Team K (TK), named Team Köllensperger from its establishment in July 2018 to November 2019, is a political party active in

South Tyrol South Tyrol ( , ; ; ), officially the Autonomous Province of Bolzano – South Tyrol, is an autonomous administrative division, autonomous provinces of Italy, province in northern Italy. Together with Trentino, South Tyrol forms the autonomo ...

, where it seeks to be an inter-ethnic

centrist Centrism is the range of political ideologies that exist between left-wing politics and right-wing politics on the left–right political spectrum. It is associated with moderate politics, including people who strongly support moderate policie ...

party. Led by Paul Köllensperger, it is politically regionalist, liberal, and

social-liberal Social liberalism is a political philosophy and variety of liberalism that endorses social justice, social services, a mixed economy, and the expansion of civil and political rights, as opposed to classical liberalism which favors limited ...

. The party, which is close to

NEOS – The New Austria and Liberal Forum NEOS – The New Austria and Liberal Forum () is a Liberalism in Austria, liberal political party in Austria. It was founded as NEOS – The New Austria in 2012. In 2014, NEOS merged with Liberal Forum and adopted its current name. Since 2018, B ...

(NEOS), a like-minded liberal party, is an observer member of the

Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (ALDE Party) is a European political party composed of 76 national-level parties from across Europe, mainly active in the European Union. The ALDE Party is affiliated with Liberal Interna ...

(ALDE) and formed a pact with

More Europe More Europe ( or ''+Europa''; +E or +Eu) is a liberal and pro-European political party in Italy, part of the centre-left coalition and member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party. History Foundation More Europe was laun ...

(+Eu) for the

2019 European Parliament election in Italy The 2019 European Parliament election in Italy were held on 26 May 2019, electing members of the 9th Italian delegation to the European Parliament as part of the European elections held across the European Union. Background In 2014, the gov ...

. In addition to social-liberal and

environmentalist Environmentalism is a broad Philosophy of life, philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of Green politics, g ...

policies, TK advocates a

pro-European Pro-Europeanism, sometimes called European Unionism, is a political position that favours European integration and membership of the European Union (EU).Krisztina Arató, Petr Kaniok (editors). ''Euroscepticism and European Integration''. Pol ...

stance, and is supportive of

direct democracy Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the Election#Electorate, electorate directly decides on policy initiatives, without legislator, elected representatives as proxies, as opposed to the representative democracy m ...

History

The party was established on the 10 July 2018 by Paul Köllensperger, a member of the Landtag of South Tyrol. Köllensperger was elected in the Landtag after the 2013 provincial election within the

Five Star Movement The Five Star Movement ( , M5S) is a political party in Italy, led by Giuseppe Conte. It was launched on 4 October 2009 by Beppe Grillo, a political activist and comedian, and Gianroberto Casaleggio, a web strategist. The party is primarily d ...

(M5S). In July 2018, he left the party accusing its leadership of not being interested in promoting enough South Tyrol's local interests and that it was necessary to establish a new party aimed at representing all the South Tyroleans looking for an inter-ethnic

party and aiming at breaking the absolute majority of the

South Tyrolean People's Party The South Tyrolean People's Party (, SVP) is a regionalism (politics), regionalist and mostly Christian democracy, Christian-democratic list of political parties in South Tyrol, political party in South Tyrol, an Autonomous administrative divisio ...

(SVP). In the 2018 provincial election the party obtained a successful 15.2% of the vote, arriving second after the SVP. In the run-up to the 2019 European Parliament election in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, TK, which affirmed to be taking inspiration from Austria's NEOS party, joined the ALDE party. Consequently, it formed a pact with +Eu, ALDE's member party in Italy, and proposed Renate Holzeisen as its candidate. The list came third with 11.2% of the vote in South Tyrol and Holzeisen was the second most-voted candidate in the province, gaining nearly 23,000 votes; she did not succeed in being elected as the list did not pass the 4% country-level electoral threshold. Holzeisen later left the party and joined and joined Vita, focusing on opposing

COVID-19 vaccine A COVID19 vaccine is a vaccine intended to provide acquired immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 ( COVID19). Knowledge about the structure and fun ...

s. In the 2023 provincial election, the party obtained 11.1% of the vote, while Holzeisen-led Vita won 2.6%. In the

2024 European Parliament election The 2024 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 6 and 9 June 2024. It was the tenth Elections to the European Parliament, parliamentary election since the 1979 European Parliament election, first direct electio ...

, the party ran within

Action Action may refer to: * Action (philosophy), something which is done by a person * Action principles the heart of fundamental physics * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video gam ...

, with Köllensperger as its candidate, and obtained 6.8% of the vote.

Election results

Provincial Council

European Parliament

Leadership

*Leader: Paul Köllensperger (2018–present)

References

{{South Tyrolean political parties 2018 establishments in Italy Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party member parties Five Star Movement breakaway groups Liberal parties in Italy Political parties established in 2018 Political parties in South Tyrol Political parties of minorities Pro-European political parties in Italy Regionalist parties in Italy Social liberal parties