The European People’s Party and the European Democratic Union

Abstract

Of the transnational party groupings to form in response to the decision to elect the EP directly, the Christian Democrat Group, in founding the European People’s Party (EPP), was the only one to deliberately adopt a name reflecting its aspiration towards becoming a genuine supranational party. As with the European Democratic Union (EDU), the party’s name was a source of controversy, and one reflecting conflicting notions as to the party’s proper political orientation and composition. The German CDU/CSU envisaged the party as an alliance of the centre and centre-right parties, and favoured a party name that would not alienate potential non-Christian Democrat but centre and centre-right parties like the British Conservative Party. The CDU/CSU, therefore, insisted on the party adopting a general name rather than one stressing ‘Christian’ biases. The Italians, Belgians and Dutch rejected this because of their opposition to an alliance with a party regarded as right-wing, their own more pronounced confessional and, in the case of the Belgian and Dutch parties, social-christian orientation and domestic coalitions with left-of-centre parties. When the EPP was officially founded on 8 July 1976 in Luxembourg, its official name was a compromise: the European People’s Party — Federation of Christian Democratic Parties of the European Community. Although the prospect of direct elections stimulated the EPP’s formation, Christian Democrat parties have a history of inter-party co-operation, and the movement towards European integration since the Second World War reinforced this.