The European People’s Party (EPP) is the political family of the centre-right, whose roots run deep in the history and civilisation of the European continent and has pioneered the European project from its inception. Tracing back its roots to Europe’s Founding Fathers – Robert Schuman, Alcide De Garperi, and Konrad Adenauer- EPP is committed to a strong Europe, based on a federal model that relies on the principle of subsidiarity.

Founded in 1976, the EPP strives for a democratic, transparent and efficient Europe that is close to its citizens. EPP wants a prosperous Europe through the promotion of a free market economy with a social consciousness. EPP is the largest political organisation of Europe with 72 member-parties from 39 countries, 18 heads of state and government (13 EU and 5 non-EU), 13 European Commissioners (including the President), and the largest Group in the European Parliament with 265 members. The EPP is governed under the 2003 “EU Regulation on political parties at European level and the rules regarding their funding.” In late 2007, this Regulation was revised in order to allow all European level political parties to campaign for the European Parliament elections. As a result of this mandate, the EPP conducted – in close cooperation with its national member-parties - its first Europe-wide campaign for the June 2009 elections and reinforced its leading position in the European Parliament.

Political formations of the centre-right can be tracked back to the early 1920`s. Unlike the case of the Socialists, Christian Democratic and Conservative pan-European cooperation was the child of national parties and derived from a federal tradition. The experiences of the First World War and the threat of facism led to the conviction among leaders that overcoming nationalism was the precondition for preserving peace. The first attempt at cooperation between like-minded Christian Democrats was made in 1926, when the International Secretariat of Democratic Parties of Christian Inspiration (Secrétariat International des Partis Démocratiques d’Inspiration Chrétienne, SIPDIC) was founded. However, fascism increased tensions between governments, and the spirit of revenge and the dictators’ obsession with power all eventually brought to an end cooperation among the Christian Democratic parties, and led finally to the outbreak of the Second World War.

The lessons and experiences of cooperation between 1925 and 1939 were key when leaders of the re-established or newly founded Christian Democratic parties in Europe formed the Nouvelles Équipes Internationales (NEI) in 1946. The ecumenical elements were decisive: reconstruction and reconciliation were born amidst the ruins of the national states, as was the vision of a united continent in the future. Christian Democratic parties were banned in Central and Eastern Europe once communist rule was imposed. In July 1950, the exiled representatives of these parties established the Christian Democratic Union of Central Europe (CDUCE). Their political, journalistic and lobbying activity was focused mainly on fighting Communism, attacking the Soviet Union and liberating and democratising their countries.

Political refugees in Latin America contributed to the establishment of the intercontinental network. From the middle of the 1950s onwards the NEI lost its relevance. With the Coal and Steel Union and the foundation of the European Economic Community (EEC), practical cooperation among Christian Democrats gradually shifted in favour of the framework presented by the Common Assembly and the European Parliament. The organisation revitalised itself by changing its name to the European Union of Christian Democrats (EUCD) and revising the key aims of the organisation. The EUCD forged a closer relationship with the Parliamentary group of European Christian Democrats and the national member parties, and steadily grew more ambitious in its vision for Europe. With the decision to organize direct elections for the European Parliament in 1979, the need for a truly European party became evident. 

The formal establishment of the European People’s Party (EPP) took place in 1976 in Luxembourg, with member parties from the following EEC countries: Belgium, Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The platform was the result of considerable consensus and expressed a common intention to promote integration in the context of the European Community, leading to a political union equipped with federal and democratic institutions.

Once the EPP had been founded, a degree of pressure to establish formal links between Christian Democratic and Conservative forces was exerted by EUCD parties in countries that were not European Community members. Yet the EPP’s strong insistence on the federal model of European integration led to the formation of the European Democratic Union (EDU), a broader pan-European organisation. Thus three parallel political organisations of Christian Democrats and Conservatives were now in place.

However, the EPP soon politically outweighed the EUCD, and the members who also belonged to the EPP concentrated more and more on their work in the latter group. The issue of merging the two organisations re-surfaced when Spain and Portugal joined the European Community in 1986, but the revolutionary events which took place in Moscow and in other Eastern European capitals delayed the idea of a “big” EPP. Moreover, the EUCD’s loose framework was better suited to the unclear political situation in eastern Europe; in fact, the organisation played an important role in supporting democratic progress and shaping the political landscape in the post-communist countries.

The political upheavals in 1989 meant that previous positions taken by the EPP had to be rethought and reformulated. The international context had been altered with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the ideological conflict between East and West. And it was clear that the population of the German Democratic Republic wanted unification with the Federal Republic, as well as democracy. At the same time public opinion had shifted: the change enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty meant a political redefinition of Europe. 

In April 1991, party and government leaders of the EPP decided that, while the party would be open to the British and Nordic Conservative parties, Christian Democracy would be preserved as the cornerstone of EPP identity. The EPP needed to integrate like-minded forces in order to achieve the majority needed to make ideas and concepts a reality. Although Greece’s Nea Demokratia had already been admitted in 1983, in the early 1990s parties from Spain and the Nordic countries were included under the committed leadership of Wilfried Martens. 

With the prospect of Central and Eastern European countries joining the European Union (EU), the previous arguments supporting EUCD membership lost relevance – this led to the merger of the EUCD with the EPP in 1999. And since the EPP had accepted most European Conservative parties from the EU and beyond, the EDU also lost relevance, leading to its merger with the EPP in 2002. The development in the EPP reflected that of the EU itself; the inclusion of centre-right parties from accession countries in Central and Eastern Europe proved to be particularly successful. The new members brought a new dimension to the EPP and consolidated it as the pre-eminent European force of the centre-right. By 2009 the EPP hosted 72 member parties in
39 EU and non-EU countries.