist parties, the Italian Radicals, whose leading members included Emma Bonino, Riccardo Magi and Marco Cappato, and the newborn Forza Europa, led by Benedetto Della Vedova, with the goal to take part in the next general election under the leadership of Emma Bonino. Emma Bonino showed off the list's electoral logo, with her name on it, during an interview at Che tempo che fa, an Italian late-night talk show.
However, in January their alliance with the centre-left was breaking apart due to technical difficulties. The electoral law approved in November 2017 required that the parties that wants to run in the elections and are not supported by any parliamentary group must collect 1,500 signatures for each of the 63 proportional constituencies in which the country has been divided according to the electoral law. However, since the constituencies were published only a few weeks before the elections, for the 2018 elections the number of signatures was reduced to 400, for a total of 25,200 signatures requested. The objection of More Europe concerned the fact that in the form to collect the signatures, they must indicate, along with the candidates in the plurinominal constituencies, all the 348 candidates in the single-member constituencies. The centre-left coalition, however, had not yet reached an agreement for candidates for single-member constituencies, and More Europe believed it was impossible to collect signatures in a few days because they expected that an agreement between the centre-left coalition parties would be reached only in the last days available before the closing of the presentation of candidates, leaving less than a week for the collection of signatures. The Deputy Secretary of the Democratic Party Maurizio Martina has offered to help More Europe to collect signatures within a few days, but , Secretary of Forza Europa, has declined the proposal explaining that the Democratic Party should ensure "equal conditions of access to the elections".
However, on 4 January Bruno Tabacci, leader of Democratic Centre, a party that had a parliamentary group in the Chamber of Deputies, announced that his party would be allied with More Europe, exonerating the list from the collection of signatures. The list then announced an agreement with the Democratic Party and its centre-left coalition.
The list ran in the centre-left coalition but they got 2.56% of votes in the Chamber of Deputies, falling short to the threshold of 3% for the proportional seats, but elected three deputies in the single-member constituencies, Riccardo Magi in the constituency of Rome 10, Bruno Tabacci in the constituency of Milan 1, and , elected from the Italians abroad in Europe; while in the Senate of the Republic they got 2.37% of votes, electing one senator, Emma Bonino in the constituency of Rome 1.
The transition to a party After the election, the future of More Europe was unclear. The Statute envisaged a deadline for the party at 30 June 2018: if the founding parties could not reach a unanimity agreement by that date, the party would have been dissolved. The leader Emma Bonino, during a press conference held two days after the elections, expressed her wish to continue with the project. However, the founding parties were divided on how to proceed and what would become More Europe. The proposal of Olivier Dupuis of the creation of a federated party was opposed by that of Riccardo Magi, who proposes to make of More Europe a pan-European confederation, maintaining the unanimity system of the founding parties.
Then the President of More Europe Gianfranco Spadaccia presented a proposal that foresees a transitional Statute, introduces the role of a Coordinator and the creation of an Executive Council composed by 15 members (5 from each of the founder parties), the direct recruitment of individual citizens as members, a constituent congress to be held before the European elections that establishes the definitive statute. Magi presented a counter-proposal that partially accepted Spadaccia's one, on condition that 6,000 members were reached by 31 May 2019. In collaboration with Magi, Spadaccia makes the final proposal, which is approved unanimously by the three political subjects before the deadline, which provides for the appointment of a coordinator and two deputies and sets the date for the congress for January 2019. On July 14 the Council is officially established and Benedetto Della Vedova is elected as Coordinator, while Bruno Tabacci and Massimiliano Iervolino are elected deputies, and finally, Silvja Manzi is elected administrator. On 8 August More Europe officially opened the individual membership recruitment during a press conference and finally on 15 September the name of Emma Bonino was removed from the electoral logo of More Europe.
Procedure The new Statute that will come into force starting from the next Congress, after its approval and the approval of the amendments, provides for the election of a Secretary, the Directorate, the Treasurer and the Assembly. The statute that will be approved during the Congress will be federal, but the system of unanimous voting will be put aside. The Assembly must call a new Congress every two years.
With the convocation of the Congress made by the coordinator Della Vedova on 22 December, the Congress officially began. Applications must be filed for the Secretary and for the Assembly by 16 January (while subscriptions from the members last from 13 to 18 January), the former supported by at least one-tenth of the members as of 31 December 2018, 200 members, and up to a maximum of 1,000, the latter supported by at least 50 members, up to a maximum of 70. The candidates to Secretary must also present a list of 10 people who will be elected to the Assembly in case of victory of their Secretary, ensuring the minimum presence of each gender of 30%. The candidate lists for the Assembly must present a top candidate followed by at least five other candidates, once they are validated, each list must have at least 25 candidates, up to a maximum of 60, ensuring the minimum presence of each gender of 30%. Finally, the amendments must be supported by at least 200 members before 18 January.
The signing of the candidates to the Secretary, the lists to the Assembly and the amendments are reserved only to the members of More Europe, who can support only one single candidate or proposal for an office and can subscribe to them from the More Europe website. The election takes place by the vote of those members who are present during the Congress at Milan, and it's not possible to delegate one's vote to others.
The Assembly is composed of 100 members, of which 10 are elected with the list of the Secretary and 90 are elected proportionately by the Congress on the basis of the percentage obtained by the lists that have applied to run for the Assembly. The Treasurer and the Secretary are elected by simple majority voting of the members and their term of office lasts for two years, the President is elected from the Assembly by simple majority voting, while the Directorate is composed of 22 members of the Assembly, the Secretary, the Treasurer, the President of the Assembly, the candidates for Secretary who obtained at least 20% of the votes, the first three elected from the Secretary's list by the Assembly, two members for each of the founding parties (RI, FE and CD), and finally the representatives selected by each of the founding parties, for a maximum limit of 25% of the number of elected members of the Assembly.
Timetable + Timetable of events for the 2019 More Europe leadership election Date(s) Event Online enrollment for new members is open. Coordinator Della Vedova calls for the Congress. Start of the primaries. Submission of candidacies and amendments. Members can endorse the candidacies and amendments. Online enrollment for new members closed. Publication of candidacies. Start of the Congress, held in Milan. Filing of the lists for the Assembly with at least 25 candidates. Voting of the Statute and the amendments. Election of the Secretary and the Assembly take place.
Campaign
The first one to announce his candidacy was Marco Cappato on 10 December. Secretary and then Treasurer of the Associazione Luca Coscioni, Cappato has been fighting for the legalization of euthanasia in Italy for years. In 2017 he helped Fabiano Antoniani, known as Dj Fabo, a quadriplegic man, to take him to a clinic in Switzerland to practice assisted suicide. Once back in Italy, Cappato denounced himself to the police and in October 2018 the Constitutional Court requested the Parliament to fill the legislative gap within a year. In his program, among the main points, he promoted the cutting of structural funds for EU countries that don't respect human rights, a European mobilization on climate and global warming and the promotion of an EU seat at the UN Security Council.
Outgoing Coordinator Benedetto Della Vedova was the other challenger in Congress. President of Forza Europa, coming from the experience of Libertiamo, his candidacy was focused on the concerns of the economic conditions of Italy and the intensification of tensions, hoping for a role of aggregation from the European Union.
The last to express his candidacy was the member of the Chamber of Deputies Alessandro Fusacchia, who proposed a collective leadership in the party, the valorisation of local groups and the promotion of activities through the online exchange of ideas and opinions, exploiting new technologies.
Radaelli's candidacy