Summary
Index of Figures - 3 -
Index of Tables - 3 -
Acronyms - 4 -
Introduction - 7 -
Chapter 1 Describing Euroscepticism - 10 -
1. Diachronic perspective - 10 -
2. Theory - 14 -
3. Approach - 23 -
Chapter 2 Italy - 26 -
1. Premise - 26 -
2. Inside parties’ attitudes: an evolution from the sixties to the nineties - 29 - 3. The outbreak of Euroscepticism in the new millennium - 35 - 4. The 2014 European elections: parties’ manifestos and content analysis - 36 -
I. The Partito Democratico - 38 -
II. The Movimento 5 Stelle - 40 -
III. Forza Italia - 43 -
IV. The Lega Nord - 45 -
V. The Unione di Centro and the Nuovo Centrodestra - 49 -
VI. L’Altra Europa con Tsipras - 50 -
Chapter 3 France - 54 -
1. Premise - 54 -
2. Inside parties’ attitudes: an evolution from the sixties to the nineties - 57 -
3. The outbreak of Euroscepticism in 1992 - 60 -
5. The 2014 European elections: parties’ manifestos and content analysis - 68 -
I. The Parti Socialiste - 71 -
II. The Union pour un Mouvement Populaire - 73 -
III. The Front National - 74 -
IV. The Front de Gauche coalition - 77 -
V. The Europe Ecologie coalition - 80 -
VI. The Alternative coalition - 82 -
Chapter 4 United Kingdom - 84 -
1. The peculiarities of British Euroscepticism - 84 -
2. The development of British Euroscepticism - 86 -
3. The evolution of Euroscepticism in the party system - 91 - 4. The 2014 European elections: parties’ manifestos and content analysis - 99 -
I. The Labour Party - 102 -
II. The Conservative Party - 103 -
III. The Liberal Democrats - 104 -
IV. The United Kingdom Independence Party - 106 -
V. The Green Party - 107 -
Conclusions - 109 -
Index of Figures
Figure 1: Front page of the Partito Democratico 2014 electoral manifesto - 39 - Figure 2: Front page of the Movimento 5 stelle 2014 electoral manifesto - 40 - Figure 3: Front page of the Forza Italia 2014 electoral manifesto - 44 - Figure 4: Front page of the Lega Nord 2014 electoral manifesto - 45 - Figure 5: Front page of the L’Altra Europa con Tsipras 2014 electoral manifesto - 52 - Figure 6: Front page of the UMP 2014 electoral manifesto - 73 - Figure 7: Front page of the Front National 2014 electoral manifesto - 75 - Figure 8: Front page of the Front de Gauche 2014 electoral manifesto - 78 - Figure 9: Front page of the Europe Ecologie 2014 electoral manifesto - 80 - Figure 10: Front page of the UDI-MoDem 2014 electoral manifesto - 82 - Figure 11: Front page of the Labour Party 2014 electoral manifesto - 102 - Figure 12: Front page of the Conservative Party 2014 electoral manifesto - 103 - Figure 13: Front page of the UKIP 2014 electoral manifesto - 106 - Figure 14: Front page of the Green Party 2014 electoral manifesto - 107 -
Index of Tables
Table 1 - 37 -
Table 2 - 69 -
Acronyms
AN Alleanza Nazionale (National Alliance) CAP Common Agricultural PolicyCCD Centro Cristiano Democratico (Cristian Democratic Center) CDU Cristiani Democratici Uniti (United Cristian Democrats) CEE Central and Eastern Europe
CEECs Central and Eastern European Countries CFSP Common Foreign and Security Policy DC Democrazia Cristiana (Cristian Democracy)
DL Democrazia è Libertà – La Margherita (Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy)
EC European Economic Community ECB European Central Bank
ECSC European Coal and Steel Community EEC European Economic Community EEP European People’s Party
EL European Left
EMS European Monetary System EMU Economic and Monetary Union EP European Parliament
ERM European Exchange Rate Mechanism
EU European Union
FdI Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy)
FdS Federazione della Sinistra (Federation of the Left)
FI Forza Italia
FLI Futuro e Libertà (Future and Freedom) FN Front National (National Front) FTA Free Trade Agreement
IMF International Monetary Fund LN Lega Nord (Northern League)
M5s Movimento 5 Stelle (Five Stars Movement) MDC Mouvement des Citoyens (Citizen’s Movement) MEPs Members of the European Parliament
MNPs Members of national parliaments
MNR Mouvement National Républicain (National Republican Movement) MoDem Mouvement Démocrate (Democratic Movement)
MPF Mouvement pour la France (Movement for France) MpS Movimento per la Sinistra (Movement for the Left)
MRC Mouvement Républicain et Citoyen (Citizen and Republican Movement)
MSI Movimento Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement) NCD Nuovo Centrodestra (New Center-Right).
PCF Parti Communiste Français (French Communist Party) PCI Partito Comunista Italiano (Italian Communist Party) PD Partito Democratico (Democratic Party)
PdCI Partito dei Comunisti Italiani (Party of Italian Communists) PDL Il Popolo delle Libertà (The People of Freedom)
PDS Partito Democratico della Sinistra (Democratic Party of the Left) PG Parti de Gauche (Left Party)
PPI Partito Popolare Italiano (Italian’s People Party)
PRC Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (Communist Refoundation Party)
PS Parti Socialiste (Socialist Party) PSE Party of European Socialist
PSI Partito Socialista Italiano (Socialist Party) RPF Rassemblement pour la France (Rally for France)
RPR Rassemblement pour la République (Rally for the Republic) SC Scelta Civica (Civic Choice)
SD Sinistra Democratica (Democratic Left) SDP Social Democratic Party
SEA Single European Act
SEL Sinistra Ecologia e Libertà (Left Ecology Freedom) SNP Scottish National Party
TCE Constitution for Europe TEU Treaty on European Union
TTIP Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership UDC Unione di Centro (Union of the Center)
UDF Union pour la Démocratie Française (Union for French Democracy) UDI Union des démocrates et indépendants (Union of Democrats and
Independents)
UKIP United Kingdom Independence Party
Introduction
Euroscepticism has become one of the most important themes – if not the most important – in the analysis of parties’ political discourse. The Eurosceptic stance has always been present in parties’ discourse during the years that followed the beginning of European integration process. It is possible to consider the nineties as the period in which the European project and supranational integration were most important. From that moment, the creation of the European Union has faced a lot of obstacles because of a growing Eurosceptic opposition among Member States: from the British enduring rejection of the integration process in the sixties; the difficulties for the adoption of the Single European Act; the failure of the referendums on the European Constitution; the lessening of the substance of the Maastricht Treaty up to the increase in the Eurosceptic discourse in numerous national parties in the last few years are some examples.
This work focuses on the development of the Eurosceptic movement in three core countries: France, Italy and the United Kingdom. These nations have been characterized by a growth in the Eurosceptic idea, which culminated with the creation of new parties or with the modification of old ones, whose aim is to develop an anti-European propaganda. The emphasis of the work is put on the 2014 anti-European Parliament elections and on how the Eurosceptic discourse of the newly developed national parties influenced the political discourse of the old ones and the results of the consultation.
The most significant of these new political forces is represented by the United Kingdom Independence Party, which, with its Eurosceptic emotional discourse, has been instrumental in bringing the anti-EU sentiment in the UK to the top, till the final success of the so-called Brexit. In Italy, the Eurosceptic crusade is led by the Lega Nord, that modified its anti-Italian and regionalist discourse into an anti-European and anti-immigration one, and by the newly formed Movimento 5 Stelle. In France,
the Front National is the most significant party that displays Eurosceptic sentiments, also due to its anti-immigrant and populist appeal to the masses.
The work will be divided as it follows: in Chapter 1 there is an excursus on the theory developed by numerous scholars on the Eurosceptic phenomenon and on the most important definitions to consider. These scholars have addressed the issue and contributed to its development by considering the important role that political parties’ discourse plays on this matter. Parties have endured what they perceive to be a loss of power and influence over supranational decision making, a situation that was worsened by the growth in abstentionism in the European Parliament elections and the appearance of Euroscepticism inside the Parliament in recent years.
The contribution of Szczerbiak and Taggart that develops the definitions of Hard and Soft Euroscepticism is the most fitting for the content analysis of parties’ manifestos of the 2014 European Parliament elections. Parties’ attitudes and interests differ from one another and among different countries but their discourse can be analyzed by identifying the common denominator represented by the relevance and grade of their discourse around Europe. Generally speaking, the left/right, the mainstream/extreme and the government/opposition cleavages appear to be the most fitting for the cases considered in this work.
In the following chapters the work focuses on the peculiarities of each of the three chosen nations’ party system. In Chapter 2 the focus will be placed on the Italian party system. During the whole European integration process Italy has been considered one of the most Euro positive countries, although with various degrees of intensity. The chapter begins with a general diachronic analysis of the position the Italian government and parties have adopted towards the European integration. Then the attention is placed on the peculiarities of parties’ position with a final part dedicated to a commentary of the content analysis conducted on the electoral manifestos the main Italian parties developed for the 2014 European Parliament elections. The structure of Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 will resemble that of the second chapter. The themes of Europe and European integration in France have had a wavering importance during the construction of the Community, contributing to
differentiate this country in respect to other founding members like Italy. The United Kingdom sets a separate example. The country has been characterized by a strong opposition to the European integration that, alternatively, has penetrated the political discourse of the parties. The UK has been characterized numerous times as the ‘awkward partner’ in the European Community, a country that was interested mainly on its national interests and benefits and on whether the membership of the EEC would have favored them.
Chapter 1
Describing Euroscepticism
The recent international developments, especially the Brexit process, have inspired many scholars to address the growth of Euroscepticism in the European Union (EU). My work is in this field and its main goal is to analyze the positions of three founding Member States and to compare the findings in order to develop a description of the Eurosceptic phenomenon.
The 2014 European elections have seen an unprecedented success for the Eurosceptic front in numerous Member States: United Kingdom, France and Italy are those with the highest number of Eurosceptic Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). In all of these countries over a third of the elected candidates belongs to an electoral roll against the European integration process (Pinto and Regalia, 2014).
In the analysis of Euroscepticism among Member States is important to consider various aspects. First, I will proceed to briefly examine the diachronic perspective of the evolution of the Eurosceptic sentiment; then I will focus on the theoretical approaches to this phenomenon and finally I will describe the approach used to analyze the cases of Italy, France and United Kingdom. For these three countries, the manifestos of the main parties for the European elections of 2014 were examined.
1. Diachronic perspective
Euroscepticism is very intertwined with the concept of European integration. The nineties were the period in which the European project and supranational integration were more important. From that moment, the constitution of the EU has faced a lot of obstacles because of a growing Eurosceptic opposition among Member States (Calandri et al., 2015).
It can be argued that Britain’s refusal to join the European Coal and Steel Community in the early stages of the European integration is the first sign of a Eurosceptic sentiment. For decades, the European project was very successful. After the signing of the Single European Act (SEA) in 1986 and the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 Euroscepticism has become a significant phenomenon, given the increasingly prevailing role of the EU in various policy areas.
The SEA enclosed, in a single text, the reforms of the Rome Treaties and addressed new forms of political cooperation. From the beginning, it has encountered the opposition of Great Britain, which was against all forms of institutional reforms which led to a deeper political integration. For this reason, the text appears to be built as a compromise between the pro-European attitudes of Germany and France and the more cautious attitude of Great Britain.
The ratification of this Treaty embodies the first discrepancies between Member States. Nine Member States signed the Treaty right away, while others delayed the signing: Italy was not satisfied because the project seemed not pro-European enough; Denmark, on the other hand, believed that the pro-European attitude was too strong and held a referendum, which ended with 56% of the people in favor of the SEA; Greece waited for the results of the Danish referendum before agreeing to sign the Treaty. Finally, these three countries signed the Treaty a few weeks later than the other nine Member States.
Moving to the nineties, public support for the European integration dropped because of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), also known as Maastricht Treaty, which transformed the economic nature of the EU into a political one. It was approved at a time of deep changes in the world with the reunification of Germany, the dissolution of the USSR and the end of the Cold War. From its part, Great Britain was against a political development of the community and preferred a cooperation among single independent sovereign states (Calandri et al., 2015).
There were two main approaches that Member States adopted towards the political union: one based on an intergovernmental attitude and the other in favor of a deeper European integration. That being said, in the origin of the EU, the main focus was on
the economic and monetary union and a cautious approach was utilized for the political union and the institutional development.
The ratification of the TEU represents another important symbol of the growth of Euroscepticism. In 1992 Denmark, France and Ireland held referendums which showed unforeseen results.
Denmark, a traditionally Eurosceptic state but with a pro-European government, held two referendums: the first one ended with 50.7% of the people against the ratification of the Treaty, criticizing its technocratic aspect and its threat to national identity and sovereignty. The second one, held in 1993 after some modifications to the Treaty, approved the ratification. In France, the referendum ended with the so called Petit oui, since the ratification was approved with 51.05% of the votes. This vote caused the comeback of anti-European stances and an anti-German attitude. The referendum in Ireland, notoriously a pro-European state, passed with 69.1% of the votes but was characterized by an unexpected high abstentionism – the turnout was 57.3%.
Furthermore, the creation of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) connected countries like Great Britain, Sweden and Denmark in their opposition towards the European integration. The EMU was part of the purpose of the deepening of the EU defined in the TEU and was structured in three stages, the last of which implied the adoption of a common currency: the euro. Great Britain and Denmark decided to take advantage of the opting-out clause, granted to them by the TEU, which allowed them not to switch to the euro, while Sweden held a referendum in 2003 which rejected the adoption of the euro with 55.9% of the votes.
In addition to all of this, the deepening of the EU was accompanied by its widening to the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) after the dissolution of the USSR.
This process focused on the transferring of the political, economic and regulatory model of the EU to these countries and then lead to a pre-adhesion strategy. Among Member States there were not very enthusiastic reactions: only Germany was in favor of the enlargement.
Great Britain had a mild response: it wanted to conquer new markets and hoped that the addition of new members could lead to an estrangement of the political union in favor of an economic and free trade collaboration. Italy, for its part, was in favor of a modernization and stabilization policy for these countries but was worried about the Balkans, where it believed a bigger commitment was necessary after the crisis of 1991(Calandri et al., 2015).
France had numerous doubts: it was worried about the shifting of the geopolitical center of gravity towards the east of the EU; it believed that a big enlargement would have caused problems for the EU and its institutions; and it was worried about the economic consequences, especially for the structural funds and the Common Agricultural Policy.
In recent years, the failure of the French and Dutch referendums regarding the European Constitution and the Ireland referendums regarding the Lisbon Treaty are the most fitting examples of the growth of Euroscepticism.
The Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (TCE), also known as the European Constitution, was a project for an international treaty approved in 2004 and intended to replace the Treaties of the European Union. The TCE was never adopted because of the failure of the French and Dutch referendums. These consultations where held in 2005 and ended respectively with 54.7% and 61.5% of the votes against the ratification of the Treaty. The rejection from the French people was a major breakthrough since the nation originated the European integration, shaped its contents and was considered to be one of its pillars. The question of national sovereignty and the new socio-economic model of the EU were the causes of the rejection.
This can be considered as the most serious crisis of the history of the EU.
As a consequence, the negotiation stopped and resumed the following year leading to the formulation of the Lisbon Treaty, conceived as a series of amendments rather than a new constitutional text. This new Treaty does not differ much from the constitutional Treaty but considers the possibility to withdraw from the EU, which triggered the Brexit process in 2016.
The ratification of the Lisbon Treaty did not require the use of referendums but nonetheless the Irish government decided to hold one in 2008. The first referendum rejected the reform Treaty with 53.2% of the votes; then a second one was announced in 2009 and, after some modification in the text, ended with 67.1% of the votes in favor of the ratification.
Nowadays, the EU is becoming increasingly criticized in the media. In addition to that, the refugee crisis, the recent terrorists’ attacks in various European capitals and the Brexit process contribute to the growth of criticism towards the EU thus giving additional space and visibility to Eurosceptic parties (Leruth et al., 2017).
2. Theory
Given the growth of Eurosceptic attitudes among Member States, the study of the behavior of their political parties appears to be of the upmost importance. The political parties represent, guide and organize the support – or the opposition – towards the EU.
As Conti (2009) points out, their work is affected by the binding decisions of the EU which limit their policy arena/sphere. The author then addresses another problem the political parties have to face: the emptying of their powers due to the delegation of powers to supranational institutions. This problem was not followed by a proper compensation for the loss of their powers, given the small representation of the parties in the EU, which exists only in the European Parliament (EP). Two points of view of the issue of the EP deserve further consideration: the first one focuses on the abstention in the EP elections; the second one focuses on the growth of Euroscepticism inside the EP.
The increasing abstention in the EP elections of the last forty years represents a problem since participation rates are a crucial indicator of political support for the EU. Schmitt and Van der Eijk (2008) focus on the hidden political message of this abstention. For them, the abstention can be defined as a Eurosceptic non-voting and
can be caused by the lack of support for the EU or the lack of EU policy appeal of political parties. They also believe that the abstention caused by system opposition can be an indirect manifestation of political preferences and can represent a strategic voting. The participation to elections can be affected by composition effects, like the decline of the proportion of citizens under compulsory voting, and timing effects, like the closeness to national first-order elections. Surprisingly, after their analysis of the European Election Studies in various years, they find that the anti-EU sentiment does not play a role in the participation/abstention rate.
Moving to the growth of Euroscepticism inside the EP, Katz (2008) starts his work by considering the importance of the European project. He affirms that Euroscepticism, although present from the beginning of this project, became relevant in the nineties when the EU started to be a more significant player in various policy areas. In his analysis, he focused both on the balance between the national and the European level – where MEPs were more interested in increasing the authority of the EU than the Members of national parliaments (MNPs) – and on the balance between the EP and other institutions, which went to the detriment of the EP itself.
Katz expands the definitions of Hard and Soft Euroscepticism given by Szczerbiak and Taggart (2008) – which will be explained later in this chapter – and adds a third one: the Europhiles. In his view, Hard Euroscepticism, a total rejectionist position, and Europhiles appear at both ends of the spectrum; Soft Euroscepticism, which expresses a qualified opposition to European integration, is in an intermediate position. Katz concludes his work by stating that Euroscepticism can be explained in two attitudinal variables: “on the one hand, those who feel themselves to be ‘European’ are less Eurosceptical than those who do not”; “on the other hand, those who are more satisfied with the ‘democraticness’ of the EU are less Eurosceptical than those who are not”. To study parties’ behavior towards the EU is important to determine the level of analysis. The approach can either focus on the single parties, by looking at the national level, or on the party system, by looking at the supranational level.
At the beginning, the theory focused on the single national parties or on the single Member States but the results were mostly descriptive and did not present a theoretical framework. At a later time, the studies focused on a comparative research between national and international factors (Delwit, 1995). In the recent years the comparative research focused on the demonstration of two main arguments. The first is that different parties tend to have structured political positions towards Europe. The second is that parties respond to the challenges of the EU in a predictable way, which is similar among different states (Marks and Steenbergen, 2002).
Looking at the European issue it is possible to outline some mainstream approaches regarding parties’ attitudes towards the EU. For starters, these attitudes can be determined by the left/right conflict: it appears that the ideological division between left and right is relevant to the parties’ preference on Europe. The European issue is absorbed in the historical ideologies of the parties and translates in the left/right cleavage (Bartolini and Mair, 1990)1. It is possible to outline three models which represent this left/right conflict: the regulative model, developed by Garrett and Tsebelis in 2000, which focuses on the groups inside the EP and gives more credit to the ideological factor. The hypothesis here is of a correspondence between the party’s collocation on the left/right axis and its opinions about Europe: the left parties are more pro-European; the right parties are more Eurosceptic and, by moving on the axis, the opinions about Europe change in a linear way.
The second model focuses on the transnational federations. It is developed by Hix and Lord 1997 and states that the left/right conflict affects the European issue in a non-exclusive and temporally instable way. These authors justify this assessment by saying that left and right parties have changed their positions about Europe in the decade between the eighties and the nineties.
1 Constitutive elements of a cleavage are: an empirical referent, a specific social structure of
reference; a normative element, a set of values and believes which makes a sense of belonging in the empirical referent; a behavioral/organizational element, a set of relations, organizations and institutions which reproduces the normative element.
The third model, developed by Hooghe and Marks in 2002, focuses on the national parties and gives an intermediate position between the two previous models. These scholars identify the cause of the European issue not only in the left/right cleavage but also in the ideological division between new politics parties and the traditional ones.
Despite the differences among these models, it is possible to summarize as follow: the modern pro-EU attitude sustains the regulation of the market made by the EU and, for its ideology, is similar to that of the center left parties.
Another way to describe parties’ attitudes towards the EU is by looking at the studies regarding Euroscepticism. The main contributors in this area are Szczerbiak and Taggart (2008). According to these authors, there is no linear relation between the party’s ideology and its opinions about Europe: for them, only the goal-seeking parties utilize the ideological approach towards Europe. They also identify office-seeking parties which are guided by a pragmatic approach and develop their position on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis. In these parties, the ideology is of secondary importance.
Furthermore, Szczerbiak and Taggart focus on the distinction between being pro-EU and Eurosceptic. They identify the parties closer to the center of the political space as more pro-European, while, with the increasing distance from the center up to the extremity, their behavior becomes more Eurosceptic. As a result, the parties at the extremities of the political spectrum are more Eurosceptic and the Euroscepticism of the mainstream parties derives from single fractions and is not the official stance of the party. The Euroscepticism that Szczerbiak and Taggart outline is comparable to an anti-system protest of the parties that are outside of the system itself; instead, the mainstream ones are direct beneficiaries of the system and for that are less inclined to go against it.
Szczerbiak and Taggart developed also to concepts that help describe party-based Euroscepticism: they distinguish between a Hard Euroscepticism and a Soft Euroscepticism. The former is defined as “a principled opposition to the EU and European integration and therefore can be seen in parties who think that their
countries should withdraw from membership, or whose policies towards the EU are tantamount to being opposed to the whole project of European integration as it is currently conceived”. The latter can be found in parties “where there is not a principled objection to European integration or EU membership but where concerns on one (or a number) of policy areas leads to the expression of qualified opposition to the EU, or where there is a sense that ‘national interest’ is currently at odds with the EU trajectory”.
Other authors focused their studies on the tactical nature of parties’ attitudes towards the EU. Here the strategic factor is presented as complementary or even predominant to the collocation in the political frame. Sitter (2002) believes that parties’ positions on Europe are strategic in the sense that they aim at the survival in the party system, at the occupation of public and governmental offices and are influenced by ideology. In this scenario parties are presented with a dilemma: on one end to follow the ideology and the interests of the party itself, on the other to go in a different direction and follow the goal to participate in the government. The author defines Euroscepticism as an attitude of the opposition and for this reason the most Eurosceptic parties are those which are excluded from the sphere of the government.
As Conti (2009) states, in all of the previous approaches – the ideological division between left and right, their mainstream/extreme position and their government/opposition status – the temporal dimension is important in order to understand parties’ attitude towards the EU. The ideology and the mainstream/extreme position are associated with a behavior of continuity in time, while the government/opposition status is associated with a behavior of discontinuity.
Recently the problem of national specificity has been reintroduced on the study of parties’ attitude towards the EU. Marks (2004) affirms parties’ attitude is not only influenced by their nature and ideology but also that EU’s impact on the resources that the national institutions have is to consider. Since the economies in
Member States differ, also EU’s impact will differ: this will give the conflict on the theme of integration a national aspect instead of an ideological one.
The European issue can also be described in less structured way than the previous ones. A new approach describes the European issue as a sleeping giant (Van der Eijk and Franklin, 2004) or a flammable issue (Evans, 1999). This ‘disorder approach’ (Conti, 2009) describes parties’ attitude towards the EU as chaotic. Conti introduces here the concept of maverick issue developed by Maor and Smith in 1993 and uses it to define those questions which are politicized in a bottom-up process that starts from the society. The problem here is that the party system is not capable to absorb this issue in one of its existing cleavages. Thus, there is the possibility of a destructive effect on the system itself capable of putting aside the classic issues on which the system is based: left vs right, mainstream vs extreme and government vs opposition.
Another concept defines a cross-issue which creates some forms of conflict in the party system: this disorder can create forms of nonpartisanship, in which the party abstains from defining a unanimous position and leaves the voters to form their own position. This can be a rational and strategic response to the internal conflict that the party adopts in order not to impose a unanimous position in an already divided situation.
Both these concepts support the idea that the party system is incapable to absorb a new issue in the already existing positions of conflict. The difference lies in the effects that these concepts entail: in the maverick issue, there is a substantial change in the party system or even its destruction; while in the cross-issue there is a series of strategic choices which prevent the changing of the system with a voluntary isolation from the most difficult issues.
These less structured approaches appear to be an alternative to the mainstream ones, to prove one means to discard the other.
Finally, ideology is the starting point for the formation of parties’ attitude towards the EU. This helps to distinguish between parties whose orientation
toward the EU is a top priority (both being in favor or against) and parties that prefer other systems of values and priorities.
The main distinction can be based on two types of attitudes: ideological or pragmatic. The first type is associated with: sustain or opposition towards the EU; a celebrative or critical political discourse on the EU, and an unconditional sustain towards a more intense process of integration or towards the ultimate goal of exiting from the EU. The second type is associated with: a conditioned sustain or opposition towards the EU; a political discourse which focuses on specific and partial objectives, and a conditioned sustain towards a more intense European integration or towards the reform of the EU.
Considering these classifications, Conti (2009) outlines some expectations about the empirical research:
1. The attitudes of mainstream parties are in the pro-EU/Soft Euroscepticism categories, while Hard Euroscepticism is an attitude of extreme parties.
2. The pro-EU attitude prevails in the center-left parties, while forms of cautious pro-EU attitudes/Euroscepticism are common in the center-right parties. 3. Center-left parties tend to have a continuity in their attitudes.
4. Center-left parties have a pragmatic approach towards the European integration and are more inclined towards a cost-benefit analysis of the impact of EU’s interests on domestic issues.
5. Being at the government or at the opposition influence the attitude of parties with a pragmatic approach but not those with an ideological one.
At the opposite side of the spectrum it is possible to outline an alternative expectation: the European issue works as a cross-issue in the party system and cannot be associated with the traditional political competition positions.
Another important definition that needs to be addressed is the one called Horizontal Euroscepticism (Bardi, 2014). Bardi affirms that this form of Euroscepticism “imperils mutual trust between Member States, undermines the legitimacy of the EU intergovernmental decision making and poses the need for the strengthening of supranational democracy and for the creation of a form of
party government at the EU level as well”. In his view parties should be “sympathetically responsive to their supporters and to public opinion moods” and “responsible towards the internal and international systemic constraints they are subject to”. Responsiveness and responsibility appear to be strictly linked to parties’ policy making. “Responsiveness implies the existence of dedicated and effective input mechanisms and an ability by parties to respond accordingly; responsibility requires a long-term vision, judgement, and ability to accommodate needs that are not necessarily articulated as pacific demands, as well as willingness to maintain commitments and to respect pacts agreed upon in the past”.
Bardi links the hollowing of western democracy with the increasingly depolarization of policy making, which consequently brings to the failure of political parties in many crucial policy areas. This led towards a non-political policy making made by technicians, central banks and non-majoritarian institutions, like the EU, that were not accountable to voters.
Generally speaking, the collective representation provided by political and technocratic institutions made democracy viable, whereas the dyadic representation of the parties showed some limits.
All of this resulted in a prevalence of output-oriented legitimacy over the input-oriented one. The main difference here consists in the level of involvement of the citizens: “the former is based on individual active action in the aggregation and articulation of interests, the latter is largely made possible by citizens’ indifference2”. Citizens’ indifference is also increased by both the retreat of elites from parties and the emergence of populist parties and anti-politics movements across Europe. In this sense, Bardi can affirm that parties’ inadequacies to govern lead to technocratic solutions.
2 Citizens’ indifference occurs when conditions exist that permit the system to survive on the
basis of diffuse support but it can also be due to party inability to engage members, electors and citizens in conventional politics (Bardi, 2014).
The hollowing of the western democracy obliged the parties to adapt their organization in various forms: the catch-all parties, which tried to open up the competition for electoral support across classes or social groups but failed to reverse the party decline trend; and the cartel party, whose model was described by Katz and Mair in 1995:
1. Parties are more regulated by law that the past – but they make the laws. 2. Parties get resources from the state as a result of the legislation they have
passed and of their position of control in the key state structures.
3. Parties prioritize their role as governing agencies over the representation since their roots to the society fade away. Moving away from society, parties govern on the basis of demands they do not articulate.
At the EU level this can be seen, at the supranational level, in the inadequacy of the EP where parties are present as EP party groups; and, at the intergovernmental level, where party representatives are virtually unaccountable and citizens are not informed about their activities and tent to judge these parties on their actions at the national level.
In recent years the EU produced decisions with increasingly relevant policy implications for Member States, affecting also domestic policy decision with increasing interdependencies between levels. Thus, a progressive denationalization of the intergovernmental decision-making is happening. Member States have started to develop increasingly diverging interests and this led to the emergence of the Horizontal Euroscepticism.
Bardi points out that this new form of Euroscepticism “manifests itself in the form of statements, positions, and actions, which express negative attitudes or feelings by citizens, parties or political actors from one given member state towards other, one or more, selected member state”. The development of these antagonistic views between Member States, both Eurosceptic and pro-European, can produce “a negative impact on citizens’ perception of and attitudes towards the EU”.
The decisions made at the European level appear to be increasingly imposed by few ‘strong’ states on the ‘weaker’ ones; on the other hand, the reluctance of the ‘weaker’ to comply with these decisions can be seen as an underlying intention to take advantage of the ‘stronger’ states’ generosity and tolerance. Giving that this happens within the respect of the Treaties, the effect is an undermining of the acceptance of the EU decisions – which does not mean anti-EU attitudes.
The importance of Horizontal Euroscepticism lies in the fact that it affects also those who are inherently pro-EU. It manifests in three types of expressions: through policy positions or decisions that are intended to reprimand or sanction a member state – taken by Member States who consider themselves virtuous against others that they see as non-compliant; through the expression of negative attitudes and manifestations toward a member state – taken by Member States which are less influential in the EU policy making or are in an objectively weaker position in a given political moment; and through appeals to national pride with implicit distancing from other Member States.
3. Approach
In order to be able to interpret party’s attitudes towards the EU, I adopted a comparative perspective that aims at investigating the link between parties’ common ideology and their foreign policy. The use of the content analysis method allowed us to examine the parties’ manifestos and enabled us to understand the data and determine the tone of the political discourse of the parties and their positions towards the EU.
In order to have precise results, I utilized a computer-based content analysis which measures saliency in an accurate way.3
3 For the content analysis, I adopted the software AntConc (version 3.4.4). The figures
reported in the graphs depict the frequency of the category expressed in relative terms. The frequency is expressed in percentage and derives from the sum of all the words of each category in the text out of the total amount of the words in the document.
It is important to highlight that content analysis also requires a particular attention to context and a proper interpretation of terms. For this reason, I adopted a quali-quantitative approach which combines a data-driven approach with a deductive one (Calossi et al., 2017).
I analyzed the manifestos of the parties that won the European elections in 2014 from three crucial countries: Italy, France and Great Britain.
The method consists in the identification of the categories relevant to the analysis and the subsequent development of a coding scheme which translates the data into these categories. In the identification of the categories I focused on the vocabulary usually associated with a pro/anti EU discourse. The categories in the vocabulary were organized on their frequency in order to determine their saliency. Finally, I was able to create a vocabulary based on the conceptual framework of the categories, which allowed us to reconstruct the main frames adopted by the parties in the electoral programs.
The frames associated with the pro EU discourse are linked to a positive view of the European integration, its institutions and a more inclusive policy in all Member States. The pro EU frames are focused on the citizens, the younger generations, individual rights, occupation, development and welfare. The frames associated with the anti-EU discourse focus on the economic crisis and the euro, austerity, national sovereignty, immigration and regional and local predominance.
I used the same categories for all the case studies and in the final chapter I will outline some conclusions and parallels between the Eurosceptic sentiment in these countries.
Parties’ attitudes and interests differ from one another and among countries but their discourse can be analyzed by identifying the common denominator represented by the relevance and grade of their discourse around Europe. For this reason and for the purpose of outlining a scale of parties’ attitudes as clear as possible, in my final considerations I will apply the pattern that follows to define the Eurosceptic stance adopted by each party:
- From 100% to 70% in their Pro-EU discourse, I will consider the party as adopting a Euro positive position;
- From 70% to 40%, I will consider the party as adopting a Neutral position towards the EU;
- From 40% to 20%, I will consider the party as a Soft Eurosceptic one; - From 20% to 0%, I will consider the party as a Hard Eurosceptic one.
Chapter 2
Italy
1. Premise
Italy was one of the founding members of the European Economic Community (EEC) created in 1957 and already took part in the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951.
In the early postwar period the Italian government was concerned with the dual decision whether to become part of the NATO and of the EEC. These decisions were guided by the main goal to recover Italy’s international status and achieve recognition as an important and autonomous international actor.
There were two reasons in favor of the joining of the ECSC and the EEC. First, the need of the political elite to reintegrate the country in the international context, to resume relationships with the neighboring countries and to insert Italy permanently into the western sphere of influence. Second, the joining of the European communities could have helped in the stabilization of domestic democracy and in the containment of the communist threat – given that Italy had one of the largest communist parties in western Europe4 (Quaglia, 2011).
In the seventies and eighties, the Italian parliament was characterized by a pro-integrationist attitude. This pro-federalist activism can be found in the calling for the ratification of the European Parliament’s Draft Treaty on the European Union, in the criticism towards the Single European Act – accused of not being federalist enough –
4 Throughout all the fifties and sixties, it was precisely the Partito Comunista Italiano (Italian
Communist Party, PCI) that displayed the main opposition to the European integration – the ratification of the Treaty of Rome encountered the opposition of the PCI and the abstention of the Partito Socialista Italiano (Socialist Party, PSI) – while the rest of Italian parties were generally sympathetic to the idea of ‘Europe nation’.
and in the pressing for a referendum to make the European Parliament formulate a new Treaty on European Union.
This renewed general consensus can be explained by two factors. The first was a new vision adopted by the communists that started to adopt a democratic approach to socialism. These new Eurocommunists wanted to establish a stable democracy in which the left could promote its socialism; they thus saw in the European integration a more favorable ground to achieve their goal. The second factor was the complete absence of right wing Euroscepticism (Verney, 2011).
As Quaglia (2011) highlights, the new increasingly pro-European attitude of the Communist party and the subsequent historic compromise with the Democrazia Cristiana (Cristian Democracy, DC) were a turning point in the Italian Euroscepticism. This created a series of ‘governments of national solidarity’ in which the PCI supported the government led by the DC without directly participating in it. It is possible to affirm that European enthusiasm is a phenomenon that fully developed in the eighties, the last years of the First Republic (Conti, 2009).
In this period Italy was still a net beneficiary of the EEC budget and it had to face some economic problems like high inflation, high public spending, low growth and continuous devaluation. This led to an initial opposition to the joining of the European Monetary System (EMS) that was overcome in 1979. This decision later triggered a government crisis, in which the PCI returned to the opposition, that led to the end of the First Republic (Quaglia, 2011).
In the nineties, the Italian economic performance was characterized by low inflation, a major fiscal adjustment and low growth. In 1992 the lira was withdrawn from the EMS and fluctuated until 1996, when it rejoined the system. Furthermore, Italy’s ability to join the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) was threatened by the previous economic problems and by the difficulties the country had in complying with the convergence criteria imposed by the TEU.
The twenty-first century opened with decreasing public support for the European integration, especially with reference to the single currency. After the program of budgetary austerity – the so called ‘tassa per l’Europa’ (tax for Europe) – decided by
the Prodi government, Italy was able to join the first wave of the EMU and move forward into the adoption of the single currency (Quaglia, 2011).
After the collapse of the First Republic, old parties with a European vocation like the DC were replaced by the new center-right bloc – composed by Forza Italia (FI), the Lega Nord (Northern League, LN) and Alleanza Nazionale5 (National Alliance, AN) – which was in office in 1994, in 2001-2006 and in 2008.
It is important to note that, for the first time, a new Eurosceptic sentiment emerged inside right parties, in a complete opposite position than in the past, and it also characterized mainstream ones, like Forza Italia.
This brought Euroscepticism into the Italian government. With these exceptions, in this period Italy adopted Europhile decisions such as the signing of the TEU in 1992 and the joining of the EMU in 1999.
In its second government, FI developed a more pronounced ‘national interest’ orientation, with the aim to raise Italy’s international profile, and a more pro-Atlantic foreign policy (Quaglia, 2011). It is also important to note that the main Eurosceptic motivation of the second Berlusconi government – between 2001 and 2006 – was the opposition to the European arrest warrant, probably guided more by the personal concern of the Prime Minister than by actual Euroscepticism (Verney, 2011).
The composite nature of the government coalition in 2001 was characterized by the DC groups remaining loyal to the European integration process, which helped moderate the growing Euroscepticism inside Berlusconi’s party. Even during the final stage of the EMU these parties, from the opposition, supported Prodi’s government and enabled it to complete the economic measures needed to qualify Italy (Quaglia, 2011).
After the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty another Eurosceptic opposition rose: the one posed by the post-Eurocommunist parties that formed the new radical left groups.
5 AN is the descendant of a party – the MSI – which, within the constitutional limits, often
declare its indebtedness to Fascism. Its president is Gianfranco Fini, whom defined his party’s followers as ‘fascist, heirs of fascism, post fascists or fascists of the twenty-first century’ (Tarchi, 2003).
The new Italian communist party – the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (Communist Refoundation Party, PRC) – continued to support the European integration process but rejected an exclusively national way to develop socialism. For this reason, this party became very critical about the direction that the integration was undertaking and voted against the Treaty of Nice of 2001 and the Treaty establishing a European Constitutions in 2003 (Verney, 2011).
2. Inside parties’ attitudes: an evolution from the sixties to the
nineties
For a long time, Italy has been associated with a tendency to a diffuse pro-European attitude and to a unanimous consensus towards the forms and the project of the European integration (Conti, 2009).
The nineties are considered a turning point for the Eurosceptic dimension: in 1994, the party system changed in its core, the political actors changed and so did their view. This led to a new set of preferences and attitudes towards the EU.
For decades, the leading political preferences varied between the two alternate positions of the Democrazia Cristiana and the Partito Comunista Italiano. These two parties represented the focal points in the formation of Italian parties’ attitudes towards the EU.
The DC appeared in every government coalition and imposed to its allies a western geopolitical view, based on an alliance with the United States and on the pillars represented by both NATO and the EEC. This view was opposed by PCI’s which refused the European Single Market because it represented a mean of subjugation to the United States and of juxtaposition to socialist countries.
The pro-European attitude of the Democrazia Cristiana can be described as an attitude of loyalty towards the European institutions, almost like a principled one. This attitude was criticized because it was considered remissive, weak, and too focused on domestic problems. The Partito Comunista, from its part, changed its
attitude in the nineties and opened up to a consensus towards the European integration (Conti, 2009).
Given that 1994 can be defined as a turning point, it may be useful to proceed towards an analysis focused on the ‘before’ and ‘after’.
The ‘before’ period is also known as the First Republic.
As Conti (2009) writes, the DC was characterized by a pro-European attitude of principle and by an unconditioned support to the European integration6. For the DC, the adhesion to the European integration project was considered to be inherently positive. It would have helped Italy, defeated in the Second World War, to gain a new international legitimacy and to adopt a deeper cooperation with other European countries. There would have been also economic benefits from the adhesion to the Single European Market in terms of modernization and new business spheres.
The DC was one of the main actors to introduce the virtuous concept of a European integration as bearer of development, modernization and stability. The principled support to the European project was however opposed by a poor and discontinuous foreign policy. In their work Conti and Verzichelli (2005) highlight the paradox of this party which has the strongest pro-European attitude but, on the other hand, is disengaged on the themes of integration. As defined by Bull (1996) this attitude can be interpreted as a pro-European façade.
In the analysis of the PCI, Conti (2009) goes in the opposite direction from the one used for the DC. He describes the PCI as a party guided by a Euroscepticism of principle. For this party, the European integration was both a mean for the international capitalism and for the domain of the United States over the European states’ national sovereignty. The aspect of national sovereignty was considered crucial for the working class, which should have built its political rise to power on the national context and should have refrained from everything that promoted capitalism and the free market. In this context, the EEC was conceived as a menace to the core
6 Some of its leaders were involved in some crucial phases of this process: De Gasperi and
objective of the party. This view produced the attitude of absolute Euroscepticism that the party maintained until the end of the sixties.
From the seventies, the party’s position on the Single European Market slowly switched from a complete rejection to a criticism. This criticism also focused on the founding principles of the European integration – i.e. the worker’s interests and the democratic process. This critical view was defined ‘Eurocommunism’ (Conti, 2009). The deep revision that the PCI underwent in this period is what led to the historic compromise with the DC. In this context, Europe acquired a central strategic importance for the PCI: it became the arena in which various communist parties could establish fruitful relations. The historic compromise entailed also a principled acceptance of the EEC as a mean of cooperation and peace between the western European countries.
It is important to underline that the distinction between these two parties remained also in this years: the DC saw the project of a unified Europe as an addiction to the Atlantic project; the PCI saw it as a mean to overcome the duality of the American and Russian superpowers, thus in opposition to the United States.
Overall, during the First Republic, the DC maintained a strongly pro-European attitude. This became more homogeneous in the eighties with the increasing salience of the integration and external European bond themes. Europe was seen as the only viable solution to the problems of a system in deep economic crisis. The PCI in forty years switched from an absolute Eurosceptic position to a general support to the integration process. Transforming into the Partito Democratico della Sinistra (Democratic Party of the Left, PDS), this party contributed even more to the rapid acceleration of the integration process, also considering the concrete contribution it gave to the monetary union.
The main aspect of discontinuity in parties’ attitudes concerns the U-turn of the Italian left parties. This factor is accompanied by the unprecedented presence of these parties in the government, which was subordinated to the sustain to the integration project (Conti, 2009).
In 1991 the PCI transformed into the PDS and some communist dissidents formed the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista. In 1993 there was the reform of the Italian electoral system which led to some major changes among the parties: some of them, like the DC, disappeared; other changed names, like the aforementioned PCI/PDS or the Movimento Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement, MSI) that became the Alleanza Nazionale; and others were formed: The Lega Nord and Forza Italia. The party system, defined until then as a ‘polarized pluralism’, transformed into a ‘bipolar system’ made by coalitions of center left and center right parties, where all of them competed for votes and had the same governing potential (Quaglia, 2008).
As stated before, 1994 marks a turning point in the attitudes in the Italian party system. This year marks the beginning of the so called Second Republic, which, as we have seen, was mainly characterized by the birth of new parties, both inside the left and right spectrum. The discourse adopted by the parties in this period is characterized by a strong presence of themes belonging to the European sphere (Conti, 2009).
Two exceptions in this matter are represented by: the PRC that, belonging to the extreme left spectrum, acquired visibility during the European Parliament elections; and by the Centro Cristiano Democratico (Cristian Democratic Center, CCD) – later merged with the Cristiani Democratici Uniti (United Cristian Democrats, CDU) to form the Unione di Centro (Union of the Centre, UDC) – whose programmatic offer was limited, also due to its small dimensions. Nevertheless, its ideology was clear, given that this party descends from the DC: it showed a strong pro-European attitude accompanied by the programmatic disengagement that characterized the DC.
Like in the First Republic, in this period the drive for integration depended on few of the leaders or members of the most pro-European parties and did not lie in the parties’ action plans.
As stated in the first chapter of this work, the main distinction among parties’ attitudes towards the EU lies in their nature of mainstream or extreme ones.
Starting from the center left parties, Conti (2009) focuses on the DC7 and the PCI8. These parties shared a passionate pro-European attitude which led them to support strong and ambitious integration processes. They also favored the strengthening of the powers of the European Commission and Parliament. For these parties, the EU represented an absolute good for Italy, bearer of benefits for national interests and an institution without flaws. This attitude showed their principled and unconditional pro-European attitude. This pro-pro-European attitude was also one based on interests, since the EU was seen as a propulsive force that brought economic stability and modernization.
Among the center right parties, FI and AN are the most important ones. These parties, along with the LN, came to power for a few months in 1994 and returned to government only in 2001. AN, a party characterized by a strong nationalism and anti-left orientations, did not base its political discourse on European themes but they were mentioned in its statute (i.e. development and strengthening of the EU along with a reduction of the weight on the national government). After 2001, AN adopter a low profile on EU issues. FI’s attitude towards the EU appears to be more difficult to define. This party has always adopted an intermediate position among Soft and Hard Euroscepticism. When FI was at the opposition (1995-2001) the only appearance of European themes in its political discourse concerned the renegotiation of the TEU in order to give Italy the possibility to join the Economic and Monetary Union (Quaglia, 2008).
During the Second Republic, in Italy there were two main extreme parties: the PRC and the LN. The PRC showed a strong Euroscepticism, it criticized the rigidity of the macroeconomic rules of the EU and their lack of concern for economic growth. They went against the economic logic of the EU which would have endangered the
7 The DC later split: its ideas remained in the Partito Popolare Italiano (Italian’s People
Party, PPI) that became one of the numerous parties inside the coalition called Democrazia è Libertà – La Margherita (Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy, DL).
8 The PCI later split into PDS and PRC. These parties later were both part of the electoral
coalition called L’Ulivo (The Olive Tree) that in 2007 became the Partito Democratico (Democratic Party, PD).
integration process. At the same time, this party called for a ‘united Europe’ – like the PCI did – to counterbalance the growing power of the United States, to fight the limited political capacity of the EU and its political weakness (Quaglia, 2008). For this last reason, Conti (2009) claims that the PRC supported a universal identity rather than a European one.
The LN, with its main objective of self-determination for the north, adopted a strong Eurosceptic attitude. In 1994 however this party declared itself as strongly pro-European, especially because sustaining the EU meant having the possibility to give more power to the regions – thus to the north. In this regard, the LN was determined to bring Italy to join the EMU on time. From 1998 and after Italy’s entry in the EMU, the party’s criticism towards the EU began to grow. Since that moment, LN’s attitudes began to be described as Eurosceptic and even Europhobic (Quaglia, 2008). As Conti (2009) says, from this moment, the LN moves firm critics to the supranational integration and starts to describe the EU as a wannabe super-state that aims at the substitution of the nation-states and at the suppression of local identities. The main reason this party has against the EU lies however in the success Italy obtained with the adhesion to the Euro.
At the end of their analysis Quaglia (2008) and Conti (2009) draw some final conclusions on the Italian parties’ attitudes in the Second Republic.
According to the former, in the nineties the center right parties displayed a Soft Eurosceptic attitude that can be mainly interpreted as a strategic move in order to achieve their objectives. The only way in which they seemed to address EU and foreign policy matters was through the prism of domestic politics.
On this matter Conti (2009) sees that center right parties had a pragmatic attitude towards Europe, they supported the integration process but they evaluated the membership on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis of the national interests. They were characterized by a moderate nationalism which resulted in a resistance to an extension of competence that led to limit national sovereignty. In their discourse, the EU faced a loss in its central role.
Conti goes further in its conclusion and affirms that center left parties displayed a pro-European attitude, in line with their position in the First Republic. This was a principled attitude that saw European integration as an absolute good. On the other hand, this attitude was not accompanied by a strong capacity to make proposals or a strong discourse on the EU. Thus, these parties were led to adopt an unconditional support to an intensified integration process and to prefer a federal Europe.
Furthermore, in the extremities Conti sees an absolute Eurosceptic attitude. The peculiarity of these parties lies in their involvement in the government. In the First Republic, the extremist parties were permanently excluded from the government and were only included when they attenuated their positions. In the Second Republic, these parties did not have the need to give up on their Euroscepticism. On the contrary, they brought forms of sharp Euroscepticism inside the Italian representation system.
In summary Conti (2009) affirms that the European issue does not have an explosive role in the Italian party system. Although it had some discontinuities between the First and the Second Republic, this issue was absorbed into the systems’ main conflict lines.
3. The outbreak of Euroscepticism in the new millennium
The 2000s mark the outbreak of the recent Eurosceptic attitude: its development is related to the 2004 enlargement to the Central and Eastern European Countries – where numerous Eurosceptic parties rose – and to the economic crisis of 2007-2008 (Tuorto, 2014).
In addition to the development of a Eurosceptic attitude, the participation in the EP vote is facing a diminishing trend. It is important to note that this decrease characterizes those countries, namely the Mediterranean States, that where most hit by the economic crisis and the austerity measures, and the citizens of North- and Middle-EU that consider themselves punished from the European measures adopted
in favor of the weakest nations. Nevertheless, the main change that is important to address is the progress of anti-establishment forces. The vote of May 2014 saw a crucial progress for different Eurosceptic forces.
Over the years, Euroscepticism became established as the result of the rise of a new competing political dimension, alternative to the traditional juxtaposition between left and right, and closely tied to the level of consensus towards the European integration. Thus, the Eurosceptic “movement” is made of a mixture of parties with different ideologies, from right nationalist to extreme left ones, which have in common the opposition to the European integration process and to the transfer of sovereignty from the Member States to the EU (Pinto and Regalia, 2014).
4. The 2014 European elections: parties’ manifestos and content
analysis
The European elections in Italy were held three months after a non-electoral change in government and one year after the shocking results of 2013 general elections – where the PD of Matteo Renzi gained the highest percentage of votes (40.8%) ever since the inception of the Second Republic. These elections were presented as a sort of referendum on the newly formed center-left executive of Renzi (Caiani and Guerra, 2014).
The electoral programs developed by the main parties assumed very different positions on European issues: the PD appeared openly European, even though some words used can be interpreted as mimicking Euroscepticism; FI expressed doubts on the euro and its benefit for the Italian economy and asked to renegotiate the fiscal compact; and the Movimento 5 Stelle (Five Stars Movement, M5s) expressed a strong criticism against the EU and its policies, it even proposed a referendum on the euro. Furthermore, the M5s’ electoral program did not argue against European integration. Instead it expressed arguments against EU’s austerity policies like the “abolition of the Fiscal Compact, the investments in innovation excluded from the constraints of
