Unity in Diversity: The Epp's Two and a Half Decades of Expansion

Abstract

During the 1980s, the originally purely Christian Democratic European People's Party (EPP) took the strategic decision to open up to conservative and other like-minded parties in order to increase its political weight. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the emergence of new democracies in Central Europe, the EPP continued its enlargement to include Central Europe's centre-right parties. Despite initial differences based on varying historical experiences, the EPP's Eastern enlargement was an enrichment. It was based on essential common values and succeeded in making this political family the strongest political force in European politics.