South American Union of Italian Emigrants Unione Sudamericana Emigrati Italiani | |
---|---|
President | Eugenio Sangregorio |
Founded | 2006 |
Headquarters | Buenos Aires, Argentina |
Ideology | Interests of
Italians abroad Liberal conservatism [1] |
Political position | Centre-right [2] |
National affiliation | Centre-right coalition (since December 2019) |
Chamber of Deputies | 0 / 400 |
Senate | 0 / 200 |
Website | |
www.usei-it.org | |
The South American Union of Italian Emigrants ( Italian: Unione Sudamericana Emigrati Italiani, USEI) is an Italian political party representing Italian minorities in South America, especially Argentina and Brazil.
Its leader is Eugenio Sangregorio , who was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in the 2018 general election.
USEI was founded in 2006 by Eugenio Sangregorio , a Calabrian-born entrepreneur. [3]
In the 2006 general election the party won 4.7% of the vote in the South American constituency of the Chamber of Deputies. [4] USEI did not participate in the 2008 general election, [5] but continued to be active and improve its network.
In the 2013 general election USEI won 13.3% of the vote in the South American constituency and elected Renata Bueno to the Chamber of Deputies. [6] Bueno was the daughter of Rubens Bueno, [7] a long-time member of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies for the Brazilian Socialist Party. [8] [9] After the election, she formed a parliamentary alliance with the alternative Associative Movement Italians Abroad (MAIE) within the Mixed Group of the Chamber, that lasted for two and half years. [10]
Despite the fact that USEI's and Sangregorio's political orientation was broadly centre-right, [11] [12] Bueno, due to her family's political upbringing, started to be supportive of the Democratic Party (PD), the country's main centre-left party, and, particularly, its leader Matteo Renzi, [13] who served as Prime Minister from February 2014 to December 2016.
Curiously enough, in November 2015, Bueno joined forces with Identity and Action (IdeA), a centre-right party opposed to Renzi. [14] Subsequently, she formed a sub-group, named after the USEI (and, later, "USEI–IdeA"), within the Mixed Group of the Chamber, along with Aniello Formisano of Italy of Values (IdV), a party traditionally affiliated to the centre-left, and Guglielmo Vaccaro of Unique Italy (IU). [10] [11] [15] Right after its formation, the sub-group was joined also by the other two IdeA deputies, Eugenia Roccella and Vincenzo Piso. [10] The USEI–IdeA sub-group was dissolved in May 2017. [10] After that, Bueno was affiliated with Civics and Innovators (CI) and Direction Italy (DI). [10] Sangregorio, who had opposed the constitutional reform proposed by Renzi with the 2016 constitutional referendum (Renzi lost and resigned from Prime Minister), was not willing to field Bueno again as a USEI candidate. [16]
In the 2018 general election the party won 18.7% of the vote in the South American constituency and Sangregorio was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, while Bueno led the Popular Civic List to 6.3% (compared to 0.5% in Italy) and was not elected. USEI ran also for the Senate, obtaining 20.4% and the election of Adriano Cario. In May 2018 Cario left the USEI and switched to MAIE. [17]
On 18 December 2019, USEI formed with the centrist allies of Forza Italia ( Alliance of the Centre and Us with Italy) and the centre-right Cambiamo! the new sub-group within the Mixed Group "Noi con l'Italia-USEI-Cambiamo!-Alleanza di Centro".
Chamber of Deputies – Italians abroad | ||||||
Election year | # of overall votes |
% of overall vote |
# of overall seats |
# of seats for Italians abroad |
± | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2006 | 14,205 | 1.46 | 0 / 630
|
0 / 12
|
0 | |
2013 | 44,024 | 4.5 | 1 / 630
|
1 / 12
|
1 | |
2018 | 68,291 | 6.08 | 1 / 630
|
1 / 12
|
1 | |
2022 | 73,389 | 6.76 | 0 / 400
|
0 / 8
|
1 |
Senate – Italians abroad | ||||||
Election year | # of overall votes |
% of overall vote |
# of overall seats |
# of seats for Italians abroad |
± | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2006 | 12,552 | 1.41 | 0 / 315
|
0 / 6
|
0 | |
2013 | 38,223 | 4.3 | 0 / 315
|
0 / 6
|
0 | |
2018 | 68,233 | 6.61 | 1 / 315
|
1 / 6
|
1 | |
2022 | 55,523 | 5.09 | 0 / 200
|
0 / 4
|
1 |