Political party in Italy
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 [it], who was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in the 2018 general election.
History
USEI was founded in 2006 by Eugenio Sangregorio [it], 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".
