Abstract
Which aspects of the EU do national parties oppose from within the arena of the EP and how do they oppose them? Does the expressed opposition differ across policy issues? Are mainstream parties somehow opposed to the EU? These are the core questions that this first empirical chapter answers alongside qualitatively investigating the motivations used by parties to exercise their opposition. To strengthen the visual interpretation of the obtained results spider-plots and multilingual word-clouds are used. Such visual methods are central to disentangle the aspects of EU-opposition (or support) stressed by parties within the EP. Furthermore, they propose an immediate comparative overview of the EU-opponents and their mainstream counterpart also in a cross-policy perspective.
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Notes
- 1.
For more information see ECR’s webpage at http://ecrgroup.eu/about-us/.
- 2.
The analysis provides a static picture of opposition to the EU-policies in the economic field. This is to say that it does not track changes in AFD’s stances before and after its exit from the ECR.
- 3.
Expression referring to the Volkswagen (VW) scandal. In response to EPA Tier 2 emission standards, all cars’ producers had to comply with very strict rules concerning the emission of NOx (chemical component made up of Nitrogen Oxide and Nitrogen Dioxide). To do that, VW cars model (particularly Jetta 2009 and Golf 2010) were equipped with a new LNT technology (Lean NOx Trap). However, the LNT NOx trap was not doing much. Instead, the cars were installed with software that detected when they were being tested and were programmed so that NOx emissions would indeed be minimal under test conditions.
- 4.
Defined as the ‘cornerstone’ of EU’s environmental policy, the ETS system works on the ‘cap and trade system’. The cap is set on the total amount of certain greenhouse gases that can be emitted by an installation. The cap is reduced over time such that the total emissions fall. Within the cap, companies receive or buy emission allowances that they can trade with one another as needed. Further info at https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/ets_en.
- 5.
The expression LuxLeaks affair (or Luxembourg Leaks) refers to a financial scandal revealed in November 2014 by a group of journalists. The produced dossier reported a set of documents showing that Luxembourg’s tax authority has been systematically delivering secret deals to multinationals.
- 6.
At a speech held in the occasion of the ‘Global investment conference’ in London (26 July 2012) Mario Draghi (president of the ECB) announced that:’ Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough’. See the entire verbatim report of the speech at https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2012/html/sp120726.en.html.
- 7.
Reference to the picture of the dead young Syrian boy found on the beach near Turkish resort of Bodrum. Aylan Kurdi, was one of the twelve Syrian who drowned in the attempt to reach Greece’s borders. The diffusion of the pictures was followed by a wave of different types of reactions among the broad public. See: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/shocking-image-of-drowned-syrian-boy-shows-tragic-plight-of-refugees.
- 8.
The speech refers to both Orbán’s decision to construct a fence at the Hungarian border with Serbia to impede the transit of migrants from the so-called Balkan route and to the request of a popular referendum on the reintroduction of the death penalty in Hungary.
- 9.
Reference to Merkel’s quotation “Wir schaffen das” (we can do this) concerning Germany’s to welcome new migrants and/or asylum seekers marking the beginning of the so-defined Willkommens-Kultur (welcome culture) towards migrants. The text of the press conference (August 2015) is available at: https://www.bundesregierung.de/Content/DE/Mitschrift/Pressekonferenzen/2015/08/2015-08-31-pk-merkel.html.
- 10.
The speech refers to the quantitative easing (QE) operation by the ECB. With the expression QE is intended the action of the ECB that since March 2015 started to buy assets from commercial banks as a part of non-standard monetary policy measures. The aim of the asset purchase is to support economic growth across the Euro area and help keep inflation levels below 2%.
- 11.
PODEMOS dedicates all of the negative QSs coded under the EU-regime target to the performance of the ECB.
- 12.
The ECBG is a European agency that was officially launched in 2015 to extend the Frontex mandate in response to the migration crisis.
- 13.
‘Transfer union’ is a term referring to the transfer of resources among member states depending on their specific needs.
- 14.
The abbreviation COP21 refers to the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Paris from the 30th of November to the 12th of December 2015.
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Carlotti, B. (2021). Patterns of Party Positioning: Quantity and Quality. In: Patterns of Opposition in the European Parliament. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53683-1_3
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