European Union

Parliament encourages the Ukrainian government to keep up the pace on implementing EU-related reforms, and reaffirms the EU’s commitment to a just and lasting peace.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

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Parliament encourages the Ukrainian government to keep up the pace on implementing EU-related reforms, and reaffirms the EU’s commitment to a just and lasting peace.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

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On Tuesday, Parliament endorsed Ms Joëlle Elvinger from Luxembourg and Mr Stef Blok from the Netherlands for their second terms as members of the European Court of Auditors.

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On Tuesday, Parliament endorsed Ms Joëlle Elvinger from Luxembourg and Mr Stef Blok from the Netherlands for their second terms as members of the European Court of Auditors.

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On Tuesday, Moldovan President Maia Sandu addressed MEPs in Strasbourg, focusing on threats to “our democracies”.

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On Tuesday, Moldovan President Maia Sandu addressed MEPs in Strasbourg, focusing on threats to “our democracies”.

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On Tuesday, MEPs adopted their proposals on new EU circularity rules to cover the entire vehicle lifecycle, from design to final end-of-life treatment.
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection

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On Tuesday, MEPs adopted their proposals on new EU circularity rules to cover the entire vehicle lifecycle, from design to final end-of-life treatment.
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection

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On Tuesday, Parliament gave its final green light to new measures to prevent and reduce waste from food and textiles across the EU.
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

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On Tuesday, Parliament gave its final green light to new measures to prevent and reduce waste from food and textiles across the EU.
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

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Ahead of the State of the European Union plenary debate tomorrow morning, EP President, Roberta Metsola, will address the media and take questions.

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Ahead of the State of the European Union plenary debate tomorrow morning, EP President, Roberta Metsola, will address the media and take questions.

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DRAFT REPORT on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) 2021/947 as regards increased efficiency of the External Action Guarantee
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on Development
Charles Goerens, David McAllister

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Tuesday 9 September

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Tuesday 9 September

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By Andrea Pareschi (University of Bologna and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

Across EU member states, Eurosceptic parties – especially on the radical right – are thriving. Not long ago, they had only limited support and were stuck in opposition. But in recent years, many of them have ‘come in from the cold’ and gained real traction. Since 2023, parties vehement in their criticism of the EU have come out on top in parliamentary elections in Slovakia, the Netherlands, France and Austria. In other places – like Finland, Romania, Germany, and Portugal – Eurosceptic parties came in second. And after the 2024 European elections, right-wing Eurosceptic groups Patriots for Europe (11.7 per cent of the seats) and European Conservatives and Reformists (10.8 per cent) are the third and fourth largest in the European Parliament.

Against this background, it is more important than ever to properly understand the different types of Euroscepticism among parties, since that helps us identify what kind of challenges they pose to the EU. The most common way to do so still amounts to the distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ Euroscepticism. First introduced by Aleks Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart, this approach basically separates those who oppose the EU on principle from those who just have specific issues with it. Lately, however, a number of researchers have started using the ‘hard Eurosceptic’ label only for parties wanting out of the EU altogether. What I have argued in a recent research note is that this narrower view drifts away from what Taggart and Szczerbiak originally meant – and that it actually hides how much principled opposition to European integration is really out there.

To begin with, it is really instructive to go back to the two scholars’ original work. Initially, Taggart and Szczerbiak linked hard Euroscepticism to rejection both of EU membership and of the project of European integration. Yet, they soon accepted that classification should not revolve around party stances towards membership, which are too superficial to convey a party’s ‘deeper position […] on the broader underlying issue of European integration’. Instead, they argued that the main thing to look at should be ‘underlying support for or opposition to the European integration project as embodied in the EU’. Their following contribution to the Routledge Handbook of Euroscepticism made clear that a party’s stance on the European integration project should be the main factor, when it comes to deciding whether the party is hard Eurosceptic, soft Eurosceptic, or none.

A drift has instead come to affect the concept of hard Euroscepticism. Too often, these days, hard Euroscepticism is equated to the ‘nuclear option’ of exit, whereas every other kind of party stance or behaviour attacking the EU is seen as soft Eurosceptic. To be fair, there are some understandable reasons for this shift. Twenty years after Taggart and Szczerbiak proposed their definitions, the idea of a European integration project looks a lot fuzzier. Does European integration have a stable, recognisable core at all? Some scholars would say no. If one takes this view, indeed, interpretations of hard Euroscepticism centred on exit are justified. If, in other words, the EU is whatever political actors make of it, then the only party position which corresponds to uncompromising opposition to it is wanting out. If one, instead, takes the view that an essence of European integration exists, things are different. In this case, manifest and consistent rejection of such an essence is surely the most appropriate litmus test for hard Euroscepticism.

After looking at what existing research says on the substantive core of the European project, I attempt a redefinition of hard Euroscepticism which is rooted in such a fundamental basis. A party is then defined as hard Eurosceptic if it systematically demonstrates principled opposition towards either of four elements. First, the EU as an integrated common market. Second, the legitimacy of the institutions which form the supranational layer of the EU. Third, the possibility of expanding the EU’s competencies. Fourth, any of the core values set out in the Treaty on European Union and the Copenhagen criteria for eligibility to join the EU. Following Taggart and Szczerbiak’s logic, I suggest that a party should count as hard Eurosceptic if its policies imply being strongly and consistently opposed to any of the above elements.

There are two main reasons why it makes more sense to define hard Euroscepticism this way, instead of the other. First, tying hard Euroscepticism only to exit ends up limiting the label to opposition parties. As a matter of fact, the conditions leading even strongly anti-EU governing parties to pursue EU withdrawal only materialise very rarely. Many of those parties have realised that it is more effective to oppose the EU from within, as like-minded political forces abound in other countries. If only rejection of membership amounts to hard Euroscepticism, the category is applied to parties which flirt with exit while in opposition only to be pulled back once they, having entered government, confront the EU through less blunt strategies. This makes the category too unstable, turning it into the by-product of tactical moves rather than a consistent position.

Second, as a definition based on exit gradually empties the box of hard Eurosceptic parties, very different political forces end up being squeezed together into the adjacent box of soft Eurosceptic ones. There,  ‘Euroalternativist’ parties, that support the EU’s institutional structure while demanding different policies, are unsuitably mixed with parties which barely agree on the ‘principle’ of cooperation, refusing both the ‘practice’ and the ‘future’ of European integration. Conversely, the approach I propose labels as hard Eurosceptic any party demanding little less than a total overhaul of the key tenets of the EU. Soft Eurosceptic parties are only those whose opposition to European integration is indeed contingent.

Within my article, I have dwelled on two parties which serve as good examples: Matteo Salvini’s League and Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz. Having not campaigned for exit, they are classified as soft Eurosceptics by renowned contemporary overviews. Nevertheless, the League regards the supranational layer of the EU as bereft of legitimacy, at odds with the ‘Europe of peoples’ (and its wholesale indifference to migrants’ human rights may negate an EU core value). Fidesz may cross the line on more than one criterion, too. Anyway, nowhere is this more evident than in its sweeping refusal of multiple EU core values. Arguably, a definition qualifying both parties as hard Eurosceptic fits better, as they both fundamentally oppose the European project on principle.

In conclusion: pushing for EU withdrawal certainly makes a party hard Eurosceptic, but if hard Euroscepticism means fundamental opposition to European integration, there is so much more to it than demanding exit. Within national politics, a hard Eurosceptic party may choose different options: asking for a referendum on membership, calling for complete renegotiation of all Treaties, demanding retroactive opt-outs, and so on. At EU level, a hard Eurosceptic party may confront the substantive core of European integration through the behaviour of its representatives in institutions such as the European Parliament and the Council of the EU.

My recent article with JCMS aims, as a minimum, to stoke debate on how interpretations of European integration should bear on definitions of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ Euroscepticism. More ambitiously, this contribution warrants adding a piece to current debates around Euroscepticism. Radical right Eurosceptic political forces are bidding to get into the EU control room by forging linkages with the mainstream centre-right, which at times appears receptive to the lure of the so-called ‘Venezuela majority’. Are hard Eurosceptic parties across EU member states actively seeking to modify the essence of the European project? May any such attempts be traced back to coordinated action among them? Last but not least, is there any evidence showing the success of such endeavours? In the Europe of 2025, these are all questions worth asking.

Andrea Pareschi is affiliated with the University of Bologna and the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science, European Politics and International Relations. His research interests comprise European politics, Euroscepticism, mass-elite congruence, and the EU issue in British politics. His articles have appeared in Journal of Common Market Studies, Italian Political Science Review, Journal of Contemporary European Research, Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée, and other reviews. https://unibo.academia.edu/AndreaPareschi

The post How hard does it have to be? Why hard Euroscepticism is not just about exiting the EU appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Length of video : 15'

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
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President Metsola opened the 8-11 September plenary session in Strasbourg with a minute of silence to remember lives lost in various tragedies in the EU and its neighbourhood.

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Monday 8 September

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Next AFET committee meeting will be held on:

• Monday 22 and Tuesday 23 September, room SPAAK (3C50), Brussels

Meetings are webstreamed with the exception of agenda items held "in camera".

AFET - DROI calendar of meetings 2025
Meeting documents
Webstreaming
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