{"id":445900,"date":"2026-02-24T10:53:33","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T09:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/02\/24\/cambi-di-casacca-alleurocamera-gualmini-entra-in-renew-vannacci-con-lultradestra-di-esn\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T13:30:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T12:30:27","slug":"shifts-in-the-european-parliament-gualmini-joins-renew-vannacci-joins-the-far%e2%80%91right-esn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/02\/24\/shifts-in-the-european-parliament-gualmini-joins-renew-vannacci-joins-the-far%e2%80%91right-esn\/","title":{"rendered":"Shifts in the European Parliament: Gualmini joins Renew, Vannacci joins the far\u2011right ESN"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Two Italian MEPs are changing seats in the European Parliament. Elisabetta Gualmini<\/strong> is joining the Renew Europe liberal group, while General Roberto Vannacci i<\/strong>s joining the far-right group, Europe of Sovereign Nations, founded by Germany’s AfD. <\/p>\n

Gualmini and Vannacci’s changes of allegiance are a direct consequence of decisions taken at the national level. Gualmini left<\/a> the Democratic Party to join Azione, thus bidding farewell to the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group in the European Parliament to knock on the door of the liberals. Vannacci, who left the League and founded a new party, Futuro Nazionale, had to step down from the vice presidency of the Patriots for Europe group and joined another sovereigntist group, ESN. <\/p>\n

On the one hand, Gualmini emphasised “the strong pro-European stance, the defence of democratic and liberal values, and the promotion of competitiveness and innovation<\/strong>” that characterise the liberal group, led in the European Parliament by France’s Val\u00e9rie Hayer<\/strong>. Vannacci, at a press conference together with ESN group leader Rene Aust<\/strong>, said he “fully identified with the principles and values of the ESN.” <\/p>\n

With the new additions, Renew Europe now has 76 members in the European Parliament, making it the fifth largest group after the European People’s Party, S&D, the Patriots, and the Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), while ESN remains the smallest, with 28 MEPs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elisabetta Gualmini leaves the Democratic Party and the Socialists and Democrats group, Roberto Vannacci leaves the League and Patriots for Europe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":423440,"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":[26016,28455,25755,26538,29014],"class_list":["post-445900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-elisabeth-gualmini-en","tag-europe-of-nations-sovereign-en","tag-news-parliament-en","tag-renew-europe-en","tag-roberto-vannacci-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445900","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445900"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":445901,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445900\/revisions\/445901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}