Network Italy (Rete Italia) is a Christian-democratic faction within Popular Alternative (AP), a political party in Italy. Most of its members, including its long-time leader Roberto Formigoni, are members of the Catholic lay movement Communion and Liberation (CL).
The political involvement of large chunks of CL dates back to the Seventies. In 1975 Formigoni organised the Popular Movement (MP) as a faction within Christian Democracy (DC). In January 1994, when the DC was dissolved, its members joined the Italian People's Party (PPI) and, a year later, they founded the United Christian Democrats (CDU), along with Rocco Buttiglione. Formigoni, who had been elected President of Lombardy in April 1995 thanks to the support of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI), was appointed president of the CDU at the party's founding congress in July. In 1998, when Buttiglione temporarily aligned his party with the centre-left in support of D'Alema I Cabinet (through the Democratic Union for the Republic, UDR), Formigoni and his followers (known as Formigoniani) formed the Christian Democrats for Freedom (CDL). When Buttiglione re-established the CDU and re-positioned it in the centre-right, joining the House of Freedoms coalition in 2000, Formigoni, his Formigoniani and many regional councillors from northern regions had already joined FI.
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