{"id":445203,"date":"2026-02-16T16:19:36","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T15:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/02\/16\/elisabetta-gualmini-lascia-il-pd-e-aderisce-ad-azione-pronto-il-passaggio-a-renew-europe\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T17:21:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T16:21:41","slug":"elisabetta-gualmini-leaves-pd-joins-azione-ready-to-move-to-renew-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/02\/16\/elisabetta-gualmini-leaves-pd-joins-azione-ready-to-move-to-renew-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Elisabetta Gualmini leaves PD, joins Azione. Ready to move to Renew Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Elisabetta Gualmini<\/strong>, MEP since 2019 among the ranks of the Socialists and Democrats, has left the Democratic Party to join Azione. “It’s a bit like coming home,” Gualmini herself announced at a press conference with Carlo Calenda<\/strong>, with whom she had shared the “Siamo Europei” manifesto during the 2019 European elections. The change of allegiance in her home country paves the way for the Modena-born reformist to join the family of European liberals and the Renew Europe<\/a> group in the European Parliament. <\/p>\n

The move to the liberal ranks in Brussels\u2014there is not a single Italian among the 75 MEPs of Renew\u2014is not yet official, but Gualmini has clear ideas: “I am joining Renew Europe,” she said at a press conference in the Senate. “I want to work in Europe, I am strongly pro-European, that group is the most pro-European of all<\/strong>, progressive and pro-European, and I want to build a space there where I can represent my ideas,” she added. <\/p>\n

According to Gualmini, “the PD has changed its structure,” there has been “a genetic mutation, leading to a repositioning within the radical left that cuts out the culture of reformism<\/strong> that I have always championed.” This explains her decision, which had been in the air for days, to leave the Dem party, where “Elly Schlein has done a masterstroke and taken over the whole party” and where “the political space for those with a more moderate and governing vision, with a strong focus on foreign policy, has been greatly reduced.” <\/p>\n

With her departure, the Democratic Party delegation in Brussels is no longer the largest in the S&D group: there are now 20 PD MEPs, the same number as the Spanish socialist group<\/strong>. In March 2025, Gualmini suspended herself from the S&D group<\/strong> after a request to waive her parliamentary immunity in connection with the Qatargate investigation. However, in December<\/a>, the chamber decided to uphold her immunity. In the last parliamentary term, Gualmini played a leading role, as rapporteur for the European Parliament, in a three-year arduous battle<\/a>  for the approval of the directive on the rights of digital platform workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Member of the European Parliament since 2019, Gualmini denounced a “genetic mutation” in the PD, which Elly Schlein has “repositioned on the radical left.” During the last parliamentary term, the reformist from Modena played a leading role in the battle to adopt the so-called “riders directive”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":445179,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[33056,27427,26016,26538],"class_list":["post-445203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-azione","tag-party-democratic-en","tag-elisabeth-gualmini-en","tag-renew-europe-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":445204,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445203\/revisions\/445204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}