Pina Picierno, Vice-President of the European Parliament, is leaving Italy’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group in a political split driven mainly by divisions over Ukraine, moving to the liberal Renew Europe group by joining the European Democratic Party (EDP), led by Sandro Gozi.
The decision was announced by Picierno herself in an interview with the Italian daily Il Foglio, published on June 4, 2026. She said the move reflects growing political divergences within the Democratic Party and the broader S&D family, particularly over Ukraine, European defence policy and the EU’s geopolitical positioning. She also expressed discomfort with what she sees as an increasingly ambiguous stance by parts of the Italian centre-left on support for Kyiv and Russia’s war in Ukraine, pointing in particular at the leadership of PD secretary Elly Schlein.
Picierno has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2014 and is one of the Parliament’s 14 Vice-Presidents, a post she has held since 2022 and was reconfirmed to in 2024. Within the S&D group, she has long been one of its most vocal supporters of Ukraine, consistently supporting EU military and financial assistance to Kyiv’s government. As a vice-president she also holds responsibilities for the Parliament’s relations with bodies including NATO.
She has also backed initiatives aimed at countering what she considers Russian influence operations in Europe, including the exclusion of Russian athletes and artists from international competitions. She has pushed to monitor and restrict pro-Kremlin networks and lobbying, and has called for sanctions against figures considered close to Moscow.
In parallel, Picierno has taken firm positions in support of Israel in the context of Middle Eastern conflicts, often focusing on issues such as security, anti-Semitism in Europe and the political legitimacy of Israel’s government in international forums.
Her stance has at times drawn controversy within Italian political debate, particularly after reports concerning a meeting she attended with representatives linked to an Israeli lobbying network described by critics as close to the country’s right-wing.
According to Il Foglio, internal tensions within the Democratic Party over Ukraine policy and broader geopolitical positioning are among the factors behind her decision. The Italian centre-left has been increasingly divided over the extent of military support for Kyiv and the EU’s strategic posture in the ongoing confrontation with Russia.
The move would see her sit with Renew Europe, a centrist-liberal group that has consistently supported deeper EU integration, stronger defence cooperation and continued assistance to Ukraine. The group is closely associated with French President Emmanuel Macron, whose political movement Renaissance forms its main national delegation and who is widely seen as its principal political reference point at the European level. Within that group, Picierno is joining the EDP, a pan-European liberal-democratic party whose secretary, Gozi, is himself an MEP.
