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Introduction: Euroscepticism, from the margins to the mainstream

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IPS0010.1177/0192512115577231International Political Science ReviewBrack and Startin

Introduction

International Political Science Review

2015, Vol. 36(3) 239­–249
Introduction: Euroscepticism, from © The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512115577231
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Nathalie Brack
Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

Nicholas Startin
University of Bath, UK

Abstract
With the advent of the Eurozone crisis, Euroscepticism has become increasingly mainstreamed. This is
discernible across Europe at the level of public opinion, among political parties and civil society groups,
within the EU institutions themselves and in terms of changing and more challenging media discourses.
Against the backdrop of the 2014 European elections and a potential referendum on UK membership of the
EU, the purpose of this article is to introduce an evolving debate. It begins with discussion of the ‘state of the
art’ with regard to the study of Euroscepticism, before focusing on the significance of the latest European
elections themselves. It then provides an overview of the various articles in the collection, explaining their
relevance in helping to unravel the complexity and diversity of opposition towards ‘Europe’ and the extent
to which Euroscepticism has become part of the mainstream with regard to European political debate.

Keywords
Euroscepticism, radical left, radical right, European integration, EP elections

The term ‘Eurosceptic’ can be traced back to the mid-1980s in the UK and, in its simplest form,
refers to someone who is opposed to the powers of the European Union (EU). Prior to the 1992
Maastricht Treaty it was largely confined to the margins. However, as the EU has evolved and
its competences have increased, developments such as the advent of the euro, the ‘big bang’
enlargement of 2004, the failed European Constitution and the subsequent Lisbon Treaty have
placed progressive strain on the so-called ‘permissive consensus’. More recently, with the advent
of the Eurozone crisis, Euroscepticism has become increasingly ‘embedded’ within European
nation states (Usherwood and Startin, 2013), placing Europe’s elites under increasing pressure

Corresponding author:
Nathalie Brack, FRS-FNRS Research Fellow, CEVIPOL, Université libre de Bruxelles, Avenue F.D. Roosevelt, 50 CP 124,
Brussels, 1050, Belgium.
Email: nbrack@ulb.ac.be

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240 International Political Science Review 36(3)

in terms of the future direction of the EU. In short, against the backdrop of the economic crisis,
Euroscepticism has become increasingly mainstreamed, in the sense that it has become increas-
ingly more legitimate and salient (and in many ways less contested) across Europe as a whole.
This is clearly discernible on a number of levels: the evolution of European public opinion that
has become more hostile towards the EU; support for parties opposed to further European inte-
gration; an increase in Eurosceptic rhetoric among traditionally pro-EU mainstream parties; a
rise in the number of Eurosceptic civil society groups; changing (and more challenging) media
discourses; and more transnational cooperation among Eurosceptics within EU institutions,
notably the European Parliament (EP).
Significantly, EU-related referendums have become a key feature of this mainstreaming process
and have served to underline the power of EU citizens to put the brakes on, and potentially derail,
the European integration process. Nowhere is this currently more pronounced than in the UK, fol-
lowing Prime Minister David Cameron’s announcement that the Conservatives would hold a refer-
endum on UK membership of the EU in 2017 if his party were to win a majority at the 2015 general
election. This would be the first referendum in the history of European integration (since the British
voted in 1975) on whether an existing member should stay in the EU or not – an event which, if it
happens, whatever the result, will have major repercussions on the debate about the future direc-
tion of the European project. The UK historically has a troubled relationship with the EU and has
always been on the fringes of ‘Europe’ in terms of its commitment to further integration, but in
recent years (see Nicholas Startin in this issue) ‘hard’ Euroscepticism has become increasingly
mainstreamed in British politics. This development was epitomised by the UK Independence Party
(UKIP) becoming the leading UK party at the 2014 European elections, polling over a quarter of
the popular vote.
UKIP were not the only party opposed to European integration that made dramatic electoral
progress at the European elections: elsewhere, various parties adopting ‘hard’ Eurosceptic posi-
tions made major gains in the Strasbourg chamber (see later in this introduction). Notably,
Marine Le Pen’s French Front National (FN) polled just short of 25 per cent, confirming the
far-right party as the leading French party (see Emmanuelle Reungoat in this issue). The result
in France and elsewhere prompted a dramatic response from the French President Hollande
(whose Socialist Party polled just 14 per cent of the vote), who described the outcome as ‘a vote
of mistrust towards Europe’ (Hollande 2014). While describing himself as a European, he called
for the ‘EU to change focus and reduce its role’, stating that it had become ‘remote and incom-
prehensible for many of its citizens’. Blaming the impact of austerity policies for the result,
Hollande’s speech was a key shift in terms of French presidential discourse on the EU in com-
parison with previous presidents – a clear example of how ‘the times they are a-changing’ with
regard to the framing of ‘Europe’ by mainstream political elites. Within the context of the EP,
there was also further evidence of the mainstreaming effect with the increased strength of the
‘soft’ Eurosceptic grouping the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), which became
the third largest group in the EP, with 70 MEPs, representing a significant shift in the balance of
power in the Strasbourg Chamber.
Against the backdrop of the 2014 European elections, the aim of this collection is to analyse
the extent to which Euroscepticism has become increasingly mainstreamed within both the
domestic political sphere and the EU transnational domain. This issue has gained even more
resonance following the results of the 2015 Greek general election, in which the anti-austerity
SYRIZA emerged as the leading party in the newly formed government. Through a comparative
and case study approach, the articles examine how opposition to the European polity has evolved
and how such changes are influencing the rationale of the EU as an entity, its decision-making
and its policies.

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Brack and Startin 241

The study of Euroscepticism: A brief state of the art

Although European integration has always been contested and shaped by events and crises
(Crespy and Verschueren, 2009; Ross, 2011), opposition to the European project has traditionally
been viewed as peripheral and/or exceptional. Indeed, until the mid-1980s, tacit consent appeared
to prevail at the mass level, with broadly positive attitudes towards the European Community
prevalent in most member states, while at the elite level opposition remained marginal, temporary
or sectoral (Leconte, 2010; Lindberg and Scheingold, 1970). A first discernible change occurred
in the context of the Single European Act and the programme for the internal market, with
Margaret Thatcher’s famous Bruges speech acting as a catalyst for the diverging views develop-
ing among elites towards the European project (Hooghe and Marks, 1997; Usherwood, 2007). It
is undeniably, however, that the Maastricht Treaty has acted as a ‘watershed’ moment, leading to
a growing and increasingly visible Euroscepticism among both elites and citizens (Down and
Wilson, 2008; Franklin et al., 1994; Lacroix and Coman, 2007). Subsequently, Euroscepticism
has not only become a persistent component of European politics but has also become increas-
ingly complex and multifaceted (Usherwood and Startin, 2013). As a result, there has been a
burgeoning literature in the area since the late 1990s, with the study of Euroscepticism becoming
a well-established subfield in EU studies (Flood, 2009; Mudde, 2011). However, the literature
thus far has tended to focus on two main aspects: first understanding the nature of opposition to
the EU, and second explaining its drivers.
With regard to the nature of Euroscepticism, there have been numerous works since Taggart’s
(1998: 366) seminal article on Euroscepticism and political parties, in which he defined it as
expressing ‘the idea of contingent or qualified opposition as well as incorporating outright and
unqualified opposition to the process of European integration’. While Taggart, together with
Szczerbiak (2002), refined this definition by differentiating between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ Euroscepticism,
other scholars proposed alternative conceptualisations. Kopecky and Mudde (2002) relied on
Easton’s concept of diffuse and specific support to offer a two-dimensional typology with four
categories (Euro-enthusiast, Europragmatic, Eurosceptic and Euroreject). Considering this classi-
fication to be too simplistic and imprecise, Flood and Usherwood (2007) elaborated a six-point
scale of positions ranging from EU-reject to EU-maximalist, while Rovny (2004) insisted on dif-
ferentiating between the motivation and the magnitude of opposition to the EU. At the level of
public opinion, similar debates took place with regard to definitions of Euroscepticism. Sørensen
(2008) identified four types of public Euroscepticism: economic, democratic, sovereignty and
socio-political driven, while Krouwel and Abts (2007) developed a two-dimensional conceptuali-
sation by combining both the targets and the degree of popular discontent toward ‘Europe’.
The second focus of the literature has centred on explanations of Eurosceptic attitudes and posi-
tions. Among specialists in the field of political parties, the main debate has been focused on the
respective impacts of ideology and strategy. The so-called ‘School of North Carolina’ (Mudde,
2011) puts the emphasis on party-level explanations, and more precisely on the impact of tradi-
tional cleavages on party positions toward European integration. On the other hand, the ‘Sussex
school’ tends to stress nation-specific characteristics such as electoral systems, the structure of the
party competition and the objectives of the party. Although there has not been much interaction
between the two schools, more recent work has stressed their complementarity (Vasilopoulou,
2013). Scholars have put forward several explanations in order to understand the end of the so-
called ‘permissive consensus’ of Europe’s citizens (see Loveless and Rorhschneider, 2011). Some
focused on the impact of economic performance (Carubba, 1997; Eichenberg and Dalton, 1993,
2007) or on subjective individual-level indicators (Gabel, 1998), while others concentrated on
national identity to understand the increasing level of opposition to the EU (Bruter, 2005; Carey,

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242 International Political Science Review 36(3)

2002; McLarren, 2004). Recently, scholars have also investigated the impact of trust (or lack of it)
in domestic political institutions on public attitudes towards the EU (Anderson, 1998; Sanders
et al., 2012), as well as the impact of political ideologies and the interplay between parties and
public opinion (Hooghe, 2007; Lubbers and Scheepers, 2010; Steenbergen et al., 2007).
As Vasilopoulou (2013) rightly points out, this focus of the literature tends to portray
Euroscepticism as a new and marginal phenomenon, located at the periphery of society and the
party system and to focus mostly on its nature and its sources (see also Cécile Leconte, this issue).
However, Euroscepticism has in recent years increasingly moved from the margins to the main-
stream, and the Eurozone crisis has triggered fundamental changes in the attitudes of both citizens
and elites vis-á-vis the EU but also towards national institutions (Serricchio et al., 2013). Populist
and Eurosceptic parties are on the rise, reflecting segments of the population’s growing discontent
with traditional parties and elites (Albertazzi and McDonnell, 2007; Mair, 2011). The current crisis
further undermines public confidence in democratic institutions (Armingeon and Guthmann, 2014;
Kröger and Friedrich, 2013): 66 per cent of citizens feel their voice does not count in the European
Union (EU) and almost half are not satisfied with the way democracy works, at either national or
European levels (Eurobarometer 79.5 and 80, 2013)1. As a result, Eurosceptic parties were able, in
many of the member states, to exploit the prevailing sense of disconnect and hostility at the 2014
EP elections. Moreover, Euroscepticism and anti-EU rhetoric is no longer the hallmark of fringe
and marginal parties. Claims that the EU is undemocratic and needs fundamental reform are
becoming increasingly common among mainstream media and parties (Abbarno and Zapryanova,
2013). These developments make it timely to examine the mainstreaming of Euroscepticism and
its implications.

Elections 2014: A Eurosceptic tsunami in the EU?

The number of dissenting voices in the European Parliament has grown significantly following the
May 2014 European elections. The percentage of parties opposed to or questioning aspects of the
European integration project has undoubtedly altered the dynamics of the Strasbourg chamber.
First, the mainstreaming of Euroscepticism in terms of the composition of the EP is underlined
by the decline in representation of two of the three pro-EU groups following the 2014 elections
(see Figure 1). Although the centre-right European People’s Party remains the largest group, its
membership has fallen from 274 to 221 MEPs. The third largest grouping prior to the elections, the
Alliance for Liberals and Democrats for Europe, has also shed members and now has 65 MEPs,
compared to 85 in the last mandate. It lost all but one of its 12 UK Liberal Democrats and 9 of its
12 German Free Democrat members – making it now the fourth largest grouping, behind the ‘soft’
Eurosceptic ECR. The centre-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats has increased
its number of MEPs by eight, from 184 to 192, and remains the second largest group in the EP.
Overall, there has been a net reduction of 65 MEPs among the three historically pro-EU groups.
In the backdrop of the crisis, the ‘second-order’ dynamic of the EU elections also contributed to
a decline in support for governing parties, who lost out to a range of small and radical parties on
both the left and right, although noticeable variations are apparent across the member states.
The biggest gains were made by radical right parties, who, in the context of the Eurozone crisis,
have increasingly utilised a ‘hard’ Eurosceptic and at times anti-globalisation discourse to bolster
their traditional anti-immigrant discourse. This development has helped them to gain legitimacy, to
become mainstreamed and in some cases to assist the process of ‘sanitisation’ or ‘detoxification’
within their parties, as was noticeable in the French case (Brack, 2014; Startin, 2014) – although
the FN was not the only radical right party to top the poll in its respective country (see Table 1).

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Brack and Startin 243

Incoming Parliament 2009 Incoming Parliament 2014

EUL/NGL EFD 32 NA 27
EFDD 48
NA 52
ECR 54 EUL/NGL
EPP 221
EPP 265

Greens/ ECR 70
Europea
ALDE 84
n Free
Alliance Greens/ ALDE S&D 191
EFA 50 67
S&D 184

Figure 1.  Comparison of incoming European Parliaments 2009 and 2014.

Source: European Parliament.
Notes: EUL/NGL : European United Left/Nordic Green Left; EFD: Europe of Freedom and Democracy; ECR: European
Conservatists and Reformists Group; ALDE: Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe; S&D: Socialists and Demo-
crats; EPP: European People’s Party; NA: Non-attached Members; EFDD: Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy.

Table 1.  Results for radical right parties, 2014 European elections.

Party % of vote No. of seats Election ranking

2014 2014 within country
  (% in 2009) (seats in 2009) (position in 2009)
Dansk Folkeparti (DF) (Danish People’s Party) 26.6% 4 1st
(DPP)  (14.8%) (2) (4th)
Front National (FN)  24.85% 24 1st
(6.3%) (3) (5th)
Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) (Austrian 19.7% 4 3rd
Freedom Party)  (12.71%) (2) (4th)
Jobbik (Magyarországért Mozgalom) (Movement for 14.68% 3 2nd
a Better Hungary)  (14.77%) (3) (3rd)
Coalition Nacionālā apvienība (National Alliance 14.3% 1 2nd
‘All for Latvia!’ (VL) / For Fatherland and Freedom/ (10.26%) (1) (5th)
LNNK) 
Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) (Party for Freedom)  13.2% 4 3rd
(16.97%) (4) (2nd)
Perussuomalaiset (the Finns Party) 12.9% 2 3rd
  (14%) (1) (4th)
Sverigedemokraterna (SD) (Sweden Democrats) 9.7% 2 5th
  (3.27%) (0) (10th)
Golden Dawn (Chrysi Avyi) 9.38% 3 3rd
  (/) (0) (/)
Lega Nord (LN) (Northern League) 6.15% 5 4th
  (10.2%) (9) (3rd)
Vlaams Belang (VB) (Flemish Interest) 4.14% 1 10th
  (9.85%) (2) (4th)
Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands 1% 1 12th
(NPD) (National Democratic Party of Germany)  (/) (0) (/)

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244 International Political Science Review 36(3)

In Denmark, the Danish People’s Party (DPP) polled more than a quarter of the votes cast; in
Austria the Freedom Party, though not winning the poll, gained the support of almost one-fifth
of Austrian voters. Less significant in terms of votes cast, but nevertheless significant symboli-
cally, was the election for the first time in the EP of a member of the German National Democratic
Party (NPD), as a result of the German constitutional court’s decision to abolish the 5 per cent
threshold for representation for the European elections. Notably, radical right parties fared less
well in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) states, with Jobbik in Hungary and the National
Alliance in Latvia (which included the radical right Fatherland and Freedom Party) the only two
countries where representation was gained. Elsewhere in the CEE, in Bulgaria (Ataka), Romania
(the Greater Romanian Party) and Slovakia (the Slovak National Party) radical right parties lost
their seats in the EP. This shift towards Western Europe in terms of radical right representation
in Strasbourg is not surprising given the general hostility of such parties towards the EU’s policy
of freedom of movement and, with it, the scapegoating of CEE migrants in their anti-immigrant
and anti-EU discourse. Despite the decline in the representation of radical right parties in CEE,
overall the number of radical right MEPs rose, with ‘a record 52 MEPs, up by 15 seats since the
2009 election’ according to Mudde (2014) – although Mudde’s calculations exclude the Finns
Party and the National Alliance in Latvia, both of which could arguably be included in this
group. In spite of the rise in the number of radical right parties, the leaders of the French FN and
the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders, were unable to
achieve their stated aim of forming a transnational grouping of like-minded ‘pan-European’
nationalist MEPs. Unable to find sufficient allies to form a 25-strong parliamentary grouping
from at least seven different countries, the majority of radical right parties remain ‘unattached’
and thus ineligible for group funding.
In reality the FN was outflanked by Nigel Farage’s pro-sovereignty/anti-EU UKIP, which per-
suaded former FN MEP Joelle Bergeron to join the ‘hard’ Eurosceptic Europe of Freedom and
Direct Democracy (EFDD). UKIP were the ‘big winners’ in the EP elections among the pro-sover-
eignty/anti-EU parties, but other parties with a Eurosceptic discourse also made significant pro-
gress, such as the Italian Five Star Movement, which made a referendum on Italy’s participation in
the Eurozone a major component of their campaign. They polled 21.5 per cent of the vote, coming
second in the Italian contest and becoming the leading party, with UKIP, in the EFDD group. They
were joined by the Czech Party of Free Citizens, Lithuania’s Order and Justice, the radical right
Sweden Democrats and a representative from the Polish Congress of the New Right.
Whereas radical right parties were particularly successful in Western Europe, the situation is
different in Southern Europe, where Eurosceptic radical left parties had the upper hand. Against the
backdrop of the economic crisis and the subsequent austerity measures, the salience of the EU as
an issue increased significantly in recipient countries. In Greece, SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical
Left) topped the polls and won six seats based on strong opposition to European austerity measures
(Borreca, 2014; see also Susannah Verney in this issue). Interestingly, this victory did not come at
the expense of the Communist Party, which held on to its two seats in the EP. In Spain, the United
Left made dramatic progress, moving from one to five seats in terms of representation. More sur-
prisingly, the new party Podemos, created out of the Indignados movement a few months prior to
the elections, won five seats after a campaign focusing on opposition to austerity measures ‘from
Germany’. Similarly, in Italy, besides the previously mentioned new, populist Eurosceptic and anti-
establishment Five Star movement that came second in the poll, the new radical left party ‘The
Other Europe with Tsipras’ captured three seats, winning 4 per cent of the vote. Elsewhere, in
Cyprus, the more established Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL) came second with 27
per cent of the votes. All these parties joined forces with established radical left parties such the
Front de Gauche in France, Die Linke in Germany, the Left Party in Sweden, the Danish People’s

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Brack and Startin 245

Movement against the EU, the Left Alliance in Finland and the Left Bloc in Portugal to add strength
to the European United Left–Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) group. The overall size of the group
increased from 35 members in 2009 to 52 in 2014, underlining that Euroscepticism has become
increasingly embedded on the radical left in the context of the crisis.
The Eurozone crisis and austerity measures also had an impact on the EP election results in
countries with traditionally high net contributions to the EU budget. Thus, Europe played an
increased role in campaigns in Finland, Austria, the Netherlands, the UK and Germany. In these
countries this issue reinforced right-wing Euroscepticism, whereas in Southern Europe it strength-
ened the radical left. As mentioned, in Austria, the radical right came second in the elections, and
in Finland the unpopular bailouts contributed to impressive electoral results for the Finns Party. In
the Netherlands, mainstream pro-EU parties lost ground despite the success of D66, the social/
liberal Dutch party. Moreover, although the PVV lost 4 per cent in comparison to 2009, left-wing
and right-wing anti-EU and Eurocritical actors gathered 34 per cent of Dutch voices in the election
(Krouwel and Kutiyski, 2014).
Another significant development with regard to the mainstreaming of the Eurosceptic debate at
the 2014 European elections was the emergence of the single issue/anti-EU Alternative for
Germany Party (AfD) (see Robert Grimm’s article in this special issue). This party, formed by a
group of academics in 2013, narrowly failed to gain representation in the same year’s October
Federal elections in Germany. Standing on an anti-Euro platform, the AfD polled 7 per cent of the
vote, winning seven seats in the EP. Courted by the EFDD group, the AfD elites instead, in an
attempt to gain legitimacy, opted to join the ‘soft’ Eurosceptic ECR group founded originally by
the UK Conservative Party after the 2009 European elections, now the third largest grouping in the
EP, with 70 MEPs from 15 countries. The UK Conservatives and the Polish Law and Justice parties
are the leading parties in terms of representation in a group which now includes a range of parties
with a ‘soft’ Eurosceptic outlook: the New Flemish Alliance, Bulgaria without Censorship, the
Croatian Party of Rights, the Czech Civic Democrats, the Family Party in Germany, the Independent
Greeks, the Electoral Alliance of Poles in Lithuania, the Christian Union and the Reformed Political
Party in the Netherlands, the New Majority and Ordinary People Movements in Slovakia and the
Ulster Unionist Party. The ECR group also includes representatives from the radical right Finns’
Party, Danish People’s Party and the National Alliance for Latvia.
Although the situation differs across Europe and the potential ‘tsunami’ effect needs to be quali-
fied by the low turnout, something that is always likely to lead to an ‘overrepresentation of the
passionate minorities’ (Krouwel and Kutiyski, 2014: 386), there has never been such a high num-
ber of dissenting voices in the EP.

The articles in this issue

The increased electoral success of Eurosceptic parties, plus pending referendums or the prospect
of them, serves to raise the salience of the EU in domestic politics and national media, both of
which increasingly question the European project. The purpose of this special issue is to analyse
the extent to which Euroscepticism has in recent years moved from the margins to the mainstream
of European political debate. The articles in this collection aim to untangle the complexity and
diversity of opposition towards ‘Europe’ within the context of the Eurozone crisis and to analyse
the implications of the mainstreaming debate in the light of the results of the 2014 European
elections.
Cécile Leconte begins by reviewing the rich literature on Euroscepticism, showing that until
recently most work in this field has been normatively biased, conceptualising Euroscepticism as a
marginal phenomenon, be it at the margins of domestic party systems or at the margins of the EU

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246 International Political Science Review 36(3)

as whole. Leconte explores the recent evolution of scholarly understandings of Euroscepticism,

from a marginal and quasi-pathological phenomenon to a mainstream and enduring one in European
democracies. She draws on academic debates on populism and its relation to democracy to propose
avenues for future research, particularly in the context of the Eurozone crisis.
Robert Grimm’s article represents a very timely analysis of the German case in the context of
the economic crisis and, more particularly, the party ‘Alternative for Germany’ (AfD). Through
an analysis of the party’s ideology, Grimm demonstrates that the AfD is quite distinctive and
does not mirror other anti-EU parties across Europe. Moreover, the article argues that the recent
shift in public opinion towards the EU in Germany is the result of the interaction between the
country’s historic legacy, its political culture and its changing national identity since reunifica-
tion. Significantly, Grimm argues this shift has been reinforced by an unprecedented media-fed
moral panic.
As the crisis triggered new reactions in Germany, it has also fundamentally changed the politi-
cal situation in Greece. Like Germany, Greece was considered one of the most Europhile members
of the EU. However, as Susannah Verney demonstrates, Greece has experienced a rapid and dra-
matic rise in the level of opposition to the EU, culminating in 2015 with the electoral victory of the
‘soft’ Eurosceptic SYRIZA and its formation of a coalition government. By examining
Euroscepticism at both the party and public opinion levels since the start of the crisis, Verney dem-
onstrates how the Eurozone crisis has led to the delegitimisation of both domestic and EU political
institutions and significantly increased the salience of European integration as an issue of political
contestation in Greece.
Focusing on the French case, Emmanuelle Reungoat analyses the ways in which the Front
National (the winners in the 2014 EP elections) has profited from the European electoral context,
investigating how the party has used this context to acquire both symbolic and material resources.
Reungoat demonstrates how the European electoral context provides the FN with a unique oppor-
tunity to gain seats and legitimacy, to professionalise the party and to help sustain its political
activity. The article also focuses on the evolution of the FN’s discourse on Europe since Marine Le
Pen became leader in January 2011 and the impact of the multiple media discourses surrounding
the party since she replaced her father as leader.
The fifth article, by Nicholas Startin, concentrates on the UK’s troubled relationship with the
EU. He argues that the ‘permissive consensus’ evident in most EU nation states prior to Maastricht
was never clear-cut in the British case and reviews some of the historical and geographical expla-
nations which have contributed to the UK’s reputation as the ‘awkward partner’. Startin suggests
that some of the key drivers in the evolution of the Eurosceptic debate Europe-wide – such as
Maastricht, the 2004 and 2007 enlargements and the more recent economic crisis – have had a
particular impact in the UK. He focuses on the role and influence of the UK media, and in particu-
lar the tabloid press, to demonstrate how the debate surrounding UK membership of the EU has in
recent years completed its journey from the margins to the mainstream of British politics.
The media mainstreaming of Euroscepticism is also discernible elsewhere in Europe. As
Asimina Michailidou’s article shows, the end of the ‘permissive consensus’ and the emergence of
a ‘constraining dissensus’ with regard to European integration have coincided with the transforma-
tion of the European media landscape. Through an analysis of online news coverage of the
Eurozone crisis and elections in six member states, Michailidou demonstrates that, beyond national
differences, the EU is rather uniformly contested. Public debates about the EU remain framed
through national lenses, while Eurosceptic claims concentrate on the EU as it is, rather than on its
future or its evolution. She illustrates that the crisis has strongly influenced contestation of the EU
and that opposition is increasingly focused on power, solidarity and accountability, paving the way
for a debate on a reformed or alternative Europe rather than the demise of the EU itself.

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Brack and Startin 247

The final article of this special issue focuses on the supranational level to examine the strategies
developed by Eurosceptics in the European Parliament. Through an analysis of the attitudes and
behaviours of Eurosceptic MEPs on the radical left, on the radical right and also in the mainstream,
Nathalie Brack shows that such actors develop four types of strategies, ranging from an ‘empty
chair’ strategy to a form of socialisation. The article reflects what it means to have such dissenting
voices at the heart of the EU. Brack argues that the roles they play could help to alleviate the
‘democratic deficit’ which continues to damage the reputation of the EU. Brack argues that
Eurosceptics should be seen as assets for the politicisation of European issues and the development
of the EU as a democratic political system, open to conflict and debate like all democracies.

Acknowledgements
The authors thank the reviewers and the journal editors for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. This
special issue is the result of a workshop organised at the Université libre de Bruxelles on 24 June 2013 by the
UACES Collaborative Research Network on Euroscepticism.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit
sectors.

Note
1. Available at http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb_arch_fr.htm

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Author biographies
Nathalie Brack holds a PhD in political science and is currently FRS-FNRS researcher at the Centre d’étude
de la vie politique (Université libre de Bruxelles). Her research interests include the European institutions, EU
politics, Euroscepticism, radical right parties, legislative studies and the electoral connexion in Europe. She
recently co-authored the book How the EU Really Works (with Olivier Costa: Ashgate, 2014).
Nicholas Startin has a PhD in politics from Brunel University in the UK and is a lecturer in European Studies
at the University of Bath. His research focuses on the impact of Euroscepticism on nation states as well as on
radical right parties in Europe. He was the co-founder of the University Association of European Studies
(UACES) Collaborative Research Network on Euroscepticism and is currently co-editing The Routledge
Handbook of Euroscepticism, which is due for publication in autumn 2015.

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