scholarly journals At the origin of Italian Euroscepticism

Author(s):  
Marco Brunazzo ◽  
Bruno Mascitelli

The dominant narrative about the virtue of European integration is no longer the mantra of Italian politics. Alongside those parties who inherited the traditional ‘Europhile’ position, one can find parties whose support toward the EU is uncertain (like Forza Italia) or openly questioning the integration process (such as the Lega, Fratelli d’Italia and the Movimento 5 Stelle). Moreover, Euroscepticism in Italy reflects a deep change in the public opinion towards the EU: the consistent traditional supportexpressed by the Italians has of recent become more volatile and even critical. This article provides a brief look at changes in Italian positions on European integration, with a focus on the sentiments of both public opinion and the political elites, particularly after the Italy’s entry into the Eurozone in 1998.

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolò Conti ◽  
Vincenzo Memoli

In the recent past, attitudes towards the EU have become problematic in many member states. Even those countries that traditionally were more optimistic have actually experienced important declines in their popular backing of the European integration process. We examine the public attitudes towards the EU that have recently emerged in Italy, a country where support for EU membership has declined substantially. Making use of recent data and novel research techniques, the article sheds light on the explanatory power of different theoretical perspectives to explain these attitudes. Utilitarianism has emerged as the key explanatory factor, whereas other theories appear much less relevant in the Italian context.


2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-451
Author(s):  
Marianna Dudášová

Recent developments in the European Union revealed significant differences between the Visegrad countries and the remaining members of the EU. The enlargement euphoria of the first decade of the 21st century was replaced by certain enlargement fatigue, manifesting itself not only in concrete governmental policies but also in the public opinion towards the EU. As European integration and globalisation are parallel processes, declining support for European integration must not necessarily be the result of disagreement with specific policies and should be examined in the broader context of globalisation fears and anxieties. The article describes variations in globalisation scepticism between the group of Visegrad countries and the remaining countries of the EU as well as variations within the Visegrad group itself, focusing on the main drivers of economic globalisation – international trade, foreign direct investment, and immigration. The development of public opinion since the financial and economic crisis in 2009 indicates that Visegrad countries should not be treated as a uniform bloc of globalisation sceptics as there are significant differences in opinion between the more pessimistic Czechs and Slovaks and the more optimistic Poles and Hungarians. Their globalisation scepticism also varies across different dimensions of globalisation and is fuelled by different motivations.


Author(s):  
Ilda Rusi

The process of European Union membership is a national objective, in view of the democratization and transformation of the Albanian society, in accordance with the values and principles of the United Europe. This sentence is taken from the Official Site of the Prime Minister of Albania. This message but expressed in other words seems to be there standing since 1992, when in Albania for the first time was articulated the desire for national integration of the country. After more than twenty years, the question that concerns me mostly is that why my country is not part of the big European family? What happened in these twenty-two years to prevent this process or to accelerate it? The first thing that comes to my mind after the last rejection candidate status on December, last year, is that this is a promise that none of the Albanian government has not yet managed to achieve. On my opinion, this process is strictly associated with the willing of all determinant political actors to collaborate and to manifest democratic political culture through dialogue. European integration is a slogan used in every political campaign, as a key element of the political agenda all political parties but in. It helps a lot during the electoral campaign but unfortunately we are still waiting for. Thus, I think that the integration process is not related only to the Albanian desire for participating in the EU, but mostly to the political class attitude. It is true that every time that the government does not achieve the candidate status, the political parties to blame each other for retarding the integration process. Even though, different scholars emphasize the role of EU in the process of integration, I believe that the country's democratization is a process strongly related to the political elite performance and the way they manifest politics. Albanian political class must admit that the real problem in this process is the way that it makes politics and how it makes political decision. In this article, I argue that the European integration is a process which can be successful only if all political parties in Albania understand that this is an obligation that they have with Albanian citizens and that cannot be realized if all of them are not committed to. This ambitious goal can be achieved only when the EU priority reforms are going to be established and in Albania there are going to operate functional and free institutions based on meritocracy and democratic system of operation far away from politics.


Author(s):  
Markus Patberg

This chapter turns to the public narrative of ‘We, the peoples of Europe’, according to which constituent power in the EU lies with the peoples of the member states, and asks to what extent it can be defended in systematic terms. In doing so, it draws on the political theory of demoi-cracy, which interprets the EU as a political system for the joint self-government of separate political communities. Building on the proposals of central demoi-cratic authors, the chapter discusses how the distinction between pouvoir constituant and pouvoir constitué could find a place in the theoretical framework of demoi-cracy. It then proceeds to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the resulting view. While the demoi-cratic model of constituent power is convincing in its claim that the national peoples must not be bypassed in EU constitutional politics, it fails to draw the necessary conclusion from the fact that European integration has brought about politically significant relations between the citizens of Europe—namely, that there is the need to enable the expression of cross-border cleavages.


2019 ◽  
pp. 25-30
Author(s):  
Beatriz Pérez de las Heras

Deusto Journal of European Studies has been contributing for 30 years to the critical analysis and knowledge transfer of the European integration process from a multidisciplinary approach. While commemorating this anniversary, this special issue aims to provide a look ahead, a bid for the continuity of the European project and its re-launch as the only possible choice of future. From this perspective, ten experts offer their visions on some of the most relevant challenges that the EU is currently facing. The short-term evolution of such challenges will shape the political, institutional, economic and social outlines of the European integration process in the coming years.


2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-312
Author(s):  
Elena Dragomir

During the early 1990s, following the restoration of independence, Lithuania reoriented in terms of foreign policy towards West. One of the state’s main foreign policy goals became the accession to the EU and NATO. Acknowledging that the ‘opinion of the people’ is a crucial factor in today’s democracy as it is important and necessary for politicians to know and take into consideration the ‘public opinion’, that is the opinion of the people they represent, this paper brings into attention the public support for the political pro-West project. The paper is structured in two main parts. The first one presents in short the politicians’ discourse regarding Lithuania’s accession to the EU and its general ‘returning to Europe’, in the general context of the state’s new foreign policy, while the second part presents the results of different public opinion surveys regarding the same issue. Comparing these two sides, in the end, the paper provides the answer that the Lithuanian people backed the political elites in their European projects. Although, the paper does not represent a breakthrough for the scientific community, its findings could be of interest for those less familiarized with the Lithuanian post-Cold War history, and especially for the Romanian public to whom this journal mainly addresses.


Res Publica ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 575-597
Author(s):  
Peter Bursens

This article starts from the observation that the Belgian level of adaptation to the requirements posed by its membership of the European Union is surprisingly low. Following an institutionalist line of thinking, it is argued that the impact of the European Union is seriously constrained by the characteristics of the Belgian federal system. This results into defining both cultural (1) and structural (2) indicators for the degree of Europeanisation: (1) European opinions and awareness of political elites and the general public and (2) the Belgian domestic organisation of European co-ordination mechanisms. The article more concretely argues that the European opinions and European awareness of the political elites and the public opinion are coloured by an inwards-looking mentality that stems from the dominant focus on the ongoing federalisation process. In addition, it is also found that the limited Europeanised installation and outcomes ofthe European co-ordination mechanisms are at least partly shaped by hard and soft federal elements


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Spasimir Domaradzki ◽  
Ivana Radić Milosavljević

This article explores how national executives in Serbia and Bulgaria address European Union (EU) rule of law conditionality by framing it within the populism/technocracy dichotomy. The rule of law remains one of the main problems of EU relations with the two countries. While acknowledging the nuances of pre- and post-enlargement Europeanisation, this article explores the technocratic and populist narratives exploited by the national executives in their interactions with the EU and their domestic public. Rather than positioning the current executives unequivocally either as populist or technocratic, we argue that the political elites act strategically in using both populist and technocratic techniques towards their publics when explaining interaction with the EU. We explore the extent this type of executive behaviour is determined by the countries’ formally different status. While we look for the levels of possible similarity and distinction in the two cases/countries stemming from their different EU membership status, our findings confirm the existence of strategic defensive populist and technocratic techniques applied towards the EU and the national public in both countries The aim of this strategy is to mitigate the impact of the EU rule of law pressure and to secure the persistence of the existing rule of law shortcomings within the process of European integration. Interestingly, our research did not identify substantial impact of the formally different status towards the EU of the two countries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (40) ◽  
pp. 9-16
Author(s):  
Liliia Khorishko ◽  
Natalia Horlo

The article analyses the position of the political elites of Poland and Hungary, who see the strengthening of European integration processes as a threat to national sovereignty and national identity. The authors link the emergence of interest to the problem of the crisis of national identity with the intensification of the activities of right-wing political parties and movements in these countries, which are trying to introduce the idea of right-wing populism into the public consciousness. The beliefs about the unity of society and the revival of traditional values form the basis of right-wing populist ideas. The methodological basis of the study was the comparative method and framing analysis. The comparative method allowed comparing the political rhetoric of the elites of Poland and Hungary, and with the help of framing analysis, the essence of the problem of the crisis of national identity was specified by highlighting its basic parameters. It is proved that the socio-political discourse around the problem of national identity has some differences in these countries. This is due to the historical and cultural background of these countries. It is emphasized that right-wing populist parties and movements offer certain ways to respond to the problem of loss of national sovereignty and national identity, namely the consolidation of society based on cultural and religious values, strong advocacy of state interests in the EU structures, pressure on the EU within the Visegrád Group, and others. The authors believe that the broad socio-political discourse on the problem of national identity is a manifestation of "identity politics". It aims to introduce desirable assessments of the political situation and to implement traditional collective values and vision into the public consciousness by right-wing populist political parties and movements.


2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 434-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine E. de Vries

In the midst of the economic crisis sweeping across the European continent, popular support for European integration has become a common theme in political discourse. This article revisits the debate regarding popular support for European integration. Although many journalists, politicians and pundits currently argue that the public is becoming increasingly sceptical of further steps towards integration, this study qualifies that claim and suggests that public opinion towards Europe is best described as ambivalent. Also, it shows that ambivalence regarding European integration is higher in Western than in Central and Eastern Europe. This is probably due to the fact that as citizens in Western Europe have gained more experience with the positive and negative consequences of integration over the years, they have also become more ambivalent about the European project. Rather than suggesting that citizens are by and large turning their backs on Europe, I put forward the view that we seem to be witnessing growing uncertainty about the future scope and depth of the integration process. This, I argue, could be viewed as a natural by-product of experiencing both the virtues and the vices association with membership. Consequently, attitude ambivalence as such may be demonstrative of a maturation of public opinion concerning European integration.


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