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Opposing the EU in the EP at the Time of Populism

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Patterns of Opposition in the European Parliament

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Abstract

Euroscepticism is widely used to describe the variegated forces opposing the EU. This chapter guides the reader through the evolution of this term highlighting the major theoretical contributions that enhanced our knowledge of this phenomenon. However, the scientific and political use of Euroscepticism also presents strong drawbacks that can be prevented relying on a traditional concept for political science: political opposition. This is the core scope of the chapter that proposes a reconceptualization of Euroscepticism in terms of political opposition drawing a set of guidelines that are used in the study to formulate an index of parties’ positioning to the EU disentangling both the targets and the character of the described action. To achieve a higher degree of completeness, the chapter reviews the literature focusing on the potential explanations for the presence of antagonism to the EU and proposes a model based upon the concept of Political opportunity Structure that is suited to study the phenomenon in the EP. The last part of the chapter reviews the selected cases and the methods applied to identify patterns of parties’ positioning in the EP and to understand their potential causes.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The landmark of this politicization process is the increased in the use of referenda to ratify changes to the EU Treaties (Mair 2007): in the period between 1972 and 1992 eight referenda were held while in the period between the 1992 and the 2016 35 referenda concerning EU issues were held around Europe.

  2. 2.

    This assertion led Vasilopoulou to question how many (and which) policies should one party oppose to be soft Eurosceptic.

  3. 3.

    This is the main reason why Taggart and Szczerbiak refined their work by stating that soft Euroscepticism should be considered as the absence of a “principled objection to the European integration project of transferring powers to a supranational body such as the EU, but there is opposition to the EU’s current or future planned trajectory based on the further extension of competencies that the EU is planning to make” (Taggart and Szczerbiak 2003, 12).

  4. 4.

    The adjective diffuse is used by the two scholars to identify support for the general ideas underlying the EU integration project, while the term specific indicates support for the general practice of the EU integration, that is “the EU as it is and as it is developing” (Kopecký and Mudde 2002, 300).

  5. 5.

    Flood has been clear in not linking his typology to the issues of ideology and/or strategy. His aim is to provide in-depth specifications of parties’ positioning to the EU that could vary over time (Vasilopoulou 2017). For further insight about the formulated guidelines, see Flood and Soborski (2017).

  6. 6.

    As recent studies suggest those groups or movements opposing the EU are equated by some sense of disliking the general object (the EU). However, assessing what the EU is open to dispute. In some countries, other European institutions suffer under ‘collateral skepticism’ purely because they have the word “European” in their name (Taggart and Szczerbiak 2017; Startin 2015).

  7. 7.

    The Sussex school takes its name from the University of Sussex where the European Parties Elections and Referendums Network—EPERN—is based. The network was established in 2003 and is currently jointly convened by Alekzs Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart. For further information, see EPERN website at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/sei/research/europeanpartieselectionsreferendumsnetwork.

  8. 8.

    Also Sitter shares this thesis. He defines Euroscepticism as the “politics of opposition” (Sitter 2001, 23): voter alignment, ideology, interest and identity potentially shape party-based Euroscepticism.

  9. 9.

    See two special issues: one edited by Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks, “Understanding Euroscepticism” (Hooghe and Marks 2007) and one edited by Liesbet Hooghe “What drives Euroscepticism?” (Hooghe 2007).

  10. 10.

    The Chapel Hill Expert Survey, as its name suggests, is an expert survey estimating party positioning on European integration, ideology and policy issues for national parties in a variety of European countries. The first relies of the CHES dataset is in 1999. This dataset merges the so-called Ray-Marks-Steenbergen Dataset with Ray’s survey (conducted for the EP election in 1984, 1988, 1992 and 1996). See http://chesdata.eu/.

  11. 11.

    The concept has received several criticisms mainly due to its lack of precision.

  12. 12.

    According to rule 32 a group of 25 MEPs from at least one-quarter of all EU member states can form an EPPG.

  13. 13.

    The EFDD, lacking the minimum number of representatives from the minimum number of member states, finished its history in July 2019 when the AFD left the group to join the newly formed Identity and Democracy.

  14. 14.

    The Spinelli Report is based on the Manifesto di Ventotene written by Altiero Spinelli and Alberto Rossi in 1941 during Spinelli’s exile period in the island of Ventotene in the Tyrrhenian Sea advocating the idea of the United States of Europe.

  15. 15.

    As stressed by Navarro, European integration may be defined through Haas definition as “the process whereby political actors in several distinct national settings are persuaded to shift their loyalties, expectations and political activities toward a new centre, whose institutions possess or demand jurisdiction over pre-existing national states” (Haas 1958, 17).

  16. 16.

    See studies concerning the British House of Commons by Mughan et al. (1997).

  17. 17.

    For more information, see EUROSTAT webpage at: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_statistics.

  18. 18.

    For a detailed account of the Greek operational support to the EU-Turkey agreement, see http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-963_en.htm.

  19. 19.

    See rule of Procedure of the European Parliament number 181 and 182 of the 20 of November 2012 (further information at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&reference=P7-TA-2012-0423&language=EN&ring=A7-2012-0336).

  20. 20.

    Further information about the Comparative Manifesto Project may be found at https://manifestoproject.wzb.eu/.

  21. 21.

    Further information about the latest edition of the Euromanifesto study (2014) may be found at http://europeanelectionstudies.net/european-election-studies/ees-2014-study/manifesto-study-2014.

  22. 22.

    Further information about the Chapel Hill Expert Survey at https://www.chesdata.eu/.

  23. 23.

    See Appendix A for a deeper review of the selected EU-opponents.

  24. 24.

    The results of 2014 EP elections have been considered by the party as a major victory (scoring the highest historical vote-share) against the FSM. See http://www.repubblica.it/speciali/politica/elezioni-europee2014/2014/05/26/news/elezioni_europee_pd_renzi_risultati-87203700/.

  25. 25.

    Specifically, macroeconomics and budgetary coordination excluding speeches related to the Single Market.

  26. 26.

    See article 77(2), 78(2) and 79(2) of the TFEU concerning immigration, asylum and borders control. See article 121(6) of the TFEU concerning economic policy and see article 192(1) of the TFEU for what concerns environmental protection.

  27. 27.

    See the Appendix B for further details.

  28. 28.

    A corpus is a collection of spoken or written text in machine-readable form assembled for the purpose of linguistic research.

  29. 29.

    See Appendix B for a more detailed distribution of the collected speeches by party and policy issue.

  30. 30.

    This pattern is typical of opposition parties also in national parliamentary arenas. Proksch and Slapin, demonstrate that opposition parties tend to use more the parliamentary arena when compared to governing parties’ exponents. This is because opposition representatives are excluded from the decision-making process thus they tend to use the parliamentary arena as a way to scrutinize government’s activity and propose alternatives to it (Slapin and Proksch 2015). The presence of a such a dynamic also in the EP might suggest that a sort of government/opposition distinction applies also to the EP.

  31. 31.

    Deductive content analysis is used when the structure of analysis is operationalized on the basis of previous knowledge and the purpose of the study is theory testing (Elo and Kyngäs 2008).

  32. 32.

    See the electronic version of the Handbook of the Comparative Manifesto Project at https://manifestoproject.wzb.eu/information/documents?name=handbook_v4.

  33. 33.

    See the Appendix B for some further examples.

  34. 34.

    See the Appendix C for further insights.

  35. 35.

    The IV related to the ideological heterogeneity of an EPPG is elaborated on the basis of the index of “ideological diversity” of an EPPG proposed by Hix Noury and Roland in their study about cohesion and competition in the EP (Hix et al. 2005, 224).

  36. 36.

    The variable is calculated on a yearly basis, taking variations in the composition of each national delegations into account (i.e. incoming and outgoing MEPs, further details may be found at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/incoming-outgoing.html).

  37. 37.

    The exact question used in the survey is: “How would you judge each of the following: the situation of the national economy?” The available answers are: (1) very good; (2) fairly good; (3) rather bad: (4) very bad; (5) Don’t know.

  38. 38.

    The exact question of the Eurobarometer survey used in the analysis is: please tell me whether each of the following statements evokes a positive or negative feeling for you: Immigration of people from outside the EU. Available answers: (1) very positive; (2) fairly positive; (3) fairly negative; (4) very negative; (5) Don’t Know.

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Carlotti, B. (2021). Opposing the EU in the EP at the Time of Populism. In: Patterns of Opposition in the European Parliament. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53683-1_2

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