In the Line of Catholic Internationalism : the Italian Christian Democracy (DC) to the Origins of the Formation of the International Christian Democracy

The deep interest of the Italian Christian Democracy (DC) for an international organization of parties of Christian inspiration was the result of a tradition that had, in the period between the two world wars, Don Luigi Sturzo and the Italian Popular Party as main supporters. The DC adhered without hesitation to Nouvelles Equipes Internationales (NEI) and organized three congresses of this organization in Fiuggi in 1948, in Sorrento in 1950 and in Arezzo in 1957. When Amintore Fanfani became Secretary of DC, the party engaged still more in the activity of NEI. Fanfani also acted through the Conference of Secretaries of Christian Democratic parties, assiduously attended the meetings of the Steering Committee of the NEI and tried to characterize the DC in Europe and worldwide. With the valuable collaboration of Franco Nobili, he organized the Congress of Arezzo and made a speech that was later diffused and studied in all the sections of the DC. With the signing of the Treaties of Rome and the new impulse to the process of European integration, the role of NEI became less trenchant. The most important decisions would be taken by the Conference of Presidents of Christian Democratic parties, the first embryo of a real international that would have arisen between 1961, when the World Union of Christian Democratic was founded, and 1965, when the European Union of Christian Democrats was founded, and the NEI were dissolved. Even at this stage the DC, with Mariano Rumor and Giovanni Battista Scaglia, was in the foreground and organized the first Congress of the European Union of Christian Democrats in Taormina in 1965. Rumor was president since 1965, and then in 1967 he became also president of the Christian Democratic World Union