2021 Book TheImpactOfPopulismOnEuropeanI

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN
EUROPEAN POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY
The Impact of Populism

on European Institutions
and Civil Society
Discourses, Practices, and Policies
Edited by
Carlo Ruzza · Carlo Berti · Paolo Cossarini
Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology
Series Editors
Carlo Ruzza, School of International Studies, University of Trento,
Trento, Italy
Hans-Jörg Trenz, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Scuola
Normale Superiore, Firenze, Italy
Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology addresses contemporary
themes in the field of Political Sociology. Over recent years, attention has
turned increasingly to processes of Europeanization and globalization and
the social and political spaces that are opened by them. These processes
comprise both institutional-constitutional change and new dynamics of
social transnationalism. Europeanization and globalization are also about
changing power relations as they affect people’s lives, social networks and
forms of mobility.
The Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology series addresses
linkages between regulation, institution building and the full range of
societal repercussions at local, regional, national, European and global
level, and will sharpen understanding of changing patterns of attitudes
and behaviours of individuals and groups, the political use of new rights
and opportunities by citizens, new conflict lines and coalitions, societal
interactions and networking, and shifting loyalties and solidarity within
and across the European space.
We welcome proposals from across the spectrum of Political Soci-
ology and Political Science, on dimensions of citizenship; political atti-
tudes and values; political communication and public spheres; states,
communities, governance structure and political institutions; forms of
political participation; populism and the radical right; and democracy and
democratization.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14630
Carlo Ruzza · Carlo Berti · Paolo Cossarini
Editors
The Impact
of Populism
on European
Institutions and Civil
Society
Discourses, Practices, and Policies
Editors
Carlo Ruzza Carlo Berti
School of International Studies School of International Studies
University of Trento University of Trento
Trento, Italy Trento, Italy
Paolo Cossarini
Department of Culture and Learning
Aalborg University
Aalborg, Denmark
Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology

ISBN 978-3-030-73410-7 ISBN 978-3-030-73411-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73411-4
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Preface
At the beginning of December 2019, as editors of this book, we organized

an international research conference on the impact of populism on Euro-
pean institutions and civil society, hosted by the School of International
Studies of the University of Trento. In the pre-pandemic world, populism
appeared to be an immediate and major threat to the European Union:
populist forces, especially of the far-right, were gaining momentum in
several European countries and had been in government in Italy until a
few months before our conference. Populists had already made their vocif-
erous appearance in Brussels, where they were asserting their Eurosceptic,
nationalist, often openly discriminatory and xenophobic ideas during
parliamentary debates and through press releases, social media, and other
means of communication. They could not be ignored.
As academics, we were studying the challenges posed by populism
and the reactions of European institutions and of several civil society
organizations. The responses to populism, at least initially, appeared to
be fragmentary, erratic, and sometimes even contradictory. They ranged
from ignoring the threats posed by some populist forces, through fiercely
opposing them, to incorporating some elements of populism. All these
responses, however, seemed solicited by the perception of one major
issue: EU institutions had to reconnect with citizens, and civil society
organizations were called upon to mediate this reconciliation.
Recognition of this urgent task was what induced us to organize a
conference intended to be not simply an academic event, but a true
v
vi PREFACE
discussion among those forces that were studying and opposing populism.
During the conference, academics, people from the European institutions,
and representatives of civil society organizations expressed their points of
view and discussed how they were responding to the challenges posed by
populist forces. The debate was too stimulating and fruitful to finish that
day. The themes and insights that emerged during the conference needed
to be further explored and to be brought to a wider public. The process
that started that day could be the beginning of a renewed conversation
among different European actors, turning the threat of populism into a
chance to build a better Europe. Therefore, we asked the participants to
embark on a new adventure and elaborate what had been discussed during
the conference into something that would eventually become this book.
The arrival of Covid-19 partially shifted global attention towards
another, even greater threat: that of a worldwide pandemic destined to
claim the lives of millions, to severely hit the global economy, and to
change people’s lives for many years to come. Nevertheless, populism
did not go away. It soon became clear that populism would play a role
in the management of the multiple pandemic-related crises, and that the
consequences of a “populist” reaction to Covid-19 could be threatening.
Suffice it here to mention the initial reactions of President Jair Bolsonaro
in Brazil, or President Donald Trump in the United States, who decid-
edly minimized the risks related to the virus, thus legitimizing the ideas
(and the consequent behaviours) of those who did not consider Covid-
19 to be a threat, or even openly claimed that it was a hoax. Meanwhile,
in Europe, far-right populist governments in Hungary and Poland were
initially refusing to comply with the requirements of respecting the rule
of law that would allow the approval and start of the “Recovery Plan for
Europe”.
Although this book was conceived before the start of the pandemic,
and is therefore based on data, research, and facts that preceded the spread
of Covid-19 and its socio-political consequences, its content talks to the
present. It describes and analyses the impact of populism on the EU in
a purer form, before the tidal wave of the pandemic came to mix things
up and (temporarily) deflate old threats. We are confident that the anal-
yses, insights, and suggestions found in this book can help academics and
practitioners to better understand and react to populism, especially at a
time when we must multiply our energies to face the challenges of the
post-Covid-19 era.
PREFACE vii
This book would not have been possible without the valuable assistance
of several institutional bodies and Brussels-based civil society organiza-
tions, particularly those more affected by the success of populist politics,
such as those advocating against discriminations and for human rights.
They have been generous with their time and provided information on
the distinctive perspective of organized civil society.
We are particularly grateful to the School of International Studies at
the University of Trento and its then Director Prof. Andrea Fracasso, for
hosting, promoting, and partially funding the event that is at the basis
of this book. Thanks also to our editor Ambra Finotello for supporting
this project from the beginning and for providing useful suggestions and
advice.
Financial support for the event and the book has also been provided
by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, through two distinct
research grants: the PRIN 2015-40102915 project titled “Personaliza-
tion, Institutionalization and De-Institutionalization: The New Dynamics
of Power”, and the PRIN 2017 project titled “The transformation of
democracy: Actors, strategies and outcomes in opposing populism in
political, juridical and social arenas” (CUP E64I19003110005).
As editors, we wish to acknowledge the assistance provided by Adrian
Belton in the English language revision of the texts and to extend our
gratitude to all contributors to this book.
Trento, Italy Carlo Ruzza

December 2020 Carlo Berti
Paolo Cossarini
Contents
The Impact of Populism on the European Union: ‘The

People’ and the Brussels Bubble 1
Paolo Cossarini, Carlo Ruzza, and Carlo Berti
The European Union Facing the Populist Wave

The Populist-Eurosceptic Mix: Conceptual Distinctions,
Ideational Linkages and Internal Differentiation 21
Emanuele Massetti
Populism and European Institutions: A Historical
Perspective 45
Roberto Santaniello
The Impact of Populism on European Institutions

The Discursive Construction of Migration and Democracy
in the European Parliament: A Model of Reciprocal
Influence Between Populists and Non-populists Through
Polarization and Fragmentation 69
Carlo Berti
The Politicisation of the European Union and the Role
of the European Parliament: Opportunities, Risks
and Limitations 93
Markus Warasin
ix
x CONTENTS
The European Parliament’s Treatment of Religion in Times

of Populism 119
Alberta Giorgi
The European Commission and Reactions to the ‘Populist
Turn’ in Anti-discrimination Policy 147
Carlo Ruzza
The Impact of Populism on European Civil Society

Facing the Threat of Populism: How the European
Commission Can Reconnect with Citizens 175
Assya Kavrakova
Civil Society as Anti-Populism? Countering the Populist
Threat and Campaigning for Change in the Discourse
of EU-Level CSOs 197
Paolo Cossarini
The Interaction Among Populism, Civil Society
Organisations and European Institutions 219
Pierluigi Brombo
Europeanize to Resist: Civil Society vs. Populism 243
Luisa Chiodi
Conclusions: Bursting the Brussels Bubble—How
the Impact of Populism Can Be Exploited to Make
the European Union Better 263
Carlo Berti, Carlo Ruzza, and Paolo Cossarini
Index 275
Notes on Contributors
Carlo Berti holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from Auckland

University of Technology. He is Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of
International Studies, University of Trento. His research interests include
political communication, populism, the European public sphere, and
political corruption. Currently, he is working on a collaborative project
on populism and the transformations of democracy. His research has been
published, among other journals, in Journalism Studies, Media Culture
& Society, Australian Journalism Review, and Punctum: International
Journal of Semiotics.
Pierluigi Brombo works at the European Economic and Social
Committee, the EU institution representing civil society organizations,
where he leads the unit in charge of “Relations with Economic and Social
Councils and Civil Society”. He holds a Master’s Degree in Political
Science and in Sociology and Social Research. He regularly publishes on
social sciences and law reviews on the themes of EU governance, EU
immigration policy, and EU family policy.
Luisa Chiodi is Director of OBC Transeuropa since 2006. She obtained
a Ph.D. at the European University Institute and a Master’s Degree in
Political Science at the University of Milan. From 2003 to 2008, she was
Lecturer on ’Eastern European studies’ in the Faculty of Political Science
at the University of Bologna. She authored several academic publications
and coordinated various research projects. Her main research interests
focus on civil society and the transnational dynamics in the European
space.
xi
xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Paolo Cossarini is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of

Culture and Learning, Aalborg University (Denmark). Previously, he
was Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of International Studies, Univer-
sity of Trento (Italy), and taught Politics and International Relations
at Loughborough University (UK). His research focuses on populism
and nationalism, Italian and Spanish politics, protest movements, and
civil society organizations. He has published in European Politics and
Society, Global Discourse, European Political Science, and Revista de Estu-
dios Políticos, among other journals. He is co-editor of Populism and
Passions. Democratic Legitimacy after Austerity (2019).
Alberta Giorgi is Senior Assistant Professor at the University of
Bergamo, Associate Researcher of the research groups GSRL (Paris) and
CRAFT (Turin), and the research centre CES (Coimbra). She currently
serves on the board of the research networks Political Sociology (ESA),
Social Movements and Political Participation (SISP), Sociology of Reli-
gion (AIS). She works on the intersections of religion and politics—
namely, secularism, and gender and religion. Among her publications:
Handbook of Religion and Politics in Europe, Routledge (forthcoming),
co-edited with E. Fokas.
Assya Kavrakova is the Executive Director of the European Citizen
Action Service (ECAS)—a pan-European non-profit association, based in
Brussels, with 30 years of experience in empowering citizens to exercise
their rights and campaigning for an inclusive and democratic Europe. She
has more than twenty years of experience in senior management positions
in the non-governmental sector and in-depth knowledge of European
Citizenship, European Rights Framework, and EU civic participation
mechanisms. She is also a member of the Board of EUobserver—a
not-for-profit, independent online newspaper.
Emanuele Massetti is “Montalcini” Assistant Professor of Political
Science at the University of Trento, at the School of International Studies
and in the Department of Sociology. He is an Associate Fellow at the
Centre on Constitutional Change (University of Edinburgh) and a co-
editor of the Journal of Common Market Studies—Annual Review. He has
lectured on populism since 2011. He co-edited the volume The People and
the Nation: Populism and Ethno-Territorial Politics in Europe (Routledge,
2020).
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xiii
Carlo Ruzza is Professor of Political Sociology at the University of

Trento, founding member of the Research Network of Political Soci-
ology (European Sociological Association), and advisor of the ECPR
standing group Political Sociology. Professor Ruzza worked extensively
on the changes in modes of political participation and in the related
theoretical aspects. His research focuses particularly on the interaction
between civil society organizations, social movement organizations and
decision-making, particularly at EU level, and on the related implica-
tions for democracy. A second area of research is on ethno-nationalism
and populism. He is currently working on anti-populism in the European
institutions and civil society.
Roberto Santaniello has a degree in Political Science and has worked
since 1985 at the European Parliament. Since 1997, he has carried out
public relations and communication activities at the European Commis-
sion’s Representation in Italy. He is a Journalist and a Professor of Law
and European Integration Policies at the University of Roma Tre, and
author of numerous essays and articles. He curates the Agenda of the
European Union for the magazine “Il Mulino”.
Markus Warasin is an EU civil servant working as head of unit in
the European Parliament. He has joined the European Public Service
in 2005 and is currently heading the parliamentary committee secre-
tariat on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the EU.
From 2017 to 2019, he was assigned to the Cabinet of the President
of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani. His previous work experi-
ence includes 10 years in managerial positions as head of unit in the areas
of Women’s Rights and Gender Equality and in Communication Policy.
Markus holds a Ph.D. in Political Theory and History of Ideas, and a
M.A. in International Politics.
List of Figures

Polarization and Fragmentation
Fig. 1 Most debated issues in the EP in relation to populism
(2014–2019) (Source Created by the author) 73
Fig. 2 A model of reciprocal influence between populist
and non-populist discourses in the EP 76
The European Parliament’s Treatment of Religion in

Times of Populism
Fig. 1 Religion in debates at the European Parliament (Source
Created by the author) 126
Fig. 2 Topics related to religion—2004–2009 (Source Created
by the author) 127
by the author) 128
by the author) 128
Fig. 5 Word clouds: Islam (2004–2019) Christianity (2004–2019)
(Source Created by the author) 130
xv
xvi LIST OF FIGURES
Civil Society as Anti-Populism? Countering the Populist

Threat and Campaigning for Change in the Discourse of
EU-Level CSOs
Fig. 1 Main themes in the texts of the CSOs, 2013–2019 (Source
Fig. 2 Conceptualisation of threats linked to populism in the texts
of CSOs 2013–2019 (Source Created by the author) 207
Fig. 3 Conceptualisation of categories and subjects threatened
by populism in the texts of CSOs, 2013–2019 (Source
Fig. 4 Co-occurrences ‘EU deficiencies’ in the texts of CSOs,
2013–2019 (Source Created by the author) 211
The Interaction Among Populism, Civil Society

Organisations and European Institutions
Fig. 1 Civil society participation index (Source
Highcharts.com/V-Dem) 232
List of Tables

Table 1 Frequencies of frames related to migration 74
The European Parliament’s Treatment of Religion in

Times of Populism
Table 1 Association of codes (2004–2009), in percentage 132
The European Commission and Reactions to the ‘Populist

Turn’ in Anti-discrimination Policy
Table 1 List of codes identified 161
Table 2 Co-occurrence between the code ‘European Values’
and other codes 164
xvii
The Impact of Populism on the European
Union: ‘The People’ and the Brussels Bubble
Paolo Cossarini, Carlo Ruzza, and Carlo Berti
Populism has never been more scrutinized by scholars; it has never been
more commented on by media and citizens; and, to some extent, it has
never been more vigorously contested by ‘mainstream’ political parties.
Populism’s pervasiveness has saturated public and academic debates,
becoming a key concept in all branches of social and political studies.
However, leaving aside the discussion about the use and abuse of
the term, and despite the burgeoning literature, there are still aspects of
populism that remain under-examined. One of them is populism’s impact
on the European Union as a whole, by which is meant its institutions and
the EU-based civil society organizations (CSOs). Undoubtedly, populism
has been defined as a challenge for all European institutions and soli-
darity among Member States, to the point of questioning the existence
P. Cossarini (B)
Department of Culture and Learning, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
e-mail: paco@hum.aau.dk
C. Ruzza · C. Berti
School of International Studies, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
e-mail: carlo.ruzza@unitn.it
C. Berti
e-mail: carlo.berti-1@unitn.it
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
C. Ruzza et al. (eds.), The Impact of Populism on European Institutions
and Civil Society, Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73411-4_1
2 P. COSSARINI ET AL.
of a European Union itself. Moreover, the wave of electoral successes of

so-called populist parties across Europe has radically changed the political
panorama in the continent over the past decade. This has fuelled a stream
of public debate and academic research on the nature, the causes, and
the consequences of this phenomenon and on the political and institu-
tional responses to what is generally considered a danger to the EU and
its values.
Nevertheless, the scholarship has not yet developed an in-depth and
comprehensive analysis of the nexus between the European machinery
and populist politics. This has partly to do with the focus of current schol-
arly research, which has mainly examined single case studies or specific
world regions (i.e. Latin and North America, Western Europe, Eastern
Europe, etc.); this lack of attention to the EU and its functioning has also
partly to do with the type of research, which has recently been inclined
to discuss the nature of the concept ‘populism’, rather than the impact
of this phenomenon on institutional and political actors. In this regard,
supranational bodies have been especially neglected by populism studies,
and the EU is no exception. Accordingly, while the growing literature on
populist politics has discussed the contested concept of populism and its
current manifestations in various geographical contexts, only scant atten-
tion has been paid to the specific connection between this form of doing
politics and the European Union as a specific political body.
How is the growing pressure of populist narratives shaping the EU
institutions? How do the discourses and practices of EU actors frame
populism? To what extent are populist politics practised within the EU
institutions? And, also, how does the EU react to populist forces? In order
to address these questions, the study of populism has to be linked to the
specific dynamics of the EU machinery and actors.
This book starts from these ideas and aims to answer the above ques-
tions, thereby also filling an important gap in the study of populism
and the European Union. To this end, it is committed to enhancing
the analytical and conceptual tools available to address populism and its
effects on the European institutions and civil society. Moreover, this book
bridges the perspectives of scholars and practitioners, and it combines
analyses from the academic world with ones conducted internally to the
EU institutions. This is particularly important because dialogue between
these two dimensions is very limited in European studies and research on
populism. The contributions in this book furnish a theoretically informed
THE IMPACT OF POPULISM ON THE EUROPEAN UNION … 3
and empirically substantiated examination of the impact of populist poli-

tics on the EU, and how the latter has adapted and responded to the
‘populist turn’ characterizing recent political developments throughout
Europe as well as at the EU level.
The discussions outlined above are present in different disciplines, but
they lack a direct focus on the distinct impact that populism has on EU
institutions, policymaking, and the EU-level civil society organizations. As
the contributions in this book seek to show, focusing on the discourses
and practices of all the actors involved in the broad EU decision-making
process can yield new insights into the populism/EU nexus.
Tracing the Roots of Populism and the EU

The multiple crises that the EU has suffered in recent years, such as the
global financial and economic crisis, and the so-called refugee crisis, have
created the conditions for the emergence of political narratives centred on
the notions of sovereignty, identity, and nationalism. In this context, the
share of votes for parties opposed to EU integration has steadily increased,
while many Europeans are disenchanted with the Union and distrustful
of its institutions and policymakers.
Indeed, when the EU has been discussed in broad terms, populism
has often been merged with other phenomena such as nationalism
and Euroscepticism, which have frequently been labelled the most
urgent challenges for Europe. Although the scholarship has stressed that
populism originated outside Europe and emerged long before the birth of
the European Union, in recent years populism has appeared in conjunc-
tion with Euroscepticism. In fact, with few exceptions, populist parties are
also Eurosceptic, and vice versa.
On considering the political actors that are currently labelled populist
and Eurosceptic, it is immediately apparent that the populist-Eurosceptic
mix can manifest itself in rather different forms, and many diverse
phenomena have emerged across Europe. To name just a few contempo-
rary examples, they range from right-wing parties such as France’s Front
National, Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party in Hungary, the Freedom
Party of Austria, the Swedish Democrats, Alternative for Germany, Italy’s
League, the Dansk Folkeparti (DF), the UK Independence Party (UKIP),
and Geert Wilders’ Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV)—all of them generally
considered to be examples of populist radical right parties (PRRPs)—
to left-wing parties such as Spain’s Podemos , Greece’s left-wing Syriza,
and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise in France, and the

heterogeneous example of the 5 Star Movement in Italy.
Populism and Euroscepticism, in sum, can occur in tandem, and their
connection takes different forms and can certainly be found on the ideo-
logical fringes of party systems. However, for the sake of clarity, it should
be noted that populism and Euroscepticism are not exactly the same
phenomenon. Although closely related to each other, they are inher-
ently distinct at the conceptual and empirical levels. While populism can
be defined as a broad set of ideas about the functioning of democ-
racy, Euroscepticism concerns a more precise position in regard to the
European project. Nonetheless, the connection between populism and
Euroscepticism can be explained by the central features of populist politics
and the nature of the European integration process and EU governance.
Undeniably, while populism has been commonly defined as an anti-elitist
ideology and rhetoric, the EU is widely understood as a quintessentially
elitist project. In these conditions, opposition to the EU tends to be
expressed in populist terms.
Moreover, populism has been recently defined as a reaction to technoc-
racy (e.g. Bickerton & Accetti, 2017; Moffitt, 2016). Consequently, the
EU, commonly seen as the prototypical expression of technocratic gover-
nance, would fall within this type of characterization. The differentiation
between technocracy and populism is then ‘premised on the question of
who is best equipped to make decisions on behalf of a populace—‘the
people’ for populism or those with the requisite expertise and specialist
training for technocrats’ (Moffitt, 2019: 49). In this context, leaving aside
discussion of the actual Euroscepticism of some of the aforementioned
political parties, the relationship between populism and the EU also makes
it possible to highlight another aspect: the nature of populism.
The growing literature on populism has discussed its left- and right-
wing manifestations both theoretically and empirically, and various models
of analysis have been developed. As such, populism has been conceptu-
alized as a particular form of political organization (e.g. Germani, 1978;
Taggart, 1995), as a ‘thin ideology’ (e.g. Albertazzi & McDonnell, 2008;
Canovan, 1999; Kaltwasser et al., 2017; Mudde, 2004; Stanley, 2008),
as a strategy (Jansen, 2011; Weyland, 2001), as a political style (e.g.
Mazzoleni et al., 2003; Moffitt, 2016), and as a discourse (e.g. Laclau,
2005; Wodak et al., 2013). These approaches have various similarities
with each other and, although they include different traits and variables,
they all stress the people-versus-elite divide. Indeed, regardless of the
theoretical and methodological standpoint adopted, the defining charac-

teristic of all forms of populism is that they create a vertical, down-up split
between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’. This split has been at the core of the
numerous conceptualizations of populism, in all the different geograph-
ical contexts in which this phenomenon has been analysed—from Latin
and North America (e.g. De la Torre, 2010; Kazin, 1998), to Western and
Eastern Europe (e.g. Betz, 1994; Mudde, 2007; Pirro, 2014; Rooduijn
et al., 2014).
Debates on the nature of populism have paralleled different types of
explanations of the phenomenon. In the recent literature, two broad
perspectives have emerged, namely the demand-side and the supply-side
theories. Typically, demand-side explanations focus on the dynamics of
globalization and its economic and socio-cultural consequences. Often
intertwined, these theories stress various factors at the origin of populism,
such as the rise of economic insecurity, ethnic and class resentment,
welfare chauvinism, and a broader ‘cultural backlash’, meaning a reac-
tion against the progressive cultural change that has occurred mostly in
Western countries over the past few decades (Chambers & Kymlicka,
2002; Norris & Inglehart, 2019).
On the other hand, various explanations have recently focused on the
structure of party systems and institutions, seeking to link the rise of
populism not only with the social demand side—as, for instance, does
Cas Mudde (2007) about right-wing extremism—but also with the types
of political groups and parties that have proliferated across Europe. In
this regard, recent scholarship has particularly addressed the new types
of actors and political organizations that have appeared—often labelled
‘anti-system parties’, ‘movement-parties’, or ‘digital parties’ (Gerbaudo,
2018; Zulianello, 2019)—as well as their styles and discourses—vari-
ously described as antagonistic, moralistic, simplistic, or emotional (e.g.
Canovan, 1999; Cossarini & Vallespín, 2019; Laclau, 2005). This has
also contributed to the discussion about the consequences that the surge
of right- and left-wing populism across Europe has had for liberal regimes
(e.g. change in party systems, polarization, fragmentation, and main-
streaming of far-right narratives) (e.g. Caiani & Graziano, 2019; Muis
& Immerzeel, 2017).
Following a similar pattern, the recent literature has also empha-
sized the normative implications of populism. While some studies stress
populism’s democratic nature, in that it is a potential source for the
renewal of representative politics and democratic institutions (e.g. Laclau,
2005; Katsambekis, 2017), others emphasize the dangers for liberal

values, pluralism, and human rights. From the latter perspective, it is
argued that the perils for liberal democracy no longer stem from external
authoritarian politics but from within, that is, from ‘disfigurations’ of
liberal democracy itself (Urbinati, 2014). A flourishing literature has given
various labels to this shift, branding current political systems as ‘illib-
eral democracies’ (Zakaria, 1997), ‘democracies without rights’ (Mounk,
2018), or ‘populist regimes’ (Müller, 2017).
These normative considerations often parallel the dichotomy that exists
within the burgeoning literature between the binary focus, on the one
hand, and the ‘degreeism’ perspective on the other. Some approaches to
populism adopt a binary stance and view populism in black-and-white
terms—i.e. an actor is either populist or anti-populist, and this would be
indicated by, for instance, its ideological positioning or by the language
used. Other approaches instead account for the ‘grey areas’ between
the two extremes, and acknowledge that there is a certain ‘degree of
populism’ that all political actors may employ at some point (see, for
instance, Moffitt, 2016).
In sum, populism resonates with the broader crisis of democracy and
political representation, and it fuels the idea of ‘corrupt’ governments
against the ‘pure’ people. Hence, the opposition to technocracy is linked
to Euroscepticism and nationalism and, ultimately, it echoes the idea
of the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ of globalization. From inside and outside
the communitarian institutions, in fact, a variety of populist politicians
continue to claim that they are the real representatives of the people. They
construct the EU institutions as elitist groups—the ‘winners’ of global-
ization—pursuing their own interests and aiming at their own political
survival.
The EU Institutions Facing the Populist Challenge

Populism and Euroscepticism, in all their forms, are no longer fringe
phenomena but a political reality. The success of their narratives
throughout Europe sparked fears of a populist surge in both the 2014
and the 2019 European Parliament elections. However, the outcomes of
those elections are not necessarily to be seen as a massive increase in citi-
zens’ support for populist parties; rather, they were indicative of the slow,
though persistent, decline of the centre-left and centre-right parties—

which, in turn, had hitherto been able to marginalize populists in the
European institutions.
At first glance, the impact of populism is mainly due to the emer-
gence of a new party family, which can be broadly termed ‘populist radical
right parties’ (PRR) (Mudde, 2007). Remarkable is the alliance of like-
minded national parties and governments—e.g. Visegrád countries—that
is materializing in Europe. Their policy agenda, especially on migration,
will most certainly be at the core of political disputes within all European
arenas.
However, today’s populist parties seem to have shifted away from advo-
cating outright withdrawal from the EU. Rather, major European populist
parties across the continent want to use their power in the new European
Parliament to transform the EU from the inside. They appear poised to
sow discord and dysfunction in the European institutions from within.
This is also why it is important to look at the different institutions and
the EU machinery to assess the impact of populism nowadays.
Populism has not represented a serious concern within the Euro-
pean Parliament until quite recently, although alarms were long ago
activated for the radical right parties. Nowadays, the European Parlia-
ment is a target for populists since it is in and of itself illustrative of the
Europeanism and transnationalism that they oppose.
While an indirect impact of populist rhetoric is apparent in its ability
to influence the broad political culture and to shape the public debate
and policy agenda—remarkable in this regard is the inclination of left-
wing parties to implement anti-immigration policies—populism’s power
to tailor public policy at the EU level is still quite limited. This is so for
a series of reasons. Firstly, the cordon sanitaire—that is, the alliance of all
non-populist parties—has kept populists marginalized in recent political
history, at both national and EU level. Secondly, the populists themselves
have been unable to efficiently translate their discourse and rhetoric into
concrete public policies, also due to their absence, irregularity, and meagre
weight in the major political decision-making arenas.
This applies not only to the European Parliament but also to the Euro-
pean Commission, the main decision-making and executive body of the
EU. Although still largely immune to and untouched by the electoral
success of populist parties, in recent years the European Commission
has become more reactive to populism. Several prominent commissioners
have warned about the current challenges to the European Project raised
by populist politics and Euroscepticism. Moreover, from various quarters,

commissioners are also asked to provide fresh and strong leadership on
public policies and political narratives in order to halt the rise of populism,
and in this way help overcome the disenchantment of citizens.
At this level of the European governance, the worries are especially
related to the impact of populists’ successful rhetoric and narrative on
anti-elitism (and therefore on Euroscepticism) and their nativist anti-
immigration stance. Consequently, the Commission has recently warned
of populism’s inherent risks and its broad consequences for political insti-
tutions and civil society at large. While, from a wider perspective, it is
possible to say that populism is closely linked to modern civil society—
since the former is a way to do politics that appeals to the people to
show the deficiencies of representative government—populism represents
in and of itself an existential risk for the same civil society. As many
have noted (e.g. Arato & Cohen, 2018; Müller, 2017), populist politics
disrupt the liberal principles upon which civil society and representative
democracy are founded.
Populist Forces and Civil Society

There are several reasons why relations between CSOs and populists are
difficult. A general one is the principled opposition of populist forces
to intermediate social bodies, such as civil society organizations. The
populists’ dislike of intermediary institutions is wide-ranging and charac-
terizes left-wing and right-wing populisms. Since anti-elitism is a defining
feature of populism, civil society groups are seen as elite formations which
undermine the populists’ asserted cohesion of ‘the people’—a defining
category of all populist ideologies, which is regularly present within
the large conceptual contents that characterize them (De la Torre &
Mazzoleni, 2019). A second feature connected to the ideological asser-
tion of the cohesive nature of ‘the people’ is the refusal to attribute a
superior status to ‘experts’. Civil society advocacy efforts are often based
on claims to expertise not easily accepted by populist groups. A related
aspect is the populists’ preference for conceptual and linguistic simplifi-
cation. Because the politics of expertise are generally based on complex
technical or social-scientific knowledge, CSO experts tend to be distrusted
by populists.
Thirdly, and with specific reference to the EU level, many CSOs
have become institutionalized in the political environments in which they
operate, where they often express the values of their funding institu-
tions. At EU level, CSOs have been characterized by values concerning
social and ethnic inclusion, strong environmental protection, and anti-
discrimination policy in matters such as migration, religion, sexualities,
and gender. These values are antithetical to populist conceptions. Thus,
populists oppose EU-level civil society not only in general but also
because it expresses the views of the specific policy sectors in which it
operates.
Fourthly, EU-level civil society is staffed by personnel that, because
of the requirements of their jobs, are members of cosmopolitan elites.
They often speak several languages, travel extensively, and have lived in
several countries. As a result, they often have weak national affiliations.
This paucity of nationalist values is incompatible with the nativist ethos of
contemporary European radical right populism. Fourthly, EU populism is
always Eurosceptic. Most EU-level CSOs are supporters of the ‘European
Project’ because they tend to develop the taken-for-granted assumptions
of the political environment in which they operate. Their Europeanism
is thus a fundamental reason why they are incompatible with the current
right-wing populist ethos. Euroscepticism is an important defining feature
of the European radical right, which has formed a distinctive ideological
platform in which populist elements and anti-elite anti-system features are
merged with anti-EU sentiments.
Nonetheless, while there are several reasons why Eurosceptic populist
radical right parties (EPRR) are at loggerheads with organized civil
society, there are also several reasons why right-wing populist actors do
not eschew all CSOs. First, in ideological terms, while civil society is seen
by the left as a means to promote equality, anti-discrimination, and the
protection of vulnerable constituencies, it is also seen by the right as a
means to achieve freedom from the state. The concept of civil society
is sufficiently under-specified for different ideologies to frame its roles
and functions differently (Chambers & Kymlicka, 2002). CSOs can, for
instance, replace the state in service-delivery tasks. This feature justifies
reliance on civil society for the neo-liberal anti-statist right. Less so for the
EPRR formations, which are often statist and see the state as a redistribu-
tive device, although its benefits are to be limited to native constituencies.
However, the boundary between neoliberal and pro-market formations
and statist EPRR formations is flexible, and civil society service-delivery
functions are often not seen in negative terms. Furthermore, civil society
can be useful to EPRR as a means to campaign in favour of their signature
law-and-order policies and their conservative agenda on matters such as

combatting abortion rights, promoting ‘family values’, and other conser-
vative issues such as uncompromising positions on drugs and end-of-life
rights. Finally, civil society organizations can form part of ‘uncivil society’,
that is, groups inspired by nativist and xenophobic values that form
a linkage between like-minded parties and society and justify practices
ranging from physical aggression against minorities to vigilante groups
harassing minorities in the pursuit of security (Ruzza, 2020).
For all these reasons, the attitude of radical right populists towards
civil society is ambivalent. They accept and encourage their sponsored
organizations while obstructing the much larger family of inclusivist
anti-discrimination groups. This discriminatory allocation of rewards and
punishment is not limited to the EU. It is a process documented in
several non-EU countries, even if the relevant literature is still limited
(Youngs, 2018). It is a process that has occurred over several years and
which consists in the appearance of discursive spaces within which anti-
pluralist views are accepted and normalized in a variety of public spheres,
such as different social media, publications by populist-sponsored asso-
ciations, and radical right governmental publications (Krzyżanowski &
Ledin, 2017).
At EU level, this process of selective support has its roots in processes
that have occurred in Member States over recent years. It has been
encouraged by populist parties in incumbent positions, which have also
created their own quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations.
Illiberal conservative civil society is not limited to a specific part of the
EU. It emerges in the now vast range of countries with strong radical
right populist parties, and it is becoming a visible signature policy when
right-wing populist leaders meet transnationally. In addition to pursuing
a conservative social agenda, populist governments are also hindering
progressive civil society groups through a mix of financial disincentives,
negative campaigns, and selective application of legislation, as has been
shown in the case of Hungary—a country in which progressive civil
society has undergone a process of ‘othering’ whereby its operations
are filtered through a lens of ‘enemy politics’ by governing authorities
(Majtényi et al., 2019; Nagy, 2017).
Aware of this changing climate, civil society groups are increasingly
worried and have in recent years organized several events to reflect on
the impact of populism on civil society. It is therefore useful to examine
how different sectors of EU-level civil society conceptualize and oppose

right-wing populism.
In the light of these considerations, this book stresses the politically
disruptive nature of populism as a fundamental challenge to the EU. It
assesses its impact on the whole EU machinery, the institutional actors,
and the civil society organizations.
Bridging the Theory/practice

Divide: The Structure of the Book
This book seeks to disentangle all the relevant aspects of the nexus
between populist politics and the European machinery, effectively
bridging the academic perspective and the practitioners’ experience.
Combining quantitative and qualitative discourse analysis, case studies,
and first-hand experience, the book intends to furnish a critical and
all-encompassing understanding of the impact that the recent rise of
populism has had on the EU and its main actors, and how they have
reacted to this challenge.
Given this identitarian and ideational challenge, it is worth asking
how European institutions and civil society organizations are reacting.
The importance of this question and the potentially broad impact of
populism in terms of ideas, political outcomes, and social dynamics
require academia to step out of its comfort zone and deal directly with
institutional actors, civil society organizations, and policymakers. Bringing
together academics, members of European institutions and agencies,
and leaders of civil society organizations, this book bridges the gap
between research and practice. It explores and describes how populism
has impacted on European institutions and civil society, and what their
reactions and strategies to overcome the challenges posed by populists
have been in recent times. Using a unique approach, the book combines
academic research with direct practitioners’ experience to delve into how
the EU is being changed by populism, and what have been the responses
in terms of discourses, practices, and policymaking.
The mix of scholars’ and practitioners’ perspectives certainly represents
an innovation in the literature on populism and the EU, and as such, it
raises important challenges. In order to deal with these challenges and
cover the different dynamics of the EU machinery, the book is structured
into four sections: a general, introductory one that considers the history
and latest developments of the relationship between populism and the
EU, and three sections corresponding to the three institutional spheres

of decision-making, namely the EU Commission, the Parliament, and the
EU-level civil society organizations. By means of this structure, the book
seeks to disentangle how the populist threat was internally perceived by
EU institutions and NGOs, what strategies they devised to react to it, and
how these strategies were expressed and perceived in their institutional
and public communications.
The first section will place the book in the context of the literature
on populism and European studies. Emanuele Massetti opens this section
with his chapter ‘The Populism-Euroscepticism Compound: Conceptual
Distinctions, Ideational Linkages and Internal Differentiation’. Through
a conceptual and historical analysis, Massetti focuses on the interplay
between these two political phenomena in both conceptual and empirical
terms. Drawing on the recent scholarship on populism and Euroscepti-
cism, his chapter furnishes a broad perspective that enables the reader
to understand the big picture of current dynamics in the European
context. While populism and Euroscepticism often overlap, they also refer
to intermediate concepts, such as ‘national sovereignty’ and ‘economic
nationalism’, which are often under-examined by scholars but work as
traits d’union in the populism/Euroscepticism nexus. This first analysis
is followed by Roberto Santaniello’s chapter ‘Populism and European
Institutions: a Historical Perspective’. Santaniello explores how the Euro-
pean institutions have reacted to populism over the past ten years, and
the political initiatives that the EU institutions have developed in order
to give concrete answers to citizens. Adopting a historical perspective,
Santaniello also stresses how the growing influence of populist politics has
characterized the recent history of the European integration, pointing to
some recent key episodes such as Brexit, the dispute over the rule of law
in Poland and Hungary, and the so-called migration crisis.
The second section focuses specifically on the European institutions
and mainly comprises studies on key narratives and dynamics that have
dominated the EU parliament and the Commission in recent years. The
first chapter in this section, ‘The Discursive Construction of Migration
and Democracy in the European Parliament: A Model of Reciprocal
Influence Between Populists and Non-populists Through Polarisation and
Fragmentation’ by Carlo Berti, develops a content and frame analysis
of European parliamentary debates during the 2014–2019 term. Berti
argues that narratives of politicians and anti-populist politicians influence
each other bi-directionally, generating not only polarization but also a
certain degree of fragmentation within two non-homogeneous blocks.

Moreover, Berti observes that non-populists move towards populist argu-
ments while, on the contrary, populists strategically use anti-populist
arguments in the institutional procedures of the European Parliament.
This chapter is followed by Markus Warasin’s analysis of the process
of politicization of the EU. In his ‘The politicisation of the Euro-
pean Union and the Role of the European Parliament: Opportunities,
Risks and Limitations’, Warasin focuses on the European Parliament as a
highly politicized arena where political groups are the main agents and
where most conflicts are fought along the lines of the parliamentary
groups. Particular attention is paid to intra-group cohesion and inter-
group coalition, which are key tactical elements in a politically competitive
environment like the European Parliament. These dynamics are exem-
plified with the case study of the Committee on Women’s Rights and
Gender Equality. In similar vein, Alberta Giorgi develops an analysis of the
narratives in the European Parliament by focusing specifically on the case
of religion and religion-related topics. In her ‘The European Parliament
Dealing with Religion in Times of Populism’, Giorgi investigates whether
populism is an issue with respect to religious freedom and diversity. By
means of a discourse analysis of a series of discursive loci, such as the EU
parliament plenaries, the activities of the intergroup on Freedom of Reli-
gion or Belief and Religious Tolerance, and the EU Parliament external
communication on Twitter, Giorgi assesses the impact of populism on
how the European Parliament discursively engages with religion and its
relationships with gender issues.
In similar vein, Carlo Ruzza documents the Commission’s reactions
to populism and the building of an anti-populist narrative. Drawing
on text analysis and a series of in-depth interviews, Ruzza focuses on
perceived violations of the rule of law and issues of discrimination on the
grounds of ethnicity, religion, and sexuality. His chapter ‘The Construc-
tion of Anti-Populism in the European Commission’ also considers how
the Commission interacts with human rights and anti-discrimination civil
society organizations, thus contributing to the broader creation of an
opposition to the populist discourse.
The last section includes analyses of the interplay between populism
and the EU-level civil society organization. Opening this section, Assya
Kavrakova investigates the relationship among populist politics, citizens,
and the European institutions at large. In her ‘Facing the threat of
populism: How the European institutions can reconnect with citizens’,
Kavrakova advances some hypotheses about how EU institutions (should)

act in order to be perceived as part of the solution, rather than part of
the problem. Stressing the role of the European Commission as guardian
of the Treaties, Kavrakova highlights the political and legislative strategies
that the Commission has at its disposal to counter populism. These strate-
gies include monitoring the rule of law EU-wide, fostering the develop-
ment of a European public sphere and civic education, promoting the EU
fundamental rights, and increasing the communication of EU values, as
well as engagement in local communities, especially in non-metropolitan
areas.
Following Kavrakova’s take, Paolo Cossarini’s ‘Civil Society as Anti-
Populism? Countering the Populist Threat and Campaigning for Change
in the Discourse of EU-level CSOs’ move towards a closer look at
civil society organizations. Drawing on a document and text analysis,
Cossarini’s chapter explores the work of EU-based NGOs and tests
the extent to which they build a counter-narrative to the exclusionary
discourse implemented by right-wing populism. By means of both a qual-
itative and quantitative analysis of EU-level CSOs working on gender,
race, religion, and migration, Cossarini inquires into the efficacy, scope,
and reach of their work. This also makes it possible to sketch the broader
political debate that lies behind the relationship between civil society
organizations and the EU institutions, which in turn resonates with the
following contribution in the book. Pierluigi Brombo’s chapter, ‘The
Interaction among Populism, Civil Society Organizations, and Euro-
pean Institutions’, explores the interaction between populism and CSOs,
stressing their key political role in articulating and aggregating citizens’
needs. Using an empirical case study, Brombo examines how digitaliza-
tion creates direct channels between citizens and public authorities that
question the intermediary role of CSOs. This chapter is followed by Luisa
Chiodi’s ‘Europeanise to Resist: European Civil Society under Pressure’,
which deals with the opportunities and limits of civil society organizations
in coping with the populist challenge. Drawing on the Italian case, Chiodi
shows how the creation of new transnational spaces endorsed by the
European machinery is an opportunity for civil society organizations at
national level. Chiodi highlights some cases of success, such as the reform
of the Dublin regulation, the NGO activism in favour of the Istanbul
convention, and LGBT legal activism to obtain civil unions. However, she
also stresses the limits of these national organizations, pointing to their
scant knowledge of the European decision-making process and limited

awareness of the space for political participation at EU level.
Overall, by collecting a variety of critical standpoints and perspec-
tives, the book seeks to furnish an all-encompassing picture of how
EU-level institutions and NGOs are being impacted on and influenced
by populism, and how they are adapting to the new political environment
in terms of the discursive construction of identities and issues, political
and institutional practices, and policymaking.
Several authors stress the often-unspecified and at the same time
prominent character of the label ‘populism’, and therefore the ways in
which this label is used to cover a range of actors’ strategic definitions
of the nature of the challenge, and their desired responses. It shows that
the success of populist formations can be conceptualized as a crisis for
the EU, but that as documented in previous crises, it constitutes both a
challenge and an opportunity for the EU.
In the context of economic transformation, digitalization, distrust in
politics and in public authorities, and strong environmental sensitivity
across Europe and within the EU machinery, critically examining the
impact of populist politics remains not only an essential task for scholars
and practitioners, but an opportunity for EU actors to reassert their role
and pursue the process of EU construction in novel ways.
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The European Union Facing the Populist
Wave
The Populist-Eurosceptic Mix: Conceptual
Distinctions, Ideational Linkages and Internal
Differentiation
Emanuele Massetti
Introduction
Populism and Euroscepticism have been on the rise in Europe for
some decades, prompting the emergence and flourishing of their respec-
tive bodies of scholarship (Albertazzi & McDonnell, 2008; Canovan,
1981; Heinisch & Mazzoleni, 2016; Hix, 2007; Kopecky & Mudde,
2002; Laclau, 2005; Mudde, 2004, 2011; Pirro, 2014; Prosser, 2016;
Szczerbiak & Taggart, 2008; Taggart, 1998, 2000; Taggart & Szczerbiak,
2002; Taguieff, 1995; Vasilopoulou, 2009). In spite of a different origin
and a different geographical extent—populism is an older and global
phenomenon while Euroscepticism is a European-only and a more recent
one—the two have increasingly manifested themselves in tandem (Kneuer,
2019). As a consequence, a literature bridging the two bodies of schol-
arship has recently started to emerge (Dechezelles & Neumayer, 2010;
Harmsen, 2010; Kneuer, 2019; Krouwel, 2007; Pirro & Taggart, 2018;
Ruzza, 2009). Building on these studies, the present chapter discusses
the connection between the two phenomena at a conceptual level. In
E. Massetti (B)
School of International Studies, Trento, Italy
e-mail: emanuele.massetti@unitn.it

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73411-4_2
22 E. MASSETTI
doing so, it aims to prepare the ground for the more specific discussions
developed in the other chapters of the book. More precisely, the chapter
seeks to achieve three objectives, each pursued in a separate section. First,
the lively academic debates on the definitions of the two concepts are
presented in an attempt to provide some conceptual clarity. The second
section analyses and discusses the main ideational linkages which help
explain why the two phenomena tend to manifest themselves jointly.
Then, the third section explores ideological varieties within the populist-
Eurosceptic mix, focusing on the main differences between leftist-populist
Euroscepticism (LPE) and rightist-populist Euroscepticism (RPE). In the
conclusion, some brief considerations for a non-superficial evaluation
and non-dismissive treatment of the populist-Eurosceptic critique are put
forward.
Populism and Euroscepticism:

Two Distinct Concepts
Populism and Euroscepticism are different phenomena, both conceptu-
ally and empirically. Suffice it to observe that, while the latter has been
present only in Europe and only since the second half of the twentieth
century (i.e. from the start of the integration process), the former orig-
inated outside Europe in the late nineteenth century and has manifested
itself in virtually all continents of the globe (De la Torre, 2015; Kaltwasser
et al., 2017). Therefore, before investigating the ideational sources of the
empirical convergence between populism and Euroscepticism in the Euro-
pean context, it is necessary to understand the specific contents of the
two concepts. Providing this conceptual clarification is certainly not an
easy task, given the ongoing debates in both the respective literatures.
Nevertheless, identifying the distinct conceptual elements of populism
and Euroscepticism is the precondition for pursuing the other two objec-
tives of this chapter: identifying the ideational linkages between the two
concepts (which can explain the empirical convergence); and singling out
and discussing different types of populist Euroscepticism.
Populism
Defining populism has been (and still is) one of the most complex chal-
lenges for scholars of comparative politics (Canovan, 1981; Taggart,
2000; Taguieff, 1995). To complicate matters, a substantial part of the
THE POPULIST-EUROSCEPTIC MIX: CONCEPTUAL DISTINCTIONS … 23
scholarship has been more concerned with discussing the conceptual

category to which populism belongs than trying to identify its defining
features. In particular, academics have disagreed on whether populism
should be primarily considered an ideology (Canovan, 2008; Mudde,
2004; Stanley, 2008), a discourse (Laclau, 1977, 2005; Rooduijn &
Pauwels, 2011), a frame (Aslandis, 2016; Heinisch & Mazzoleni, 2017),
a strategy (Jansen, 2011) or a type of organisational linkage (Barr, 2009;
Weyland, 2001). While I do not question the value and rationale of
this debate, I argue that it has overemphasised differences and down-
played similarities, thus representing more of an obstacle than a facilitator
in the (already complicated enough) task of moving towards a clear
conceptualisation.
Firstly, the distinction among strategy, discourse and frame appears to
be more superficial than substantive, given that the proponents of ‘pop-
ulism as a strategy’ include also ‘populist rhetoric’ (i.e. discourse/frames)
as a defining element of such a strategy (Jansen, 2011: 83). Secondly, the
distinction between ideology and discourse/frame is blurred in the first
place by the very advocates of ‘populism as an ideology’, because they
specify that populism is, in fact, only a ‘thin ideology’ (Canovan, 2008;
Stanley, 2008). A further move towards compromise can be provided
by the work of Michael Freeden—the authoritative scholar of political
ideologies who first formulated the concept of ‘thin ideology’ (Freeden,
1998). Indeed, he highlighted an important overlap between ideology
and discourse: “ideology is one form of discourse but it is not entirely
containable in the idea of discourse” (Freeden, 2003: 106). Confronted
directly with the dilemma of classifying populism, he argued that it had a
borderline nature, being located in-between (thin) ideology and discourse
(Freeden, 2017: 10).
While Freeden’s work makes a crucial contribution to reaching an
acceptable middle ground in the debate on the conceptual category of
populism, the definition proposed by Cas Mudde (2004) has emerged as
a ‘centre of gravity’ in the literature, given its capacity to specify the core
features of populism (De la Torre, 2015; Müller, 2016; Panizza, 2005a).
Mudde identifies the defining features of populism in a description of
society as divided into two antagonistic and internally homogeneous
groups: the ‘pure people’ and the ‘corrupt elites’. He also considers the
moral duty of politics to express the ‘general will’ of the people (Mudde,
2004: 543). This moral duty derives directly from the core concept of the
24 E. MASSETTI
democratic ideology (and one of the core concepts of democratic theory):

the people’s sovereignty (Canovan, 2002).
The popularity of Mudde’s conceptualisation is due to the fact that,
although he sees populism as an ideology, the defining characteristics
that he singles out are largely (if not fully) compatible with most of the
definitions proposed by advocates of ‘populism as a discourse’, such as
Laclau (2005) and Rooduijn and Pauwels (2011); as well as with those
proposed by advocates of ‘populism as a strategy’, such as Jansen (2011).
Moreover, Mudde’s definition has been substantiated by an empirical
study comparing cases from different historical periods, in different world
regions and with different ideological orientations (Rooduijn, 2014). This
work found that the common features correspond to the three ideological
elements proposed by Mudde—people’s centrality, anti-elitism and homo-
geneity of the people—plus a fourth element: proclamation of a crisis
(ibid.). This last characteristic has also been highlighted in other promi-
nent studies, either as a key feature (Taggart, 2000) or as a facilitating
condition (Kriesi & Pappas, 2015).
This conceptualisation clearly projects populism as a very salient
phenomenon, because it connects it with a crucial issue in contempo-
rary politics: the worrying distance between elites and common citizens
in democratic systems. Yet, at the same time, the definition presents
populism as a very general concept: it displays a high denotative capacity
(i.e. it is very inclusive) but, as the other side of the coin, a low connota-
tive capacity (i.e. it says rather little about the overall nature of the cases
included in this definition). Not only are populist political forces not iden-
tifiable by specific policy positions (Taggart, 2000), but also the way in
which they construct the meaning of the ‘people’ and of ‘elites’—as well
as the way in which they build their arguments in denouncing the alleged
betrayal of the people by elites—can change substantially. Indeed, the
nature of populism—in-between thin-ideology and discourse/frame—
means that virtually no political party is exclusively populist. Most (if not
all) populist parties create a synthesis between populism and other (thin
or thick) ideologies. It is this synthesis, in which the host ideology plays
a decisive role, that connotes populist political forces in one direction or
another.
In Europe, scholarship has focused almost exclusively on right-wing
parties, which have been the most successful populist actors (Akkerman
et al., 2017; Betz, 1994; Mudde, 2007; Rydgren, 2005; Wodak et al.,
2013). With very few exceptions (Mudde, 2000; March, 2005), the
low empirical consideration of other forms of populism in Europe has

resulted in the conflation of populism with specific features of the radical
right ideology, such as nativist anti-immigrant politics (e.g. Albertazzi
& McDonnell, 2008) and/or illiberal attacks against the rule of law
(Bugaric, 2008). However, populism is not a political phenomenon exclu-
sively or necessarily linked to radical-right ideologies and/or illiberal
politics. Even in Europe, particularly since the outbreak of the economic
crisis, the electoral growth of several new parties—such as Syriza and
MeRa25 in Greece, the Five Star Movement (M5S) in Italy, Podemos
in Spain and Untamed France (FI)—has led scholars to the re-discovery
of left-wing populism (Charalambous & Ioannou, 2019; Katsambekis &
Kioupkiolis, 2019). These relatively new cases add to pre-existing left-
wing populist parties, such as the German PDS/Die Linke and the Dutch
Socialist Party (SP) (Hough & Keith, 2019; Lucardie & Voermann,
2019). As a result, it is now widely accepted that populism can be linked
with very different ideological orientations—from inclusionary to exclu-
sionary, from socialist to neoliberal, from secular to religious (Boriello
& Brack, 2019; Ivaldi et al., 2017; Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2012; Otjes
& Louwerse, 2015)—though it combines particularly well with radical
(both left and right) ideologies (Rooduijn & Akkerman, 2015). A further
crucial sign of the chameleon-like nature of populism is that the norma-
tive debate on the relationship between populism and democracy has been
lively but with inconclusive results.1
Euroscepticism
The term ‘Euroscepticism’ denoting a generic opposition to European
integration became increasingly used in the media from the late 1980s
onwards, particularly after Margaret Thatcher’s famous Bruges Speech
(Usherwood & Startin, 2013). This broad meaning of the term was
brought into academia by the seminal work of Paul Taggart, who defined
Euroscepticism as “the idea of contingent, or qualified opposition, as well
1 Positions on this debate range from advocates of populism as incompatible with

democracy (Abts & Rummens, 2007; Crick, 2005; Urbinati, 2019), to advocates of
populism as beneficial for democracy (Bobbio, 1987; Canovan, 1999, 2002), with many
positioned in intermediate or open/agnostic positions (Huber & Schimpf, 2017; Meny
& Surel, 2002; Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2012; Panizza, 2005b).
26 E. MASSETTI
as incorporating outright and unqualified opposition to the process of

European integration” (Taggart, 1998: 366). Given the inclusive char-
acter of the definition, the need to distinguish among different types
and/or to measure different degrees of Euroscepticism soon emerged in
the literature. In particular, two major tendencies became predominant in
the scholarship on party-based Euroscepticism: the North Carolina school
and the Sussex school (Mudde, 2011). On the one hand, the North
Carolina school primarily engaged with quantitative measurement of party
positioning on European integration; and, more recently, it has dwelt on
the salience of the European integration issue, producing a renowned
and much used dataset based on expert surveys (Polk et al., 2017; Ray,
1999). On the other hand, the Sussex school drew a qualitative distinc-
tion between ‘hard Euroscepticism’, initially defined as outright rejection
of European integration and/or opposition to membership of the EU,
and ‘soft Euroscepticism’, initially defined as contingent or qualified
opposition to European integration (Taggart & Szczerbiak, 2002).
While the North Carolina school was not greatly concerned with
conceptual and taxonomical issues, Taggart and Szczerbiak’s classifica-
tion prompted a lively debate. In particular, it was criticised by Kopecky
and Mudde (2002) primarily for the extreme inclusiveness of the ‘soft
Euroscepticism’ category and for the conflation of views on the general
idea of European integration and on the European Union as the current
actualisation of the integration process (Kopecky & Mudde, 2002:
300). Taggart and Szczerbiak consequently sought to disentangle these
two dimensions by distinguishing between Europhiles and Europhobes
(i.e. pro/against the general idea of European integration), as well as
between EU-optimist and EU pessimist (i.e. pro/against the current
structure and trajectory of the EU) (ibid.: 301–302). The result was a
two-dimensional typology consisting of four conceptual categories: Euro-
enthusiasm (Europhilia and EU-optimism), Euroscepticism (Europhilia
and EU-pessimism), Euro-pragmatism (Europhobia and EU-optimism)
and Euro-rejectionism (Europhobia and EU-pessimism) (ibid.: 303).
Therefore, in this taxonomy, the term ‘Euroscepticism’ has a more
defined meaning which partially overlaps with Taggart and Szczerbiak’s
concept of ‘soft Euroscepticism’, while ‘Euro-rejectionism’ virtually coin-
cides with the initial formulation of ‘hard Euroscepticism’ by Taggart and
Szczerbiak.
A further attempt to categorise Euroscepticism was made by Sophia

Vasilopoulou, who distinguished three aspects: the principle of Euro-
pean integration; the current practice of the EU; and the future of
European integration (Vasilopoulou, 2009: 5–6). Various combinations
of support and opposition across these three aspects produced three
types of Euroscepticism: Rejectionist (opposed to all aspects); Condi-
tional (opposed to practice and future) and Compromising (opposed to
future only) (ibid.: 7–8). Finally, Christopher Flood proposed a mono-
dimensional scale, trying to combine a rudimentary measurement of the
degree of support for/opposition to European integration with qualita-
tive distinctions of types of Euroscepticism (Flood, 2002). Focusing on
the EU as the main product of European integration (and the only avail-
able basis for further integration), Flood saw Euroscepticism as ranging
from a minimum level of EU-minimalism (accepting the EU as it is but
opposing further integration) to a maximum level of EU-rejectionism
(supporting exit from the EU or opposing entry in the EU), passing
through EU-revisionism (supporting EU membership but advocating a
return to previous levels of European integration).
Unfortunately, all these comparative politics’ studies have evident
shortcomings. When individual cases are analysed, it is often difficult to
place them unequivocally within a specific conceptual category. This is
because the scope of European integration has grown so much and the
issues emerging in EU politics are so various that it is virtually impos-
sible that a political party does not voice some sort of criticism against
the EU (Szczerbiak & Taggart, 2008). Moreover, most political parties
change their stances on European integration over time, often doing so
gradually (also in reaction to the ongoing integration process) but some-
times suddenly (Chari et al., 2004). Nevertheless, the conceptualisations,
classifications and measurements provided by comparative politics schol-
arship should be praised for their attempt to make sense of an extremely
complex reality.
As regards explanations of Euroscepticism, scholarship has been rather
divided between the North Carolina school, which stressed the impor-
tance of party ideology, and the Sussex school, which stressed the
important of strategic considerations (Mudde, 2011: 15–17). For the
purposes of this chapter, the scholarship focusing on the original cleavage
and ideological orientations is of particular interest (Marks et al., 2002:
590; Marks & Wilson, 2000: 453). In general, many studies point to a
relationship between a left–right ideological positioning and support for
28 E. MASSETTI
European integration that is described by an inverted-U curve whereby

radical parties (both left and right) tend to be more Eurosceptic and main-
stream parties (both left and right) tend to be more Europhile (Hix &
Lord, 1997; Marks et al., 2002; Rohrschneider & Whitefield, 2016). This
finding is extremely important for the present study, because it identifies
a characteristic shared by populism and Euroscepticism: their tendency to
combine with radical (both left and right) ideologies.
Other studies see the level of support for European integration as
mostly correlated, in a linear way, with a different ideological dimen-
sion: the one that opposes green, alternative and libertarian (GAL) values
to traditionalist, authoritarian and nationalist (TAN) ones, so that the
latter pole is the repository of Euroscepticism (Hooghe et al., 2002).
More recent works have focused on longitudinal variation, reaching the
conclusion that the inverted-U curve relationship with left–right posi-
tions and the linear relationship with GAL-TAN positions are typical of
recent decades, whereas in the 1950s the relationships were almost the
reverse: left–right positions were linearly correlated (with the left being
more Eurosceptic and the right being more Europhile), while GAL-TAN
positions exhibited a sort of inverted-U curve (Prosser, 2016). Moreover,
other studies have sought to reconcile ideology-based and rational-choice
based explanations of party positioning. More specifically, Simon Hix has
proposed interpretation of the inverted-U curve as a rational response
to the policy output of the EU, which tends to be systematically in line
with the preferences of centrist/mainstream parties, while being system-
atically distant from the preferences of radical parties (Hix, 2007). This
approach would also explain why Euroscepticism in countries where the
national median voter is to the left of the EU median voter (e.g. Scandi-
navian countries) derives primarily from the left; whereas Euroscepticism
in countries where the national median voter is to the right of the EU
median voter derives primarily from the right, as in the case of the UK
(Hix, 2007: 134).
Linkage Nodes: The Ideational Sources

of the Populist-Euroscepticism Mix
In the European context, the incremental convergence, growing overlap
and virtual identification between populism and Euroscepticism have
become so evident that it is normally taken for granted and treated implic-
itly in the literature. The very fact that some scholars, such as Paul Taggart
and Kas Mudde, have become leading experts in the respective literatures
on populism and Euroscepticism signals the close connection between
the two phenomena. Similarly, the fact that an authoritative scholar of
normative theory like Michael Freeden, whose work has been increas-
ingly involved in the debate on the conceptual category of populism, felt
the need to intervene in this debate as a reaction to a major manifestation
of Euroscepticism (i.e. the 2016 Brexit referendum) is further proof of
the empirical fusion of the two themes. However, only few scholars have
devoted some attention to the links between populism and Euroscepti-
cism (Dechezelles & Neumayer, 2010; Harmsen, 2010; Kneuer, 2019;
Pirro & Taggart, 2018; Ruzza, 2009).
Because the two concepts remain clearly distinct, it is important to
analyse the ideational/discursive linkages that, in the European context,
determine the joint manifestation of the two phenomena (Kneuer, 2019).
In this regard, two major linkages can be identified: one direct and one
mediated by nationalism as a bridge concept. The first linkage between
populism and Euroscepticism consists in the perfect fit between, on
the one hand, the anti-elitist core of the populist ideology—see above
(Mudde, 2004; Rooduijn, 2014)—and, on the other hand, the eminently
elitist nature of both the process of European integration and the EU
political system (Mair, 2013: 103–104). The elitist nature of the project
and process of European integration has been widely acknowledged,
discussed and explained in the literature (Bellamy & Warleigh, 2001;
Haller, 2008; Streeck & Schmitter, 1991). Moreover, the disinterest of
EU elites in what common citizens might think about their integra-
tion plans has been ‘confessed’ by a prominent member of the EU
establishment: “We decide on something, leave it lying around, and
wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most
people don’t understand what has been decided, we continue step by
step until there is no turning back” (Jean-Claude Junker, in Der Spiegel,
n. 52, p. 136). The main problem with what has been termed ‘inte-
gration by stealth’ (Majone, 2009) is that, while this process started at
a time when the deciding elites were largely trusted by the masses—
and “[t]his was the essence of the permissive consensus” (Mair, 2013:
114)—since then it has continued (and even accelerated) at a time in
which citizens’ trust in elites has been diminishing throughout Europe
(Kaina, 2008). Moreover, as in the case of the Lisbon Treaty, integra-
tion has been achieved by ignoring citizens’ opposition, even when this
30 E. MASSETTI
opposition has been clearly and formally expressed in popular referenda

(Hobolt & Brouard, 2010).
The elitist impetus of European integration couples with the elite-
based nature of EU politics and with the pro-elite bias of EU policies.
These latter are shaped by a cumbersome institutional structure which
strongly dilutes legitimacy and accountability, presenting itself as a post-
democratic form of governance dominated by an opaque mix of executive,
technocratic and lobbying elements (Hix, 1999; Magnette, 2001; Wallace
& Smith, 1995). Although the role of the European Parliament has
been gradually enhanced, particularly since the Lisbon Treaty, EU policy-
making has remained largely insulated from democratic politics because
there has been an evident mismatch between the available electoral
channels—national vs. European elections—and the associated political
debates—policies vs. European integration—(Mair, 2013: 108–109). In
other words, the EU political system does not function according to
the normal democratic dynamics of a government/opposition dialectic
with (at least) an expectation of alternation. This ‘democratic deficit’
entails, on the one hand, the (input) legitimacy crisis that contributes to
growing distrust vis-à-vis national and EU political elites alike (Follesdal
& Hix, 2006), and, on the other hand, the gradual sliding of any type
of potential opposition towards systemic (i.e. anti-system) opposition
(Mair, 2007: 12). Moreover, in the long run, the ‘democratic deficit’
(i.e. issues of input legitimacy) has been increasingly translated into pro-
(economic)-elite policy outputs which raise symmetric issues of ‘output
legitimacy’ (Scharpf, 1997). Especially in the past two decades, it has
become apparent that the monetarist and neoliberal tenets embodied in
EU treaties, institutions and frameworks are producing policies ever more
distant from average citizens’ preferences and needs (De Grauwe, 2011;
Matthijs, 2016; Steinberg & Vermeiren, 2016).
Given all this, it should not come as a surprise that “Europe has
become a key issue with which to launch a populist assault… it is one
that unites, or at least shared by, the outsiders on both right and left”
(Mair, 2013: 111). In other words, in contemporary European politics,
“anti-EU positions are always linked to a populist discourse of criticism of
the elite” (Reungoat, 2010: 303). Symmetrically, populist politics always
include Eurosceptic positions because it has become virtually impossible
to express an anti-elitist discourse without including the involvement of
EU elites or, at least, national elites in EU-level politics (Harmsen, 2010;
Pirro & Taggart, 2018).
The second major linkage between populism and Euroscepticism lies

in the semantic field surrounding the general concept of nationalism
(Freeden, 1998), which represents an ideational bridge. Indeed, nation-
alism is solidly connected both to populism (Bonikowski et al., 2019;
Brubaker, 2019; De Cleen, 2017; De Cleen & Stavrakakis, 2017; Meny
& Surel, 2000) and to Euroscepticism (Avci, 2011; Hainsworth et al.,
2004; Halikiapoulou et al., 2012; Wellings, 2010). Nationalism tends to
emphasise as much the internal homogeneity of the nation-state as the
differences and separateness among diverse nation-states (Smith, 1986).
As a result, while nationalists are not necessarily against international
co-operation, they are (by definition) against supranational integration,
especially if the latter includes/foresees political integration. The link
between member-state-based nationalism and Euroscepticism is there-
fore based on the opposition between the nationalist belief that political
systems must be built on/for individual nations—in the form of nation-
states (Gellner, 1983)—and the supranational character of the European
Union.2 Symmetrically, nationalism is closely connected to populism due
to the multiple meanings attached to the term ‘people’. Indeed, within
the populist discourse, the ‘people’ can be understood as ordinary citizens
often defined as follows: the ‘underdogs’ in domestic social and political
affairs (people as plebs ); the legitimate body that, according to democratic
theory, holds political sovereignty (people as demos ); and the homoge-
neous community that has a common origin, identity, purpose and destiny
(people as nation) (Brubaker, 2019: 6; Meny & Surel, 2002: 185–214).
Clearly, the nationalist tone of a populist critique is likely to be more
evident when the people as nation is purportedly at risk (e.g. in the form
of perceived challenges to national identity). However, on any occasion
when threats to the people are seen to come from outside the nation-
state, a certain blend of a populist-nationalist (or nationalist-populist)
discourse is likely to emerge (Boriello & Brack, 2019; Verzichelli, 2019).
Indeed, the inclusion of the people as demos in the picture—merging the
democratic principle of people’s sovereignty with the nationalist prin-
ciple of national sovereignty—can generate a powerful discourse (Basile
& Mazzoleni, 2019). If the well-being of the people as plebs is also seen
2 Obviously, the ideational link between nationalism and Euroscepticism vanishes if we

consider the case of European (or EU) nationalism (Wellings & Power, 2015). In this case,
European nationalism would fit perfectly with strong support for European integration
and would be completely at odds with member-state-based nationalist Euroscepticism.
32 E. MASSETTI
as being jeopardised by a ‘foreign’ intrusion, then all three meanings of

the ‘people’ can easily interact with a nationalist discourse.
It is all too easy to understand how, when the alleged ‘foreign’
intrusion is putatively operated by the European Union or by another
EU member-state, the populist-nationalist discourse translates into a
populist-Eurosceptic one. Indeed, since the EU can be seen not only
as ‘outside’ but also as ‘above’ the nation-state, Eurosceptic nationalism
can combine with the anti-elitist ethos of populism even better than
tout court nationalism. Indeed, both empirical and theoretical studies are
increasingly pointing out that populism, nationalism and Euroscepticism
tend to manifest themselves jointly at an empirical level (Gifford, 2015;
Halikiapoulou et al., 2012; Vines, 2014).
These two strong ideological linkages—one direct and one medi-
ated by nationalism—help explain why populism and Euroscepticism
are empirically converging (Polk et al., 2017: 5). Populist parties do
not attack only national elites for the way in which the member-
state is run. They also attack EU elites for the way in which the EU
has been constructed and is run, thus influencing national policies.
Moreover, populism tends to combine with nationalism in denouncing
the EU’s growing interference with (and sometimes humiliation of)
popular/national sovereignty. Indeed, it is a shared view that, in recent
years, populism has thrived primarily because of shortcomings in the EU’s
management of major crises, such as the financial-economic crisis that
hit Europe in 2009–2015 and the refugee crisis of 2014–2016 (Kneuer,
2019; Pirro & Taggart, 2018). Yet it is also important to analyse how
different parties forge different blends of populist Euroscepticism (or
Eurosceptic-populism) and how they politicise certain crises and certain
issues more than others. In other words, it is now time to explore
the populist-Eurosceptic mix, with a view to pointing out important
differences.
Internal Differentiation: Left-Wing vs.

Right-Wing Variants of Populist Euroscepticism
Two points can be drawn from the previous sections. First, both populism
and Euroscepticism can combine with a variety of ideological orientations
with a very marked attraction for radical-left or radical-right ideolo-
gies. Second, in the European context, populism and Euroscepticism
tend to overlap empirically because of a perfect ideational fit between
anti-elitism and criticism of European integration, often with the inter-

mediation of nationalism. Indeed, the nationalist ‘glue’ solidifies the
populist-Eurosceptic mix through the politicisation of the sovereignty
issue (Boriello & Brack, 2019). Moreover, radical-right and radical-left
ideologies direct it against specific elites or features/policies of the EU
system of governance: while both radical-left and radical-right forces
target political and economic elites, criticism of the intellectual elites and
the politicisation of identity issues remain the almost exclusive remit of
radical right forces.
It is therefore convenient to start from a distinction between leftist-
populist-Eurosceptic (LPE) parties and rightist-populist-Eurosceptic
(RPE) ones. Broadly speaking, LPE parties tend to adopt a type of
Euroscepticism softer than that adopted by RPE parties (De Vries, 2018;
Ivaldi et al., 2017; Treib, 2014). Of course, there are (or there have been)
exceptional cases of LPE parties assuming a hard stance on European
integration and membership of the EU, such as the Swedish Party of the
Left—member of the European left-wing populist movement “Now the
People!” (https://nowthepeople.eu/)—and, until the late 1990s, Sinn
Fein (Charalambous, 2011). However, the most important LPE parties—
Untamed France, Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, the German Left,
the Left Bloc in Portugal and the M5S in Italy—do not pursue withdrawal
or disintegration: rather, they demand democratic reforms at EU level.
This is a clear sign (and a consequence of) the fact that they believe in
the prospect of solving the EU’s democratic deficit through further Euro-
pean integration which would possibly lead to the creation of a European
federal and fully democratic state. In their view, the EU’s bias towards
neoliberal policies can be addressed by reforming specific parts of the
treaties or specific directives/regulations (Ivaldi et al., 2017; Kotroyannos
et al., 2018). The democratisation of the EU should be pursued through
an institutional overhaul which ensures that all policies are determined
by a process that responds to (and serves the interests of) European citi-
zens. In line with the position of authoritative political theorists (Bellamy,
2010), they think that if the problem of input legitimacy (i.e. government
by the people) is resolved, solution of the increasingly evident issue of
output legitimacy (i.e. government for the people) would follow. Obvi-
ously, in the current context (i.e. in the absence of democratic and/or
economic reforms at EU level), left-wing populist-Eurosceptic parties do
not shy away from advocating the sovereignty of member-states vis-à-
vis the EU’s attempts to interfere with the domestic democratic process,
34 E. MASSETTI
especially if these interferences take the form of neoliberal austerity poli-

cies (Halikiapoulou et al., 2012; Ivaldi et al., 2017). But what matters
is that, in principle, they would accept the transfer of sovereignty from
the people (and the institutions) of member-states to the people (and
institutions) of Europe, provided that the new European federal state
has a fully democratic political system (Heine, 2010). According to this
basic attitude, left-wing populist-Eurosceptic parties are more inclined
to work constructively within the EU institutions, particularly the Euro-
pean Parliament, or to engage with consultative initiatives with a view to
reforming the system in a democratic direction. Indeed, the first initiative
for the creation of a truly European party (as opposed to the existing
European party federations) and a constitutional assembly that should
re-found the EU on democratic bases has been made by an LPE party:
the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25, 2016). Although
the project has not been successful in terms of votes, at least judging
from the 2019 European election, it has represented an original attempt
to combine populism, transnationalism and a Eurosceptic critique aimed
at the creation of a truly democratic European Union (De Cleen et al.,
2020).
Most RPE parties—such as Alternative for Germany (AfD), the
Austrian Freedom Party (FPO), the Belgian Flemish Bloc/Interest (FB),
the Bulgarian National Union Attack (NOA), the Danish People’s
Party (DF), the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV), the French Front
National/National Rally (FN/RN), the Italian (Northern) League
(LN/Lega), the Hungarian parties Fidez and Jobbik, the Polish Law
and Justice (PiS), the Swedish Democrats (SD), the True Finns party
(PS) and the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP)—are also
highly vocal in denouncing the EU’s democratic deficit (Zúquete, 2018).
However, their demands for democratic reforms at EU level tend be
rarer and less systematic. Moreover, compared to LPE parties, they tend
to give less credit to the pro-democracy promises or initiatives of EU
institutions. This general stance is the consequence of the fact that they
oppose the principle of an ‘ever closer Union’ on nationalistic and/or
national-democratic grounds (Halikiapoulou et al., 2012; Ivaldi et al.,
2017; Vasilopoulou, 2018). Firstly, some of these parties are against the
idea of multi-national and multi-ethnic diversity within a polity, indepen-
dently of the democratic issue (Mudde, 2007). Their nationalist ideology
can only conceive or accept nation-state based political systems. Indeed,
even within the member-state, they advocate illiberal ethno-national and
nativist positions which often combine majority nationalism, assimila-

tionist approaches towards native minorities, and exclusivist approaches
towards immigrant minorities (Heinisch et al., 2018). Secondly, these
parties do not deem it feasible to build a federal and democratic Euro-
pean state because they do not believe that it is possible to turn the
diverse European peoples into a single European people. This basic scep-
ticism derives from the connection between the people as demos and
the people as nation, as well as from the conviction that the various
European nations will never meld into a single European nation. To
be stressed is that, far from being only the point of view of radical
and irrational nationalist actors, this position is shared by authoritative
political theorists, who see the empowerment of the diverse European
peoples (demoi)—as opposed to an unworkable empowerment of an
unlikely European people (demos )—as the only possible solution to the
EU’s democratic deficit (Bellamy, 2019). On this view, without a single
demos /people/nation there can never be a real EU democracy; hence,
the EU’s democratic deficit cannot be solved through further transfers
of powers at the EU level. The corollary that most RPE parties draw
from the argument is that the only way to address the EU’s democratic
deficit (as well as the EU’s multi-nationalism) is partial or total disinte-
gration. But this does not mean that all RPE parties have always been
‘hard Eurosceptic’. In fact, the literature appears to be rather divided on
this question, also as a consequence of parties’ changes of position over
time. Using her typology of Eurosceptic positions, Vasilopoulou proposed
that some RPE are rejectionist (e.g. the FN), some are conditional (e.g.
the DF, FPO, LN and VB), and others are compromising Eurosceptic
(e.g. the Italian National Alliance) (Vasilopoulou, 2011). However, other
scholars writing in the dark days of the economic and refugee crises have
described the overwhelming majority of RPE parties as ‘hard Euroscep-
tic’ (Rohrschneider & Whitefield, 2016; Treib, 2014). More recently, it
has been proposed that some RPE parties, such as the FPO and the LN,
are intentionally adopting an equivocal position by straddling ‘hard’ and
‘soft’ Euroscepticism (Heinisch et al., 2019).
It is obvious that the ideological differences between LPE and RPE
result in an emphasis on different issues, the use of different frames and
the adoption of different positions on several policy areas connected to the
EU. On widening the focus on policy preferences, it is possible to appre-
ciate even more the liberal (actually radical progressive) character of most
LPE parties’ stances, as opposed to the framing and positions adopted by
36 E. MASSETTI
most RPE parties. These differences are not confined only to immigra-
tion; they apply to a wide range of issues. For instance, Lombardo and
Kantola (2019) show how alliances have been formed between feminist
and left-wing populist movements, such as the Indignados, in contrast
to the anti-gender rhetoric and initiatives of some right-wing populist
parties.
Conclusions
This chapter has pursued three main objectives. Firstly, it has sought to
introduce the reader to academic debates on the respective definitions of
Populism and Euroscepticism, thus providing some conceptual clarifica-
tion. Secondly, given the empirical overlap between the two phenomena,
it has highlighted the ideational sources of the populist-Eurosceptic mix.
In this regard, it has singled out some linkage nodes by starting from
the perfect match between (populist) anti-elitism and the elitist nature
of both European integration and the European Union (i.e. the targets
of Euroscepticism). Other important ideational links are provided by
external ideologies, such as nationalism and radical (both left and right)
ideologies. The third objective has been to highlight the different possible
connotations of the populist-Eurosceptic mix, primarily according to
whether it combines with left-wing or right-wing ideologies. LPE forces
tend to propose a rather clear, albeit perhaps naïve, vision. Starting from
the criticism of basic choices made by political and economic elites, they
aim at the creation of a more democratic, more social (less neoliberal),
more tolerant and, at the same time, more integrated Europe. In contrast,
the position of RPE parties is more heterogeneous and contradictory,
although it is perhaps less naïve on the democratic question. Starting from
a harsh criticism of intellectual, political and economic elites, they remain
attached to the tried-and-tested system of national democracy, refusing to
consider the possible formation of a European supranational and demo-
cratic state. More importantly, while criticising the EU system for its
democratic deficit, many RPE parties show a certain uneasiness with some
basic principles of liberal democracy. Indeed, they do not seem particu-
larly respectful of minority rights. Moreover, some RPE that have had the
opportunity to be in office at national level for some time, particularly
in central-eastern Europe (e.g. Hungary and Poland), have embarked on
reforms that disturb the division of powers on which liberal democracy is
based.
These three objectives should be seen as preliminary to a fruitful

discussion on populism and Euroscepticism in Europe. Such discussion
falls outside the scope of this chapter. However, the conceptual anal-
ysis provided suggests that populist-Eurosceptic grievances should be
taken into serious consideration. Populist Euroscepticism is emerging
as the only real opposition in the EU multilevel system of gover-
nance. Therefore, the only way to maintain a government/opposition
dialectic, so crucial for the survival of democracy, would be to genuinely
engage with the populist-Eurosceptic critique. If liberal democracy can
be seen as a convenient middle ground—and a normatively superior
system—between the two extremes of elitist-liberalism and populist-
democracy, there may be margins for a fruitful compromise. From a
liberal-democratic perspective, hiding the EU democratic deficit behind
the illiberal reforms/proposals of some RPE parties is as deplorable
as hiding the illiberal nature of those same reforms/proposals behind
the EU democratic deficit. Moreover, ignoring the left-wing version of
the populist-Eurosceptic critique, by automatically associating populist
Euroscepticism with illiberal and authoritarian tendencies, means missing
the most progressive proposals arising from that critique and reducing
space for the expression of opposition within the system, rather than
opposition to the system.
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Populism and European Institutions:
A Historical Perspective
Roberto Santaniello
The European Project: An Introduction

The European project was conceived and implemented at the end of the
Second World War and in the framework of the Cold War. The idea of a
united Europe was not new, since a certain number of ideas, definitions,
and initiatives had started circulating at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. These ideas became more explicit and concrete at the end of
the First World War. After the Second World War, a first concrete project,
known as the ‘Schuman Declaration’, was accomplished. On 9 May 1950,
the French Foreign Minister announced that France and Germany had
agreed to operate their coal and steel industries under unified supervision.
Schuman invited other European countries to join the Franco-German
venture, and four other countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, and
Italy) did so.
The opinions expressed by the author are personal, and should not be
attributed to the institution for which he works.
R. Santaniello (B)
Via Nino Oxilia, Roma, Italy
e-mail: Roberto.SANTANIELLO@ec.europa.eu

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73411-4_3
46 R. SANTANIELLO
The Schuman Declaration opened the way for the Treaty of the Coal
and Steel Community (CECA), which was signed in Paris on 18 April
1951. After a failed attempt to create a European Defence Commu-
nity (EDC) and then a European Political Community (EPC), the six
countries were able to reach an agreement on improving their economic
integration. On 25 March 1957 they signed the Treaty of Rome, creating
two new communities: the European Economic Community (EEC) and
the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) (Dinan, 2014).
The original European Communities were focused on economic matters
and in particular on market-related policies. The Treaty of Rome foresaw
the creation of a common market based on free trade and fair compe-
tition integrated by a set of common policies (agriculture, transport)
(Buonanno & Nugent, 2013: 5–6). The overall objective of the Euro-
pean Economy Community was to ensure economic and social prosperity
for the Six Member States. The integration process was conceived for
boosting growth and convergence and preserving Europe’s social model.
The Treaty of Rome built an original institutional system for pursuit
of these objectives. This system was influenced by the various theoretical
models devised to stimulate economic integration or international cooper-
ation, such as neo-functionalism, intergovernmentalism, and the federalist
model (Buonanno & Nugent, 2013: 23–38). The compromise reached
among these models established a sui generis organisation based on check
and balance principles. Two institutions, the European Commission and
the Council of Ministers, shared responsibility for decision-making. The
Assembly of Strasbourg had only a marginal legislative role, while the
Court of Justice was in charge of interpreting European law.
On creating the European Communities, the liberal-democratic elites
(represented by politicians such as Alcide De Gasperi, Konrad Adenauer,
Paul-Henri Spaak) of the Six Original Member States decided to invest
increasingly in a supranational level of activity and decision-making. Ideo-
logically, the European project belongs fully to the liberal-democratic
political heritage. This historical evidence is fundamental for under-
standing why today populists point to the European Union as the ‘perfect
culprit’. Since populism claims to represent the ‘pure people’ (Mudde,
2004), it is by definition against the ‘others’, namely the elites, as
represented in many cases by the European Union (Garton Ash, 2017).
POPULISM AND EUROPEAN INSTITUTIONS: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 47
The First Phases of the European Project

The original European project was extremely weak in terms of trans-
parency and democratic accountability. Initially, the institutional and
political dynamic was limited to a few institutional actors: only the
European Commission and the Council were effectively involved in the
decision-making process. According to the Treaty, the former had the
exclusive right to propose draft legislation, and the latter had the full
responsibility to enact European laws. The Parliamentary Assembly (the
future European Parliament) only had a consultative role. Its rules were
compulsory but not binding, so that its influence was extremely weak. By
contrast, the fourth institutional actor, the Court of Justice, had much
more influence in implementing the autonomy of the community system.
European decision-making was restricted to the technical and minis-
terial levels, and only a few other actors could be associated with this
political dynamic, such as the economic (above all) and social partners.
They had a direct or indirect interest in the decisions concerning ‘negative
integration’, elimination of the barriers to free trade and other common
market rules (fair competition, agriculture, transport). Information to the
general public was extremely poor, although all European institutions
created small structures responsible for informing national media. This
explains the permissive consensus among European citizens in favour of
European integration in the first decade of the European project.
The original institutional European system was perceived as an ‘elitist’
organisation with few links to European citizens. This trait was often the
source of criticism. For the pro-European and federalist movements, it
proved that the European Community was not sufficiently democratic.
Whence derived their demand for the European Community to be trans-
formed into a European federation. For others, mainly those nostalgic
for nationalism, the European Community represented a risk of reduced
domestic sovereignty and thus of limited citizens’ power. The concrete
answer to this criticism was the capacity of the European institutions to
deliver positive outcomes in terms of economic and social progress. For
almost two decades, despite some crises, the European institutions, and
mainly the European Commission, were able to achieve the objectives
of ‘negative integration’. Benefiting from the post-war recovery and the
expansion of world trade, the elimination of the barriers and quantita-
tive restrictions on trade made the GNP growth of the Member States
extremely high (Mody, 2018: 30–31). Following this great progress, the
48 R. SANTANIELLO
European project tried to switch to a higher speed, moving towards ‘posi-

tive integration’ and more interventionist policies. Concretely, this meant
a first attempt to create an economic and monetary union.
Meanwhile, criticism of the elitist character of the European project
received new fuel from the concept of ‘democratic deficit’. With this
term, pro-Europeans underlined that the policy expansion of the Euro-
pean institutions was not matched by a parallel expansion of democratic
accountability at European level. National parliaments lost legislative
powers without any transfer to the European Parliament.
While pro-European and federalist movements called for more Euro-
pean democracy with further legislative powers for the European Parlia-
ment, a new front of criticism arose in the form of Euroscepticism.
In the late 1970s, when the process of economic integration stalled,
Euroscepticism gave voice to discontent about the capacity of the Euro-
pean Community to find policy solutions to the expectations of European
citizens. The concept of Euroscepticism covered a wide range of mean-
ings (Krouvel & Abts, 2007). Hard Euroscepticism rejected the entire
European project, while soft Euroscepticism involved contingent and
qualified opposition to European integration related to national inter-
ests and policy-oriented concerns. Soft Euroscepticism appeared to be
compatible with support for the European project, while hard Euroscep-
ticism fully rejected it. The emergence of Euroscepticism also triggered a
decrease of the permissive consensus among European citizens.
A New Start of the European Project and Its

First Cleavage with European Citizens
The European Community reacted to the ‘euro sclerosis’ of the 1970s by
delivering an institutional reform with the Single European Act (1986)
and a strategic economic programme to implement a Single European
Market (White Paper, 1985). After a first, failed attempt to transform the
European Community into a Union as proposed by the European Parlia-
ment (Spinelli Project ), European leaders decided to reform the Treaty of
Rome by strengthening the institutional instruments to complete market
integration, and by introducing a specific distributive policy (economic
and social cohesion) to stimulate economic convergence in Europe. In the
late 1980s, when the success of the White Paper programme was consol-
idated and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, European leaders agreed to
accelerate political and economic integration. The outcome of this reform
process was the Treaty of Maastricht, which established the European

Union. Amid the project to increase political and economic European
integration, a first, deep cleavage appeared between European institu-
tions and European citizens. Despite the progress of the new Treaty in
terms of democratic accountability, citizens’ rights, and subsidiarity, the
gap between European institutions and citizens visibly surfaced after its
ratification process.
A first sign came from Denmark. The negative result of the Danish
referendum on the Treaty of Maastricht’s ratification was unexpected.
Despite the opting-out clause foreseen for the participation of Denmark
in the third phase of the economic and monetary union, the majority of
Danish citizens rejected the new Treaty. The second sign, a real shock,
came from France. Even if the outcome of the referendum was in the
end positive, the warning was clear and direct. Almost half of French citi-
zens (48.98%) expressed their opposition to the Treaty of Maastricht. The
result of this referendum conducted in a founder country of the Euro-
pean project highlighted that any psychological and emotional link to
the European Union was lacking. Furthermore, the political campaign of
the parties against ratification was based on rhetorical and fake messages
exploiting the public’s lack of knowledge about the European project.
For the first time, under the pressure of Euroscepticism, the elitist char-
acter of the European political system was very explicitly questioned.
To understand the intensity of this shock, it is important to note that
the institutional provisions of the Treaty largely reduced the ‘demo-
cratic deficit’ by giving co-legislative power to the European Parliament.
Furthermore, explicitly foreseen was a European citizenship granting
tangible rights to the citizens of the European Union. These advances
gave concrete answers to the pro-Europeans. On the other hand, intro-
duction of the subsidiarity principle into the European political system
gave explicit assurance to those concerned about the risk of the Euro-
pean Union becoming a ‘super-State’. In fact, this principle affirmed
that ‘the Union shall act only if and in so far as the objectives of the
proposed action cannot be achieved by the Member States’.1 This was
a clear signal to the partisans of nationalism who were demanding that
domestic sovereignty be safeguarded.
1 Treaty on European Union (1992), Office for Official publications of the Euro-
pean Communities, pp. 13–14, https://europa.eu/european-union/sites/europaeu/files/
docs/body/treaty_on_european_union_en.pdf.
50 R. SANTANIELLO
Nevertheless, the large majority of public opinion was unaware of

these innovations. This ‘information deficit’ showed that it was urgent to
guarantee more communication and transparency in the new European
Union. This explains why European leaders, within the political package
enabling Denmark to ratify the Treaty of Maastricht with a new refer-
endum, decided concrete initiatives ‘to bring the Community closer to its
citizens’.2
The Enlarged Political Arena

of the European Project
The Treaty of the European Union expanded the policy competencies of
the European Community, giving a new political dimension to the orig-
inal European project. The creation of the economic and monetary union
and then of the common currency (the Euro), the introduction of new
policies and reinforcement of the old ones, represented huge progress
for European integration. Such progress modified the original paradigm
of the European political system, which before the Treaty of Maastricht
could be summarised with the formula ‘Smith abroad and Keynes at
home’ (Gilpin, 1987: 355). ‘Negative integration’ stimulated the free
market, thereby matching communitarian liberalism (Smith abroad) with
public intervention in the economy (Keynes at home). Consequently, the
area of democratic consensus remained restricted to the national level.
After the new Treaty, the development of ‘positive integration’ through
the implementation of a set of economic and distributive policies at Euro-
pean level enlarged the area of democratic consensus from the domestic
to the transnational level. This shift marked the definitive end of permis-
sive consensus among European citizens. Finally, the Treaty of Maastricht
extended the democratic arena beyond national political frontiers. For
the first time, public opinion could express its agreement or disagree-
ment directly to European institutions and no longer indirectly through
national authorities as in the past.
In this regard, the results of the Eurobarometer, the survey with
which the European Commission checks the opinion of European citi-
zens, recorded less enthusiasm than before: a clear sign that Europeans
2 Treaty, Union, “Birmingham European Council” of the European Communities

(1992): 7, www.consilium.europa.eu/media/20501/1992_october_-_birmingham_eng_.
pdf.
were discovering and judging the European institutions. Simultaneously

with the expansion of the political arena at European level, the influ-
ence on European topics of the domestic political parties progressively
increased. The mainstream liberal-democratic political families reinforced
their transnational dimension, and their political confrontation took place
along the traditional right/left spectrum. Other parties in the Member
States found new fuel to expand their influence. Some of them adopted
an explicit Eurosceptical stance in order to gain more political consensus
at domestic level. Euroscepticism was located mainly in extremist parties.
Their objectives were multiple: the first, more genuine, one was to induce
the major parties to adopt Eurosceptic positions, especially on sensitive
domestic issues. The second, more tactical, one was to win seats and thus
have influence in forming coalition governments.
At European level, the presence of Eurosceptic organised forces
increased. After the 1994 European elections, the Europe of Nations
(EN) group, with an anti-European programme, gained 19 seats.
The European Democratic Alliance (EDA), a group with a nationalist
programme, gained 26 seats. In 1999, the presence of Eurosceptic parties
in the European Parliament was confirmed. A new Eurosceptic group,
‘For Europe of Democracies and Diversities’ (EDD), gained 16 seats,
and another new nationalist group, the Union for the Nations of Europe
(UEN), gained 30. Meanwhile, during the 1990s the dialectic of the
mainstream right and left parties found common ground in economic
policies oriented towards fiscal stability and reaching the final stage of
the economic and monetary union. This meant supporting public debt
control policies to fulfil the Maastricht economic parameters. At national
level, the extremist parties, especially those belonging to the left, exploited
the general discontent of European citizens affected by austerity policies
implemented to reduce public debts.
This dynamic was well represented in the European Parliament, where
the traditional liberal-democratic political families supported fiscal stability
policies, while the other extremist parties of the left expressed radical
disagreement. Stressing the negative economic situation and rising unem-
ployment, exploiting the frustration of less affluent people, and the
growing fear of the middle class, the narrative of these parties focused
on the lack of a real common economic policy able to increase growth
and employment. On the other side, the right-wing extremist parties
were developing a new narrative focused on the risks arising from
the lack of effective external border controls and from large flows of
52 R. SANTANIELLO
extra-communitarian migrants. While these parties leveraged emotional

messages to increase the anxiety of the general public, European leaders
replied with rational and concrete initiatives to find policy solutions to
these issues. Once again the European Union needed to revamp its
capacity to deliver policy solutions.
As regards the economy, the legacy of the last European Commis-
sion led by Jacques Delors was a broad plan known as the White Book
on ‘growth, competitiveness and employment’ (1994).3 This document
suggested to the Member States a set of innovative policies to tackle
the structural and technological problems of growth. This plan, which
represented the first economic programme to renew the social economic
model, was eventually rejected because financial agreement was lacking.
As regards migration, the Treaty of Amsterdam (1996) responded to
rising public concerns about massive inflows of migrants by giving a
communitarian dimension to intergovernmental cooperation in home
affairs such as immigration, external border controls, visas, originally fore-
seen by the Treaty of Maastricht. New institutional provisions opened
the way to a new approach based on a communitarian method. Despite
these advances, the extremist and Eurosceptic parties did not lose their
political influence. On the contrary, these parties increased their pressure
until they reached the level of the European Union, as the Austrian crises
highlighted.
The Emergence of Populism in the European Union

Populism became prominent in the European political debate after the
success of Austrian party FPÖ and its participation in the government
coalition. The Liberal Party (FPÖ) and its leader Jörg Haider repre-
sented a concrete example of a populist right-wing party with an explicit
anti-European and xenophobic vision. The participation of this party in
a government of the European Union provoked strong political reac-
tion by the other Member States, which demanded disciplinary measures
against the Austrian coalition. The European Union did not apply any
formal sanction; nor did it take an official common position. Instead,
another diplomatic solution was found. In order to reassert the common
values and safeguard the spirit of European democracy, the fourteen other
3 Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 1994.

Member States suspended their bilateral diplomatic relations with the

Austrian government. The Austrian crisis resolved by this strong diplo-
matic pressure was the first example of the direct influence of populism
on the European project, even if the solution was reached outside the
institutional framework of the European Union.
Meanwhile, in the early 2000s the globalisation process was under-
going an extraordinary evolution. Globalisation meant growing interde-
pendence of the world economies, cultures, and peoples brought about
by cross-borders trade in goods and services, technologies, and flows of
investments, people and information. The great effects of globalisation
confronted the European Union with new challenges that required a
renewed capacity for action in a new international environment. Growth
and employment remained at the core of European citizens’ concerns.
The Lisbon Strategy (2000) was the new strategic economic programme
adopted by the European Union to accelerate economic development and
employment and to respond to the challenges of globalisation. Among
these challenges, growing inequalities gave populists a chance to expand
their political ability to represent the ‘losers’ of globalisation.
With the Lisbon Strategy, the European leaders promised ‘to make the
European Union by 2010 the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-
based economy, capable of sustainable economic growth, with more and
better jobs and greater social cohesion and respect of the environment’.4
In July 2002, the European project achieved the historical objective of a
common currency, the Euro. This new start was the conclusion of a long
technical process conceived to adapt the economies of the countries of the
Eurozone to the new common currency. In 2004, the European Union
enlarged its political space with ten new Member States. The historical
reunification of the Old Continent was finally almost achieved.
On the other hand, the European project failed to achieve the extraor-
dinary political goal of giving European citizens a constitutional treaty.
This treaty was drafted by an ad hoc body, the Convention on the Future
of Europe, composed of representatives of the governments, European
institutions, and national parliaments. The draft Treaty issued by the
Convention was then negotiated by a traditional diplomatic conference
and signed in Rome, on 29 October 2004. Even if the new Treaty largely
consolidated the provisions of the previous ones, while introducing new
4 Presidency conclusions, Lisbon European Council, 23–24 March 2000, https://www.

consilium.europa.eu/media/21038/lisbon-european-council-presidency-conclusions.pdf.
54 R. SANTANIELLO
institutional actors and rules, it opened a constitutional dimension in

the process of European integration. This new dimension should have
brought European citizens closer to European institutions by creating
visible and tangible constitutional links between them. Despite its consti-
tutional character, the entry into force of the new Treaty needed to be
ratified by all Member States as a Treaty based on international law.
Some countries (the first was the United Kingdom) decided to ratify
the Constitutional Treaty by means of a referendum. The first two refer-
endums organised had negative outcomes. In France, on 29 May, the
Noes to the ratification won with 54% of votes (against 45.3% of Yeses).
On 1 June, the Netherlands rejected the new Treaty with 61.3% of
votes. These two results were ultimately decisive for the failure of the
Constitutional Treaty. Both France and the Netherlands voted against the
government. While in the latter country the political campaign ignored
the substance of the referendum, in France the negative outcome of the
referendum was a result of an intense anti-Europe campaign. The front
against the Constitutional Treaty was highly composite: the extremist and
populist right of the Front National, anti-globalisation movements, and
part of the left wing. The Socialist Party was divided (for internal reasons),
while the radical left joined the far right in exploiting a narrative critical
of social dumping and delocalisation. The Polish plumber, thoughtlessly
evoked in a speech by Frits Bolkestein (the Commissioner in charge of
proposals for the liberalisation of services), became the symbolic scape-
goat of the political debate. Ignoring the institutional progress of the
new Treaty and its potential, the European Union was accused of being
an agent of globalisation and excessively liberal or, conversely, illiberal. On
the one hand the European Union was considered to foster uncontrolled
deregulation, and the other hand to undermine the original principles of
liberalism.
The political debate in France again showed the distance between citi-
zens and institutions, and a persistent lack of emotional sympathy with the
European project despite the innovative constitutional dimension opened
by the new Treaty. To overcome this communication deficit, which
exposed European public opinion to the influence of rising populism, the
European Commission launched the so-called Plan D (debate, dialogue,
democracy). The aim of this plan was to engage European citizens in the
political debate on the future of the European Union. Despite the failure
of the Constitutional Treaty, a new treaty was signed in 2007. The Treaty
of Lisbon incorporated almost all the provisions of the Constitutional
Treaty except those with constitutional potential. The provisions creating

emotional and visual links (European laws, anthem, flag, and motto)
between European citizens and European institutions were removed
at the request of the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, the new Treaty
introduced a number of innovations intended to increase democratic
legitimacy. Among them, some concerned participatory/direct democ-
racy by establishing participatory mechanisms such as citizens’ initiatives
and structured dialogues to communicate with civil society.
The Great Recession and Its

Effects on Rising Populism
The pressure and the influence of populism increased when Europe was
hard hit by the effects of a new economic and financial crisis, known as
the ‘Great Recession’. Having started in the United States following the
burst of a housing bubble and the failure of the Lehman Brothers Bank
in 2007, the crisis put serious pressure on the economy of the Euro-
pean Union, and in particular on the financial stability of some Member
States (Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain, the so-called PIGS). Even if
slowly, the European institutions had the capacity to find solutions to the
dramatic effects of the financial instability and the risk of a Greek bail-
out. The European Union adopted several measures establishing a new
economic governance, such as reform of the Stability and Growth Pact,
renewed macroeconomic surveillance, and introduction of the European
semester.
The Great Recession provided new fuel for populists and Euroscep-
tics at both ends of the political spectrum. The extremist parties further
clarified their position and strategies. On the left wing, the main crit-
icism focused on the asymmetry between the economic and monetary
pillars of the European Union. Supporting the Greek politician Alexis
Tsipras and his SYRIZA party, engaged in a difficult negotiation with
the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, these parties
called for ‘another Europe’, one more democratic and strongly committed
to overcoming economic and social inequalities. On the right wing, the
main criticism, as usual more influenced by nativism, focused on strong
opposition to immigration.
As the success of the UKIP, a new British party, highlighted, Euroscep-
ticism started to turn openly into Euro-hostility (hard Euroscepticism).
Since its creation in 1993, the United Kingdom Independence Party
56 R. SANTANIELLO
and its leader, Nigel Farage, had pursued the main purpose of taking
the United Kingdom out of the European Union. In 1999, three of its
members were elected to the European Parliament. In 2004 and 2009,
the number of UKIP MEPs increased to 12 and then to 13. The outcome
of the 2009 European elections was a general increase of representa-
tives of populist parties from several countries. A new group, ‘Europe of
Freedom and Democracy’ (EFD), could count on 30 members. This rise
was driven by the Great Recession but, as observed above, the presence
of these parties in the European Parliament started earlier.
Populist parties, especially those with nationalist and conservative
values, exploited the effects of the Great Recession and the growing
anxiety of a large part of European citizens to increase their hostility
against the role of the European Union in the globalisation process, and
against immigration. Furthermore, following the refugee crisis of 2015,
these populist parties sowed panic over the possibility of Muslim migrants
radically modifying the European demographic balance. The narrative of
the right-wing populist parties was developed around strong emotional
messages intended to trigger anxiety and fear. They found the perfect
tools to disseminate these messages in the new media. Thanks to the
potentialities of social networks and the Internet, populist parties were
able to reach out to the ‘people’. Using the same tools, they were able
to exploit the growing impact and rapid spread of fake news (Krämer,
2014).
In Scandinavia, in September 2010, the Swedish Democrats (a
populist, nationalist party) gained 20 seats in the Swedish Parliament,
entering it for the first time. In March 2011, in France, the Front
National obtained about 15% of votes in the general local elections.
In April 2011, the Free-Fins become the third largest party in the
Finnish Parliament. Finally, in May 2011, the Freedom Party joined the
government coalition in the Netherlands. These electoral performances
evidenced the rise of populism at national level, but also its increasing
weight in influencing the political agenda of the European Union through
national governments.
The First Reaction of the European

Union and the annus horribilis
Since 2010, the European Union and its liberal-democratic elites have
been under heavy pressure. The narratives of populist parties, increas-
ingly based on identitarian policies and nativism, required a new and
strong commitment from the traditional liberal-democratic parties at both
national and European level. The emotional and political links between
European citizens and European institutions were still missing, however,
as the low participation in European Parliament elections has proved.
After 1979, when the members of this institution were for the first time
elected directly by European citizens, turnout dropped consistently every
five years, and from 1999 onwards it was much below 50% on average.
To remedy this low turnout, the European Parliament, on the initiative of
its President Martin Schultz, decided to introduce an innovation into the
election process of the President of the European Commission. Known as
the Spitzenkandidaten procedure, this was a method whereby European
political parties, ahead of the European elections, appointed their candi-
dates for the European Commission Presidency. The lead candidate of the
largest party would have a mandate to assume the European Commission
Presidency. This procedural proposal of the European Parliament relied
on a new provision of the Treaty of Lisbon. Article 17.7 provides that the
European Council shall propose a candidate for President of the European
Commission ‘taking into account the elections of the European Parlia-
ment’. The legitimacy of this procedure was contested by some Member
States, especially the United Kingdom. This new procedure, supported by
mainstream political parties, had two different purposes. The first, more
institutional, purpose was to increase turnout for the European elections
in 2014 by involving people close to the political campaigns. The second,
more political, purpose was to give more visibility to the mainstream polit-
ical parties and thus slow down the loss of their vote preferences in favour
of extremist parties. Furthermore, the political strategy of the liberal-
democratic groups was to revamp the traditional left–right cleavage and
to minimise the surfacing of the anti/pro-globalisation cleavage and the
anti/pro-European cleavage. The outcome of the European Parliament
elections of 2014 showed that only the second purpose was fulfilled. The
turnout was again disappointing, since only 43.8% of European voters
went to the polling stations. By contrast, the expected growth of the
populist parties was avoided. Thanks to the Spitzenkandidaten procedure,
58 R. SANTANIELLO
the attention was focused on the programmes proposed by the lead candi-
dates, even if the national media generally ignored public debates among
them.
Following the new procedure, and after a difficult confrontation with
the European Council, the European Parliament elected Jean-Claude
Juncker, lead candidate of the European Popular Party (EPP), the largest
group in the assembly. Presenting his programme in Strasbourg before
the investiture vote of the European Parliament on 22 October, Juncker
declared that ‘this will be the last-chance Commission: either we will
succeed in bringing our citizens closer to Europe, or we will fail. Either
we will succeed in making Europe a political whole that deals with the
big issues and leaves the small ones alone, or we will fail’ (Juncker,
2014b: 37). Juncker proposed a political agenda for the following five
years structured in ten priorities (Juncker, 2014a: 3–14). Among them,
growth, unemployment, migration, and trade were the most important.
The economic agenda was based on increasing European public and
private investments to recover growth and jobs, and on the introduction
of more flexibility into the Stability Pact to moderate austerity economic
policies. A revamp of the social agenda was also foreseen.
In regard to trade, the strategic approach focused on enlarging inter-
national markets through a new generation of trade agreements. The
top priority was an ambitious transatlantic agreement with the United
States based on a free exchange zone. In regard to migration, the polit-
ical agenda was conceived to implement a structured European policy
based on border management (external controls, irregular migration),
protection (asylum policy), and integration (legal economic migration).
Unfortunately, despite this ambitious plan, the European project was
soon exposed to two huge shocks: the refugee crisis and Brexit. In 2015
and 2016, the European Union experienced an unprecedented migra-
tion crisis. This was a real humanitarian emergency that required the
European Union to accept large number of refugees from the Middle
East and Africa. Furthermore, fundamentalist terrorist attacks took place
around these years, some of them made by disguised newcomers. Anxiety,
fear, and concerns consequently spread among Europeans. Right-wing
populist parties reacted to the migration crisis in two different ways. The
first, economic, focused on the negative impact of migrants on wages,
goods, health, and education services for European citizens. The second,
more cultural and nativist, focused on the risks for preservation of the
national language and civilisation. On this issue, right-wing populists
often seemed to hold the European Union and the national governments
hostage with their views.
The second shock was the decision of the United Kingdom to leave
the European Union. In June 2016, 51.9% of voters chose to leave,
whereas 48.1% voted to remain in the European Union. The Brexit vote
was the result of several factors. Probably, the most important of them
derived from deep cultural roots and reflected persisting resentment about
loss of the Empire and the privileges and sense of entitlement associated
with it (Bhambra, 2017). Moreover, the circulation of fake news items
had an important role in spreading counter-factual arguments against
the United Kingdom’s exit. Neutral facts about the British benefits from
the European Union illustrated in the information campaign organised
by the public authorities before the referendum were often dismissed as
fake news. This was a severe blow for the European Union because it
generated fear about a possible domino effect on other countries.
According to Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, the United Kingdom
had to notify the European Council of its intention to withdraw from the
European Union. Only in March 2017 did the British government send
notification to the President of the European Council. The official nego-
tiations between the United Kingdom and the European Union started
on 17 July 2017. The backlash for the European Union caused by these
two shocks was very strong.
Indeed, 2016 could be seen as the annus horribilis for Europe. The
European Union tried to deliver efficient political solutions to tackle the
migration crisis. A quota system was implemented to ease the pressure
on those Member States most exposed to migration flows and asylum
applications. This system, proposed by the European Commission, did
not work because some countries, all belonging to the Visegrad Group
(Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia), refused to apply it. Espe-
cially the opposition of the Polish and Hungarian governments reflected
their views on European values. In Hungary, Prime Minister and leader
of Fidesz, Viktor Orbán, pursued his vision of an ‘illiberal democracy’. In
Poland, the government was led by the conservative populist party ‘Law
and Justice’. The Visegrad Group greatly values national sovereignty,
and since the refugee crisis it has firmly opposed any solidarity among
Member States. A cultural element of populism in Europe reflects another
cleavage of the European Union, namely the opposite views of Western
and Eastern Europe on multiculturalism. People in Eastern Europe tend
60 R. SANTANIELLO
to view the cosmopolitan values on which the European Union is based

as a threat to their national identities (Krastev, 2017).
Furthermore, the Polish and the Hungarian governments were
engaged in curtailing democratic rights internally. The European Union
reacted to this illiberal and antidemocratic evolution by triggering Article
7 of the Treaty of Lisbon. These provisions introduced a procedure
designed to deter Members States from proposing policies that threaten
democratic institutions and values. The influence of populist parties also
involved external relations. A consultative referendum held in the Nether-
lands in March 2010 regarding the EU agreement with Ukraine risked
jeopardising the future of the latter country. The entry into force of the
trade agreement with Canada (CETA) was stopped for long time by the
regional Assembly of Wallonia in Belgium. After the annus horribilis, the
European political system, driven by consensus building, made the impact
of populist aut-auts more dramatic. It also largely influenced mainstream
parties at national level, where the migration crisis dominated the political
and public debate. Some leaders of the liberal-democratic parties did not
resist the temptation to mimic populist rhetoric, especially during elec-
toral campaigns. Furthermore, policy choices focused on internal security
by curbing the numbers of refugees.
Following the Great Recession and the refugee crisis, the populist and
the right-wing parties grew apace. Before and after each political election
in the Member States, the media focused on the results of these parties
and their anti-European influence in forming government coalitions. In
Germany, after the 2017 federal elections, Alternative for Germany (AfD)
became the third party in the Bundestag. In France, the National Rally
(formerly Front National ) continued to exert a strong influence even
though its leader, Marine Le Pen, lost the Presidential elections against
Emmanuel Macron. In Italy, in 2018, two parties, the Five-Star Move-
ment and the League (formerly Northern League), formed the first
populist coalition government in Europe with a hard Eurosceptical stance.
The Last Reaction of the European

Union: A Conclusion
Confronted with a dramatic crisis, both political and economic, European
leaders found new solidarity in Rome during the celebrations for the 60th
anniversary of the original treaties. On 25 March 2017, they adopted a
Declaration that officially opened the post-Brexit era. The Rome Decla-
ration5 is a political manifesto with which the 27 European leaders
recognise that ‘the European Union is facing unprecedented challenges,
both global and domestic: regional conflicts, terrorism, growing migra-
tory pressure, protectionism and social and economic inequalities’. They
continue by declaring that ‘together, we are determined to address the
challenges of a rapid changing world and offer to our citizens both secu-
rity and new opportunities’. Finally, the Declaration contains an agenda
(Rome Agenda) setting the common objectives to fulfil. The European
Union rapidly moved to the new elections of the European Parliament
in 2019, fully absorbed by the complex and tiring negotiations with the
United Kingdom on Brexit.
The right-wing populist parties planned to unite to gain more weight
in the next Parliament. The project was to create a political front called
‘Freedom Front’ which would comprise populist parties from six coun-
tries. The aim shared by the members of this front, as Marine Le Pen and
Matteo Salvini underlined, was ‘to fight against Europe’ (New Europe,
2018), ‘taking back control’, and reinstating full domestic sovereignty.
The consequent narrative spread the following conception: European
elites had stolen people’s sovereignty, and the aim was to regain control
of the economy, restore borders, close them to migrants and to the flow
of free trade. Liberal-democratic political families, on the other hand,
confirmed the Spitzenkandidaten method, although this time applying
this procedure was more complex than in 2014. It was influenced by
Emmanuel Macron’s decision to pursue the project of creating a new
party (the future Renew Europe) on the model of En Marche in France,
and to strengthen the French-German axis.
As in 2014, the challenge once again was to increase the turnout at
the European elections, while at the same time limiting the presence of
populist parties in the new assembly. In order to improve the European
public debate, the proposal was to create a transnational list to replace
the British members, but it was eventually rejected by the European
Parliament. To fight fake news stories, at the end of 2018 the European
Commission launched an Action Plan on disinformation. Strengthening
the Strategic Communication task forces of the European External Action
Service, the plan was especially conceived in view of the European
5 https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2017/03/25/rome-dec
laration/pdf.
62 R. SANTANIELLO
elections. As predicted, the electoral campaign saw the opposition of pro-

Europeans and anti-Europeans, mainstream parties and extremist parties.
Populist parties mobilised voters in order to obtain an anti-European
majority and thus block the functioning of the European Union. A well-
conceived information campaign organised by the European Parliament
and the European Commission—#thistimeimvoting —had a very positive
impact on citizens’ participation. The turnout increased to above 50% in
the European Union.
The outcome of the European elections was not a populist surge,
but instead a further decline of the mainstream parties. The European
People’s Party (EPP) obtained 179 seats (down from 216). The Group
of the Progressive Alliance of Socialist and Democrats (S&D) obtained
150 seats (down from 187). The liberal family created a new aggregation
formed by the coalition of the old Alliance of Liberals and Democrats
for Europe (ALDE) and Macron’s list. This new group, Renew Europe,
obtained 108 seats. The Green Party (riding the environmentalist wave
supported by Greta Thunberg) increased its votes, obtaining 74 seats. The
populist forces obtained 73 seats. Including the new United Kingdom
Brexit Party, which received fewer votes than expected, the populists
gained 102 seats. Adding these seats to those of the European Conser-
vatives and Reformists group (ECR) and of other MEPs not attached to
any group (NF, Not Federate), the Eurosceptics (hard and soft) could
count on 175 members. The new populist group ‘Identity and Democ-
racy’ (ID) became the fifth electoral group in the European Parliament.
To be stressed is that this group gained the votes lost by the old Europe
for Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) group, which received less
electoral support than in 2014. The other Eurosceptic party, the ECR,
decreased its share of votes mainly because of the collapse of the British
Conservative Party, and the move of some member parties to the NF
group.
The first strategy of the populist forces was to sow discord and dysfunc-
tion in the European Parliament from within. The mainstream parties
and the Greens reacted by creating a so-called cordon sanitaire aimed
at preventing representatives of populist force from access to institu-
tional posts in the European Parliament. In brief, derogating from the
rigid D’Hondt method, this strategy fulfilled its purpose of isolating the
populists of the ID group.6 However, the Spitzenkandidaten procedure

did not work, because no lead candidate of the European parties was
elected President of the European Commission. After long discussions
among European leaders and cross-vetoes,7 on 2 July 2019 the Euro-
pean Council designated Ursula von der Leyen8 as candidate President.
She was able to build up a majority inside the Assembly with an ambi-
tious green plan and the idea of offering two vice-presidencies to the
lead candidates of the S&D and Renew Europe groups. Consequently,
the three main political families were all represented at high level. For
the rest of the Commission, the designated president suggested a mix of
members reflecting the political composition of the European Parliament
(9 EPP, 9 S&D, 4 Renew Europe, 1 ECR, and 4 independents9 ).
The European Parliament approved the designation of Ursula von der
Leyen with 383 votes in favour (327 against and 22 abstentions). Then,
after the hearing of each future member of the College, the European
Commission received a final approval of the Parliament with 461 votes in
favour (157 against and 89 abstentions). At the end of this new electoral
cycle, as observed by several opinion leaders, the European Parliament
seems more fragmented and less likely to build a stable coalition than
before, even if two-thirds of the seats went to pro-European members.
According to the same opinion leaders, in the coming years the major
threat for the European Union could be the halt of policymaking. This
could strengthen nationalist governments and undermine European citi-
zens’ confidence in European institutions. The most dangerous outcome
of populist influence is the paralysis of the European Union and its weak-
ness on the international stage. As in the past, the European Union
is called upon to deliver results and further implement the European
project.
6 The result is that the ‘Identity and Democracy’ representatives do not have
presidencies of parliamentary committees or the Vice Presidency of the European
Parliament.
7 First Manfred Weber, PPE candidate, and then Franz Timmermans, S&D candidate,
were rejected for lack of consensus.
8 Ursula von der Leyen is a German politician, member of the Christian Democratic
Union (CDU). She was member of the German federal government from 2005 to 2019,
first as Minister of Family Affairs and Youth, then Minister of Labour and Social Affairs.
Finally, from 2013 she was Minister of Defence, the first woman with this responsibility.
9 The four independent members do not belong to any European group.
64 R. SANTANIELLO
For these reasons, the programme of the new European Commission is

particularly ambitious. von der Leyen, the first woman to head this insti-
tution, has set six political priorities (von der Leyen, 2019) along three
different dimensions: economic, societal, and external. On the economic
dimension, the priority is to fully exploit the green (‘European Green
Deal’) and the digital component of economic growth. Moreover, the
economy should be more at the service of the European people, deep-
ening the economic and monetary union, and reinforcing Europe’s social
pillar. Regarding society, the priority is to protect European citizens and
European values. One of the key issues is the adoption of a new Pact on
Migration and Asylum. Moreover, the Commission aims at supporting
European democracy by opening to the contributions of European citi-
zens (through the Conference on the Future of Europe). On the external
dimension, the priority is to make the European Union a real global
leader with a strong, open, and fair agenda. The Commission also aims to
develop an integrated and comprehensive approach to European security,
including a common defence.
Even if this is only a short summary of the Commission’s political
agenda, it is clear that at the core of von der Leyen’s Commission
programme over the next years is the intent to enhance the European
Union’s capacity to deliver policy solutions for the new challenges raised
by globalisation. It is also clear that its political vision has been conceived
by adopting a renewed liberal-democratic version of the heritage under-
lying the European social model (Dalton, 2018).10 Without explicitly
evoking the narratives of populism, it addresses all Europeans in order
to respond to their needs and alleviate public discontent. This is how the
European project is seeking to counter the illiberal vision virus (Zielonka,
2018).
Meanwhile, another virus, COVID-19, suddenly appeared in early
2020 throughout the world and in Europe. Its effects are extraordinarily
dramatic for Europe in term of loss of human lives and economic de-
growth (–7.5% of GDP in 2020).11 The political consequences of the
COVID-19 crisis could be equally dramatic for solidarity in the European
10 This programme seems to confirm the development of a new political left/right

cleavage called GALVAN (Green Alternative Libertarian vs. Traditional Authoritarian
Nationalist).
11 https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/economic-performance-and-for
ecasts/economic-forecasts/spring-2020-economic-forecast-deep-and-uneven-recession-unc
ertain-recovery_en.
Union. In the framework of the Recovery Plan endorsed by the European

Council, the European Commission has proposed a new Recovery and
Resilience Facility Fund amounting to 6725 billion euros.12 The inno-
vation lies in the financing method chosen, since the new fund will be
financed by the issue of recovery bonds guaranteed by the European
budget. For the first time, the principle of debt mutualisation has been
accepted at European level. In the context of such a dramatic pandemic
crisis, with this historic innovation the European Union has shown itself
ready not to leave European citizens alone but to consider them part of
a community with a common destiny.
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541–563.
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sity Press.
The Impact of Populism on European
Institutions
The Discursive Construction of Migration
and Democracy in the European Parliament:
A Model of Reciprocal Influence Between
Populists and Non-populists Through
Carlo Berti
Introduction
When populism and its impact on the European Union are discussed, a
relevant issue is how non-populist forces react. Some claim, for instance,
that populism and anti-populism have always co-existed, and that “for
every populist actor asserting its presence, there are other anti-populist
actors antagonising it” (Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2019: 39; see also
Stavrakakis, 2014). Populism and anti-populism are described as oppo-
sites, as antagonists with irreconcilable positions that combat each other
in the political arena. Populists and anti-populists form two opposite blocs
(Ruzza, 2020), and the moral and political divide between them makes
“the discursive frontier between both camps […] impermeable, with the
divide between populism and anti-populism becoming one of good and
evil”, thus generating “a clear deadlock between the two sides” (Moffitt,
C. Berti (B)

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73411-4_4
70 C. BERTI
2018: 10). This antagonism expresses itself not just discursively, but also
in the constant effort of non-populist political forces to exclude populist
forces from political decision-making. This is the case, for instance, of
the so-called cordons sanitaires which impede populists from reaching
government positions (see Pauwels, 2011). However, the clear-cut antag-
onism between populists and anti-populists appears to be diminishing
over time. Cas Mudde has highlighted that, given the current populist
upsurge, “cordons sanitaires […] will become increasingly difficult to
sustain” (Mudde, 2016: 30), not only at the national level but also at that
of European institutions. The cordons sanitaires are, in fact, already fading
away. Two examples of this can be provided, one at national level, and
one at the level of European institutions. The first example is that of Italy,
where a populist government (a coalition between the right-wing populist
League and the Five-Star Movement, formed after the 2018 national
elections) was succeeded, in late 2019, by a coalition of populist and
non-populist forces (in particular, the populist Five-Star Movement and
the non-populist Democratic Party). The second example is that of the
European People’s Party (EPP) group in the European Parliament (EP):
the group, formed mostly by non-populist forces, also counted among its
members the Hungarian far-right populist party Fidesz. When Fidesz was
suspended (but not expelled) from the EPP in 2019, after accusations of
breaching the rule of law in Hungary, a difficult and long process ensued
which clearly showed the increasing difficulties of excluding populist
parties from mainstream politics. Only in 2021, eventually, Fidesz pulled
out of EPP.
Given the current political panorama across Europe, therefore, would
it be appropriate further to explore the impact of populism beyond
the populist/anti-populist antagonistic divide? While, certainly, the moral
and political divide still resists, and the cordons sanitaires still work in
many cases across Europe, other dynamics operate in the relationship
between populist and non-populist forces. The case of the European
Parliament is particularly significant in this regard, because it is probably
one of the most visible arenas in which the separation among populism,
anti-populism and non-populism is less clear.
THE DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION OF MIGRATION AND DEMOCRACY … 71
This chapter considers the 2014–2019 EP. The structure of that EP

was particularly complex, with some visible contradictions in its compo-
sition in relation to the populist/non-populist divide.1 Perhaps the most
visible of them was the presence of the far-right, Eurosceptic populist
party Fidesz2 within the EPP group. The EPP group also had among its
members the Italian centre-right party Forza Italia, which the literature
generally considers to be populist, but which can actually be classified
among the non-populists in the EP. The mix of populists and non-
populists is even more evident in another parliamentary group, the ECR
(European Conservatives and Reformists). Among its members, the ECR
included the British Conservatives (Eurosceptic, but not populist), but
also the far-right, Eurosceptic populist parties Brothers of Italy (Italy),
Finns Party (Finland), Law and Justice (Poland). The group was co-
chaired by Syed Kamall (British Conservatives, non-populist) and Ryszard
Legutko (Law and Justice, populist).
Given the above-described complex situation, this chapter explores
the discursive dynamics within the EP during the 2014–2019 term,
in an attempt to understand how populism impacted on non-populist
forces, and how these two “blocs” constructed and negotiated issues
of importance for the EU. The chapter proposes a model of discursive
interaction based on two main dynamics: polarization and fragmentation.
The purpose of this model is to explain how populists and non-populists
constantly affect each other’s construction of European issues, in an
overall dynamic of reciprocal influence.
Methodology
As part of a broader research project on the impact of populism on
European institutions, this chapter makes use of a large database of docu-
ments comprising speeches, press releases, position and policy papers (see
1 For the purposes of this chapter, use will be made of the distinction between populists
and non-populists, rather than anti-populists. The reason for this choice, which will
become clearer in the conclusion, is that the chapter seeks to demonstrate that there is
not a homogeneous anti-populist bloc, but rather a non-populist area in which different
political actors have higher or lesser degrees of anti-populism, but may also share some
features of the populist ideologies.
2 In this chapter, parties are defined as populist, far-right, far-left, and Eurosceptic
according to the PopuList (Rooduijn et al., 2019). See https://popu-list.org/ (last
accessed on 20 November 2020).
72 C. BERTI
Pejovic & Cossarini, 2020; Ruzza, 2020). While the database includes
the discursive production of the European Parliament and Commis-
sion, and of several civil society organizations, the following analysis is
focused on a subset of materials related exclusively to the European
Parliament. This database consists of 240 documents (a mix of parlia-
mentary speeches and press releases) that span across the 2014–2019 EP
legislature. The documents were selected according to keywords represen-
tative of crucial themes concerning populism and anti-populism: populism,
discrimination, hate speech, xenophobia, Euroscepticism, migration, Brexit,
European democracy, European values (see Ruzza, 2020). Speeches made
in the European Parliament were selected through the EP’s official online
database,3 while press releases were gathered from the websites of the
parliamentary groups. The documents were subsequently processed using
the Atlas.ti qualitative analysis software, and a frame analysis (Ruzza,
2006) was conducted. This analysis showed that the main concern of the
EP, in terms of its relationship with populism and anti-populism, was the
issue of migration (see Table 1). Hence, the analysis focuses on this partic-
ular issue in order to conceptualize and exemplify the discursive dynamics
generated by the presence of populists in the EP. Moreover, to strengthen
the argument, the chapter briefly explores another relevant issue, namely
the application of Art. 7 against Hungary in the EP: Hungary, during
the 2014–2019 legislation, is in fact a perfect example of the potentially
disruptive effects of populism in the EP dynamics. Fidesz, the party of
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, is a right-wing, Eurosceptic
populist party that, however, belongs to the EPP group, which is pro-
European and non-populist. This, as will be shown, generates a series of
contradictions and fragmentation within the non-populist arena.
In order better to unpack the discursive dynamics of the proposed
model, it is useful to look directly at the texts. Thus, the chapter will apply
critical discourse analysis (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997) to a number of
relevant excerpts from the dataset. Rather than focusing on large amounts
of data, it is deemed more important in this case to show how fragmen-
tation and polarization are discursively developed in both the populist
and anti-populist arenas, as expressions of a reciprocal influence exerted
differently on both sides.
3 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/plenary/en/debates-video.html.
The next sections describe the proposed model of reciprocal influence

between populists and non-populists in the EP and illustrate this model
with a number of examples from speeches delivered to the EP during the
2014–2019 legislature.
European Parliament Debates and Populism:

What Are the Most Contested Issues?
The frame analysis of the dataset shows that there are specific issues more
debated in the EP in relation to populism. As evidenced by Figure 1,
these issues are Euroscepticism, Brexit and the clash between nations and
the EU, democracy in the EU, human rights and discrimination, and
migration. The migratory flow, however, has been the object of greatest
concern and most intense debate since 2015, the year in which the immi-
gration crisis peaked in Europe and thus became of utmost importance in
the national and supranational political and public spheres (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1 Most debated issues in the EP in relation to populism (2014–2019)

(Source Created by the author)
74 C. BERTI
The issue of migration is an excellent basis on which to explore the

discursive interaction and reciprocal influence between populists and non-
populists. The majority of the main populist forces during the 2014–2019
parliamentary term were right-wing and had strong anti-immigration
positions. Several of these populist parties, moreover, were represented in
the EP: this is the case, for instance, of the League and Brothers of Italy
(Italy), Front National (France), or Law and Justice (Poland). It is also
the case of Fidesz, the Hungarian far-right populist party, led by Viktor
Orbán, which belonged to the EPP group, thus functioning as a sort of
populist “black sheep” in a non-populist group.
Anti-immigration stances are typical of right-wing populism, as well
highlighted by Ruth Wodak’s description of exclusionary politics (Wodak,
2015). Recent literature has shown that European right-wing populists
exploit the issue of immigration to increase their popularity and attack
their opponents, including European institutions (e.g. Berti, 2020;
Krzyżanowski, 2020). Immigration is used by populists as an instru-
ment of political struggle requiring European institutions to respond
and counter-attack both discursively and in terms of policymaking. The
migratory crisis and its exploitation by populists, also in their speeches to
the EP, required politicians from non-populist parties to devise strategies
to respond to these continuous attacks. However, the response within
the EP was anything but unified. Far from forming a coherent anti-
populist bloc, non-populist forces in the EP responded to the populist
anti-migration discourse with very different views and policy suggestions.
Table 1 Frequencies of frames related to migration
Non-populist Populist Totals
Migration 70 35 105
Migration—Closed borders/Rejection policies – 10 10
Migration—Illegality argument 4 9 13
Migration—Moral/humanitarian arguments 42 4 46
Migration—Negative evaluation of migrants 1 13 14
Migration—Sociocultural clash/Invasion – 10 10
Migration—Solidarity 25 2 27
Migration control policies 9 3 12
Totals 151 86 237
Source Created by the author

Table 1 shows the distribution of the different frames on migration

in the discourses of populist and non-populist MEPs. The table depicts
what may seem to be a marked difference in the two approaches: on the
one hand, populists frame immigration as an illegal activity or a cultural
invasion, they judge migrants negatively, and they call for closed borders
and the rejection of immigrants; on the other hand, non-populists use
humanitarian and moral arguments to discuss migrants, and they call
for solidarity (both towards migrants and among Member States) and
migration control policies.
However, the framing analysis misses some significant features of the
populist and non-populist discourses, which can only be observed by thor-
oughly examining the words of the MEPs. On closer inspection, Table 1
itemizes some particular influences of populist and non-populist recip-
rocal influence. To be noted is that the moral/humanitarian arguments
are, in some instances, used by populists as well; similarly, there are some
instances in which non-populists use the illegality argument or nega-
tively evaluate migrants; finally, to be noted is that the idea of controlling
migration through policymaking is used by both groups.
The working hypothesis of this chapter is that, especially in relation to
such contested issues as migration, populism has had a significant impact
on the discursive production of the EP, and that this influence does not
operate only in the direction of stronger polarization between the populist
and non-populist blocs; it does so also in the incorporation by each bloc
of features pertaining to the other one. Populists and non-populists, that
is, do not simply react to each other with contrasting ideas; rather, they
strategically use and incorporate features of their opponents in order to
attempt to strengthen their position.
A model of this reciprocal influence is suggested in Fig. 2. The model
is based on two main mechanisms: polarization and fragmentation. Polar-
ization is the mechanism by which populists attack non-populists, and
non-populists react with a counter-attack, thus widening the distance
between the two positions. Fragmentation, on the other hand, is the
mechanism by which populists exploit a non-populist argument to adapt it
to fit with their ideas, and the mechanism by which non-populists incor-
porate a populist argument in their discourse, usually softening it and
making it less radical. Rather than reinforcing the two polarized blocs, this
type of influence tends to merge some of their positions. If we imagine
the populist and non-populist blocs as two walls, polarization is a rein-
forcement of both walls, while fragmentation generates rifts and cracks in
76
C. BERTI
Incorporation and re-elaboration of populist elements

Fragmentation
Polarization Reaction to populist attacks
NON-POPULIST DISCOURSES Reciprocal POPULIST DISCOURSES

influence
Polarization
Populist attacks (anti-elitism, identity politics, etc.)
Incorporation and re-elaboration of anti-populist

elements
Fragmentation
Fig. 2 A model of reciprocal influence between populist and non-populist discourses in the EP
them: these fissures can sometimes be repaired, and thus result in further
reinforcement (this happens when an argument of the opposite bloc is
successfully incorporated), or otherwise they can widen until the entire
structure of the wall is in danger (this is the case, for instance, of a populist
idea becoming appealing to several non-populist forces, thus generating
conflict and polarization within the same bloc).
The next sections describe these two mechanisms in depth by using
relevant excerpts from the EP speeches dataset. Translations in English,
when necessary, are by the author.
Polarization: Reinforcing
the Blocs, Increasing the Distance
As seen in the first part of this chapter, polarization is a typical feature
of populist communication, and thus a visible tendency in those envi-
ronments where populists have political significance and a stronger voice.
Here polarization is not described as a strategy or an effect, but rather as
a dynamic mechanism of discursive interaction in which two sets of ideas
and arguments oppose each other, thus generating (the impression of)
two separate “blocs” that tend to attack and exclude each other, rather
than engage in dialogue and negotiation.
To explore the mechanism of polarization, we consider several excerpts
from speeches given to the EP between 2014 and 2019, showing how
populists and non-populists offer radically different perspectives, ideas and
policy suggestions about immigration.
As seen in Table 1, right-wing populists in the EP tend to have a
negative view of migration. This is clear, for instance, from the following
quote:
Enough is enough! We can no longer welcome “migrants”. Basta! No way!

[…] What is stopping you from finally listening to our people, who are asking
you to put an end, once and for all, to these totally anarchic migratory flows?
There is an urgent need to protect our national borders and to implement
a genuine European cooperation to effectively defend the external borders,
drawing inspiration from the actions of Hungary yesterday and Italy today.
(Nicolas Bay, Rassemblement National, ENF group)
78 C. BERTI
Bay, a member of the French far-right populist party Rassemblement

National, emphatically juxtaposes the “people” (whom he claims to
represent by calling them “our people”) to EU institutions, which he
considers guilty of allowing “anarchic migratory flows” to enter Europe.
Migration is thus seen as an invasion, which must be countered with
stronger protection of national borders. In Bay’s nationalist perspective,
EU institutions and migrants are the enemies of the national people. This
is clarified in another quote from his speech:
Mr President, it is no longer the Commission that decides on migration

issues, but the nations that are taking over. Mr Macron and Mrs Merkel are
isolated because their policy of welcoming illegal immigrants has now being
very clearly rejected by the people. (Nicolas Bay, Rassemblement National,
ENF group)
Here, Bay reinforces both anti-migrant stances (by introducing the argu-
ment of illegal immigration) and his nationalist, Eurosceptic, populist
and anti-elitist worldview by claiming that European policies have been
“rejected by the people”, so that the Commission cannot take any more
decisions about migration.
Marcel de Graaff, a member of the Dutch Party for Freedom and of
the ENF group, expresses a similar view on migration:
A second issue I would like to address is illegal migration. The EU is in

a complete deadlock on how to deal with illegal migrants. The EU has no
solutions. It doesn’t close its borders; it doesn’t expel rejected asylum seekers; it
doesn’t fight Islamisation and radicalisation. […] He could start by making
it a criminal offence to help illegal migrants […]. (Marcel de Graaff, Party
for Freedom, ENF group)
Besides criticizing the EU’s migration policies and claiming that the only
solution is closing borders and rejecting “illegal migrants”, de Graaff
suggests criminalizing those who help migrants, referring to those NGOs
that operate in the Mediterranean with search and rescue operations. This
introduces a new enemy of the people, namely sea-rescue NGOs, which—
together with migrants and EU institutions—endanger the people (see
also Berti, 2020). Migrants are further negatively depicted by referring
to their “Islamization and radicalization”: while certainly not all migrants
coming to Europe are Muslim, let alone radicalized, de Graaff exploits
this simplification to describe migrants as a homogeneous group charac-

terized not only by the illegality of their presence on European territory,
but also by a tendency to have radical religious beliefs.
A similar discursive strategy is employed in a speech by Gerard Batten,
a member of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP):
If European governments were serious about combating this problem, they

would do two things immediately. First, stop all overseas funding of mosques
and imams. Second, end the mass immigration of Muslims into European
countries. Only those migrants prepared to make a solemn and binding
pledge that they reject the passages of hatred and violence should be admitted.
(Gerard Batten, UKIP, EFDD group)
In this case, Batten exploits a “fallacy of difference” that “draw[s] a

rigid dividing line” (Wodak, 2015: 54) between European citizens and
migrants, who Batten discursively constructs as all Muslim (“mass immi-
gration of Muslims”) and who should, just for being Muslim, “make a
solemn and binding pledge that they reject the passages of hatred and
violence”. This discourse underlies another fallacy, namely the fallacy of
comparison (Wodak, 2015), according to which one’s own ingroup is
superior to the outgroup (in this case, Europe is superior to Islam, thus
suggesting that Muslims should somehow “convert” to European culture
to be granted access to the EU). The fallacy of comparison is even more
evident in the following statements by Marcel De Graaff:
[The EU] opened its borders and spent billions to invite millions of uned-
ucated people from a backward culture that will launch Europe straight
back into the Middle Ages. Islam means gender inequality, polygamy, child
marriage, slavery and honour killings. It means death for unbelievers. It
means absolute power to a political and religious elite. (Marcel de Graaff,
Party for Freedom, ENF group)
When the EU continues on its present course, the future of Europe will be
Islamic. That is the objective of the Islamic world, and that is the objective of
the EU elite. It is the aim of the open border policy and it is the aim of this
criminal mass immigration. Of course there are casualties of abuse, murder
and rape. That’s the price to pay for the extermination of national identities.
That is deliberate EU policy. There is only one obstacle on the road to the
European caliphate, and that is the patriotic citizens who vote for patriotic
parties. (Marcel de Graaff, Party for Freedom, ENF group)
80 C. BERTI
In this last quote, de Graaff argues that the EU elites are deliberately
favouring an Islamic invasion of Europe, which only “patriotic citizens”
can successfully oppose by voting for “patriotic parties” (that is, right-
wing nationalist and populist parties).
To summarize, the polarization mechanism operates within the
populist bloc as a mix of Euroscepticism, nationalism, anti-elitism and
criminalization of migrants. Migration is seen as either a failure of the
EU supranational bodies to defend Europe’s borders and thus European
identity, or as a conspiracy of the EU elites to destroy the national popu-
lation. Both these worldviews are characterized by a typical Manichean
division (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017) of the world into homogeneous,
antagonistic groups: illegal, dangerous migrants and evil EU elites, on
the one hand, and the good national people on the other.
A number of non-populist MEPs, however, adopt a discursive strategy
that does not simply underlie a radically different worldview, but explicitly
attacks the populist perspective, thus increasing polarization. For instance,
a press release by the S&D group states:
Following the death of more than 50 people in the Mediterranean, S&D

group vice-presidents Elena Valenciano and Tanja Fajon, said: We deeply
regret the appalling loss of lives off the Tunisian coast yesterday. This is just
the latest tragedy in the Mediterranean, with people dying trying to reach a
better life in Europe. […] The EU must not allow this to happen. The EU
of solidarity, the one that respects human dignity, cannot turn into an EU
of selfishness and xenophobia. […] We cannot let ourselves be overrun by this
wave of populism and xenophobia. (S&D group, Press release)
Here, the EP group frames migration as a humanitarian issue, and

migrants are seen as people looking for a better life in Europe. The solu-
tion to the crisis is identified in European solidarity and, perhaps most
importantly, populism is associated with xenophobia and seen as an enemy
of the EU and migrants. The sharp opposition between populists and the
EU remains, but the roles are inverted: the EU is constructed as good,
a defender of human rights and the only possible solution to the migra-
tion crisis, while populism is seen as evil, characterized by “selfishness and
xenophobia”.
In another press release, the ALDE group makes the contrast between
populism and the EU institutions even more explicit by directly attacking
the Hungarian government (led by Orbán) which approved the construc-

tion of a fence to stop migrants from entering the country:
Alde MEPs have today urged the European Commission, via a written
parliamentary question, to react to new legislation on asylum rules that was
yesterday approved by the Hungarian parliament. The National Assembly
backed a package of amendments tightening the asylum and migration system
in the country and approved a 175 km long, 4- metre high fence on the border
with Serbia to stem the flow of migrants and refugees. […] At a time when
a record of 60 million people globally are fleeing their homes due to war and
oppression, it is unacceptable that Hungary wants to isolate itself by building
up walls and refusing to deal with asylum applications. Hungary is bound
to respect EU and international laws, such as the Geneva Convention. It is
our duty, not an option, to show solidarity and guarantee asylum seekers a
legally correct process. (ALDE group, Press release)
Also in this case, polarization is strengthened by opposing Hungary’s

attempt to achieve isolation with the need to show solidarity and respect
human rights and international laws. By inverting the roles once again,
populists are constructed as illegal, and the EU as the defender of legality.
ALDE, moreover, applies pressure on the European Council to revise the
EU asylum system in such a way as to facilitate migration:
How many more people have to die before the Council starts to realise that we
need to revise the European asylum system and establish legal and safe ways
for refugees to reach Europe? Granting asylum to people fleeing wars, conflicts
and human rights violations is not a matter of choice, but a duty and an act
of solidarity that all the 28 Member States are bound to respect through both
EU and international law. We have managed to build a monetary union
and are on our way to create an energy union. Now it is time to build a
humanitarian union! (ALDE group, Press release)
Again using a humanitarian argument, the EP group demands the

creation of a “humanitarian union” and highlights the risks that refugees
take to escape from wars and human rights violations. A very similar
perspective (a positive view of refugees, and a humanitarian argument)
is expressed by MEPs of the Greens/EFA group and the EPP group, as
shown by the following quotes:
82 C. BERTI
[This resolution] shows how united Parliament is in calling for solidarity

both among Member States and also with refugees. […] Relocation is a very
important tool for solidarity, but it is also a very important humanitarian
tool. It obviously helps Members States which have received a lot of refugees,
and it helps the refugees finally to find a place of safety and a place where they
can build a new future. […] We are talking here about people who are fleeing
from war and persecution […]! (Ska Keller, Die Grünen, Greens/EFA
group)
To summarize, in the polarization dynamic populists tend to construct

migration as an invasion by illegal, inferior and potentially dangerous
people intent on causing a violent cultural clash and possibly the
“Islamization” of the EU. This invasion is fostered by the EU’s lack of
political will (or possibly a deliberate effort by EU elites to damage their
own people), and the only solution is the will of patriots and nation-
alist parties to close the border and reject migrants. Non-populists, on
the other hand, use polarization not just to support their ideas, but
also to react with counter-attacks (in what, in many ways, is a delib-
erate anti-populist discursive effort), by constructing the migration crisis
as a tragedy, caused by issues such as war, famine, human rights viola-
tions. In their perspective, populists are intolerant, xenophobic, and the
real enemies of the European people and of migrants. The solution to
migration, in their view, lies in solidarity towards migrants and among
EU Member States.
If polarization were to dominate the discursive struggle in the EP, the
two blocs (populists and non-populists) would constantly maintain and
reinforce their opposing ideas, and they would appear homogeneous and
coherent. However, as the next section will demonstrate, another impor-
tant dynamic takes place in the discursive environment of the EP. This
dynamic, referred to here as “fragmentation”, erodes the homogeneity of
the two groups, and allows populist and non-populist ideas and arguments
to influence each other in a manner such to mix, merge and generate new
ideas and perspectives.
Fragmentation: Eroding the Blocs,

Decreasing the Distance
Given the composition of the European Parliament during the 2014–
2019 term, it is possible to distinguish three different areas of the process
of fragmentation. The influence of populist discourses generates fragmen-

tation within the non-populist parliamentary groups, while the influence
of non-populist ideas generates fragmentation within the populist ones.
However, fragmentation also happens within the mixed groups, where
both populists and non-populists are represented. In this case, there is a
particularly strong need to negotiate the discursive identity of the groups
by taking both populist and non-populist stances into account. The same
happens in those cases in which there is a minoritarian populist compo-
nent within an overall non-populist group: this is the case, as will be
seen in this section, of the EPP, which has to re-negotiate its identity
when its populist component (Hungarian party Fidesz) is accused by the
Parliament of violating the rule of law.
By once again considering the discursive construction of the issue
of migration in the EP, it is possible to identify how fragmentation
is developed by the different groups and MEPs. For instance, how
do populist discourses influence the construction of migration by non-
populist groups? The following quote from MEP Cecilia Wikström
(ALDE group) is a good example of such influence:
We must also do much better in returning those who do not qualify for
international protection in a dignified manner. That would restore the cred-
ibility of the system. The most important measure to discourage people from
dangerous trips across the Mediterranean would be to say that it is difficult to
obtain international protection. There are no shortcuts here: only hard work.
We need to put a resilient common European asylum system in place, and
once again to deserve the respect – and live up to the expectations – of the
citizens out there. (Cecilia Wikström, Liberal Party, ALDE group)
Differently from the humanitarian arguments seen in the previous section,

here migration is treated as a problem for the EU, and the solution is
identified in the need to discourage migrants from attempting to enter
Europe. Most importantly, this solution is justified by a typically populist
appeal to the people: rather than appealing to European values or human
rights, Wikström claims that migration should be reduced in order to
“deserve the respect – and live up to the expectations – of the citi-
zens”. This type of argument resonates with the above-discussed claims
by populists that migration is unwanted by European citizens, and badly
handled (if not deliberately favoured) by EU elites. Wikström’s discourse
produces fragmentation because it is based on an argument completely
84 C. BERTI
different from those seen in the previous section: in that case, migration
was discussed on the basis of humanitarian arguments, by adopting the
perspective of the migrant desperately trying to enter Europe, while in
this case Wikström adopts the perspective of European citizens, describing
them as a homogeneous group whose intent is to stop (or at least reduce)
migration.
Another speech by EPP leader Manfred Weber exhibits an even
stronger influence of populist discourses on non-populist groups (Weber
is a German politician, a member of the centre-right and pro-European
CSU/CDU alliance). On discussing possible solutions to migration,
Weber states:
We want to help people from Syria and other regions who need our help. But
one thing is clear: illegal migration has to be stopped. We have to destroy the
inhuman business model of the smugglers and send illegal migrants, after
a fair procedure, back home. […]I very often hear the argument that it
is difficult to protect the border. […] I was on the other side of the conti-
nent on the Bulgarian-Turkish border. There the Prime Minister installed
a 5-metre-high fence over more than 180 kilometres, and he showed that if
you have the political will, then you can protect the border and stop illegal
migrants from crossing borders, for example with a fence. We are looking to
you to fight extremists. We have to solve problems, and that means that we
are looking to Spain to protect borders against illegal migrants. (Manfred
Weber, CDU/CSU, EPP group)
Here the humanitarian argument is simply used as a disclaimer in the first

sentence, before Weber starts to adopt the illegality argument (seen in
the excerpts from populist discourses in the previous section) and identi-
fies the solution to migration in border defence. In this short excerpt,
the adjective “illegal” in association with migrants is used four times,
and Weber also uses the word “extremists” in the context of a speech on
border defence against migration. The word “border” is used five times,
and the EPP leader speaks positively about the construction of fences to
stop migrants from entering Europe. The identification with the populist
arguments here is nearly complete, and the dissonance between Weber’s
arguments and the humanitarian arguments maximizes the visibility of
fragmentation within the non-populist bloc.
While the last example showed a non-populist politician adopting
populist arguments to talk about migration, the next one illustrates exactly
the opposite phenomenon. Matteo Salvini (leader of the League, an
Italian right-wing populist party and member of the ENF group) talks
about the need to stop migration by using a humanitarian argument:
Last year, 3,000 people died in the Mediterranean, dead on the conscience of
those who invite these people to leave. The only recipe is not Frontex, Triton,
Mare Nostrum, Goofy, Pluto or Donald Duck, but it is to avoid that these
people depart, by helping them not to escape from hunger and war. (Matteo
Salvini, League, ENF group)
The contrast between Salvini’s speech and the previously seen discourse
of other members of the ENF group is evident: while MEPs such as De
Graaff or Bay starkly spoke out against migrants, Salvini adopts a human-
itarian perspective to reach the same conclusion, namely that migration
must be stopped. Salvini and his party have been notoriously characterized
by anti-immigrant stances (e.g. Padovani, 2018; Richardson & Colombo,
2013), so the suspicion is that, in certain circumstances, Salvini uses the
humanitarian argument only strategically, perhaps in order to accuse his
political adversaries of being inhumane (this hypothesis is substantiated by
previous research, see Berti, 2020). Hence this might be a good example
of how fragmentation can only be “apparent”: a populist politician, in
this case, strategically employs a non-populist argument in order actu-
ally to reinforce a populist idea. The resulting fragmentation is thus only
apparent, because the non-populist ideas are not actually being merged
and re-negotiated by populists.
However, fragmentation within the populist bloc is not always
apparent. In the following example, for instance, Laura Agea (a member
of the Italian populist party Five-Star Movement) genuinely uses a
humanitarian frame to talk about migration:
A year after the tragedy of Lampedusa, the EU is still looking for a good idea
to face a situation that can no longer be defined an emergency, but rather a
routine. The repressive approach of the Stockholm programme and the Dublin
agreement caused 22,000 dead, 3,000 only this year in the Mediterranean.
[…] Do you think it is possible to carry on with this irresponsible management
of a complex and unstoppable phenomenon such as immigration? Do you
think it is wise to continue to build walls around this fortress called Europe,
while the Mediterranean becomes a huge cemetery? […] It is time for the EU
to overcome its own fears, and to revise its approach to migration policies: no
more migrants, but citizens to welcome and integrate. (Laura Agea, Five-Star
Movement, EFDD group)
86 C. BERTI
In this quote, Agea criticizes the EU’s management of migration by

claiming that Europe should not close its borders with walls, but instead
do more to help migrants, whom—she claims—should rather be seen
as “citizens to welcome and integrate”. Agea is a member of the same
political group as Gerard Batten, who (as seen earlier in this chapter)
blatantly spoke out against Muslims and demanded that migrants be only
accepted after making “a solemn and binding pledge that they reject the
passages of hatred and violence”. The fragmentation within the EFDD is
evident in the contrasting tones of these two excerpts. In this case, it is not
apparent but substantial, because the two politicians have opposite ideas
about migration, its diagnosis and its treatment in terms of policymaking.
Finally, it is important to consider how fragmentation works within
mixed groups. The ECR group, in particular, comprises a balanced range
of populist and non-populist parties. The two following quotes show how
this can generate internal fragmentation in the group. Once again, the
issue of migration is taken in consideration:
Madam President, in 2015 over one million people arrived on Europe’s shores
by irregular means. These people have fled war, famine, repressive dictator-
ships, economic hardship or a mixture of all of those combined. Their arrival
has clearly sparked a huge debate in our societies as to where it is right
to draw the line between compassion to those seeking a better life versus our
actual political and financial capabilities to provide such relief. […] Europe’s
neighbours are seeing a rapid population increase, a lack of job creation and,
in Africa in particular, are increasingly troubled by future effects of climate
change. Clearly more needs to be done to defend Europe’s external borders, but
we cannot ignore, nor insulate ourselves from, the reasons that are pushing
people to leave their homes in the first place. (Charles Tannock, Conservative
Party, ECR group)
Madam President, there are no internal border checks in the Schengen area.
Therefore, the external border is a common concern for all Member States.
We must have an effective way to monitor who comes in and who goes out
if we want to prevent illegal immigration, cross-border crime and terrorism.
(Jussi Halla-aho, Finns Party, ECR group)
Charles Tannock, a member of the British Conservative Party (non-

populist) uses the humanitarian argument to frame migration, adopting
the perspective of migrants coming to Europe to escape situations of
conflict, repressive regimes, economic difficulties and even the effects
of climate change. His perspective resembles that, for instance, of the

Greens/EFA as seen in the previous quote by Ska Keller. Jussi Halla-
aho (a member of the right-wing populist Finns Party), however, adopts
the already-seen populist perspective that opts for border defence against
“illegal” migrants, who are associated, in his quote, with crime and
terrorism.
In this example, fragmentation does not happen within the populist or
non-populist bloc, but rather within a group in which populists and non-
populists cohabit. However, the next example shows how the presence
of a populist party in a non-populist group can generate fragmentation
within the non-populist block. The example concerns Hungarian right-
wing populist party Fidesz, a member of the non-populist group EPP.
Fidesz’s leader, Viktor Orbán, has been Prime Minister of Hungary since
2010 and has been frequently accused by non-populist forces in the EP
of attacking fundamental rights and the rule of law in his country. In
the context of parliamentary debates on Hungary, EPP’s MEP Esteban
Gonzáles Pons, in 2014, defended Orbán thus:
Madam President, the European Parliament has already dealt many times
with the Hungarian issue and, in all of them, the European People’s Party
has declared its defence of fundamental rights and the rule of law. However
we also consider that it is not acceptable to attack a member country for
ideological reasons: the generic prejudice against a country is as dangerous
as the denunciations that are going to be expressed here today. […] The
European People’s Party trusts and believes in Hungary. In Hungary this
year three elections have been held: on all three occasions Fidesz has won,
a party that is a member of the European People’s Party. Bringing back,
again, the Hungarian policy to this House may mean to continue the electoral
campaign in Strasbourg when it was lost in Hungary. (Esteban Gonzáles
Pons, People’s Party, EPP group)
The EPP’s defence of Orbán generated fragmentation within the non-

populist bloc: non-populists of other groups, in fact, were also attacking
Fidesz, as evident from this extract from an ALDE press release of 2015:
[…] This package of amendments is yet another sign of Hungary’s disinte-

gration. The Hungarian Prime Minister is transforming the country into
a mini-Russia. The Orbán regime’s lack of solidarity and of respect for the
88 C. BERTI
fundamental European values is appalling and the EU must react immedi-

ately, putting pressure on the Hungarian regime before it is too late. (ALDE,
press release)
The example of Hungary and Fidesz shows the potential implications

of fragmentation very clearly. These implications extend beyond the
discursive level, and impact on the structure, functioning and overall
orientations of the EP. The EP invoked Art. 7 against Hungary4 on 12
September 2018, after a report by MEP Judith Sargentini (Greens/EFA).
However, several months passed before the EPP acted in accordance:
Fidesz was suspended (but not expelled) from the EPP only on 20 March
2019. This shows that a single populist party can have a strong influence
on the non-populist bloc and on the coherence and strength of its stance.
Overall, fragmentation has introduced some populist elements into
the non-populist block, such as the need to appeal to the people and,
in relation to migration, a closer focus on border defence and illegality
arguments. This, of course, divides the non-populist bloc, which cannot
fully agree on what perspective to adopt on migration, and consequently
what solutions should be pursued with policymaking. On the other hand,
populist fragmentation seems to be either strategic (that is, exploited for
discursive purposes, without substantially changing the populist perspec-
tive), or based on previously existing intra-group variability of the parties
(as seen, for instance, in the case of EFDD).
Conclusions
By suggesting a model of reciprocal influence in the discursive construc-
tion of European issues (and, in particular, migration) in the EP,
this chapter has sought to show that populism can impact on the
political arena in different ways. The influence between populists and
non-populists is bi-directional; it can increase polarization, but it can
also generate fragmentation. When populist forces are manifold, strong
and cannot be completely isolated by means of cordons sanitaires, the
non-populist bloc struggles to remain coherent and homogeneous and
partially incorporates populist arguments and motives. The process can
4 Art. 7, if fully implemented, sanctions a country that is breaching the values of Art.
2 by suspending that country’s voting rights in the Council. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/
legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A12012M007 (Accessed on 18 November 2020).
have positive or negative effects in the non-populist bloc, depending on

how its political actors are able to re-construct and re-negotiate their iden-
tity in the light of these influences. However, as seen, the populist bloc,
too, is far from being homogeneous. Some populist actors have to care-
fully balance their discourses and their membership of non-populist or
mixed groups, while even fully populist groups such as the EFDD may
exhibit internal fragmentation due to the variety of positions in different
populist parties.
What becomes evident in the context of the EP, however, is that the
antagonistic, irreconcilable divide between populism and anti-populism
is not necessarily the most likely outcome of the presence of populist
forces in a political arena. While this antagonism certainly exists, not
all non-populist forces are strongly anti-populist, and not all populist
ones are fully populist. There is constant discursive struggle and nego-
tiation of meanings in the EP, which moves in multiple directions: hence,
some MEPs belonging to the EFDD populist group may contribute
to constructing migration as a humanitarian emergency, together with
anti-populist MEPs such as Ska Keller of the Greens/EFA; at the same
time, non-populists such as Manfred Weber (EPP) and populists such
as Gerard Batten (EFDD) or Marcel de Graaff (ECR) may share a
populist/nationalist perspective on migration whereby migrants are seen
as invaders, and border protection is the most important policy to pursue.
While this chapter adopts a discursive perspective, it should not be
forgotten that discourse and policymaking are interdependent: the discur-
sive construction of an issue, especially in an institutional context like the
EP, usually underlies a specific policy orientation. Thus, for instance, the
speeches of EPP members in defence of Fidesz suggest a certain accep-
tance of Orbán’s populism, and this is confirmed by the restraint of the
EPP in acting against Fidesz. Similarly, the large amount of fragmentation
within the non-populist bloc (which dominated the EP in the 2014–2019
term), and especially within the EPP (a major force in the European
Commission) could help to explain the difficulties of the EU in acting
towards migration.
The suggested model of reciprocal influence, moreover, is not valid
only in the context of marked political fragmentation and polarization
like the EP. This became clear when the new 2019 European Commis-
sion, led by Ursula Von Der Leyen, opted to name a migration portfolio
90 C. BERTI
“Protecting our European Way of Life”.5 This decision sparked a heated

debate because the juxtaposition of “migration” and the “European way
of life” with the idea that Europe needs “protection” from migration,
appeared to many as resounding with (right-wing) populist rhetoric.
Eventually, the title was changed, but elements of influence by populist
rhetoric are still apparent in the new title: “Promoting our European way
of life. Protecting our citizens and our values”.6
Rather than clear-cut antagonistic opposition, therefore, European
politics appear to be moving in a direction where the dominant dynamic
is reciprocal influence, with its mix of polarization and fragmentation.
The effects of this dynamic can be very different and should be carefully
analysed in the light of the various issues at stake.
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The Politicisation of the European Union
and the Role of the European Parliament:
Opportunities, Risks and Limitations
Markus Warasin
Defining the European Political

Space in the Context of Constructive
and Destructive Politicisation
Media portray the EU predominantly along national lines. The angle or
perspective from which EU-related news stories are told are frequently
one-dimensional and explain conflicting positions predominantly with a
national focus. Hence, media framing, i.e. the media reconstruction of
reality, looks for a national angle and describes the EU decision-making
process largely as a battleground for national governments defending
genuine national interests: the German national interest against the
French; the national interest of the Franco-German engine opposed to
other EU member states; the interests of the north against the south, or
the west against the east; of the net contributors against the net receivers,
etc.
M. Warasin (B)
Brussels, Belgium
e-mail: markus.warasin@europarl.europa.eu

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73411-4_5
94 M. WARASIN
Whether a national leader won, lost, or tied, whether a representative was

able to extract a concession to bring back home or capitulated to coun-
terparts, is often more important than how members’ decisions affect the
EU as a whole. (Kanter, 2019)1
This portrayal is not entirely wrong, and the formation of smaller alliances
within the EU, such as the Euromed 7 initiative established in 2013
by seven Mediterranean countries in order to better coordinate issues of
common interest within the EU, or the 1991-established Visegrad group
comprising four central European countries, shows the attempt of govern-
ments to influence EU agenda setting more closely. However, media
framing along national lines is only a small part of the total. For many
years now, academic research has shown that the EU decision-making
processes are more complex than used to be believed, that the political
battles are fought along traditional left-right lines as well as along pro-and
anti-European lines, and that each EU institution—from the European
Commission to the Council or the European Parliament—is developing
its own distinctive features and specific dynamics. In this context, the
politicisation of the EU is influencing and re-shaping the EU institutions
and EU-level civil society and has therefore become an important subject
of study to understand European governance and its future. Among the
most prominent researchers in this regard are Simon Hix (2006) and
Swen Hutter, Edgar Grande and Hanspeter Kriesi (Grande et al., 2016).
Hix argues that the EU has changed in recent years from a consensual
to a contested system of governance.
Until the early 1990s the EU was essentially a consensual system of

governance. The result was the so-called ‘permissive consensus’, whereby
citizens were content to delegate responsibility to their leaders to tackle
the European integration project. However, this consensus collapsed in
the early 1990s, which has resulted in much more contested attitudes
towards the EU among Europe’s citizens. European integration no longer
commands widespread support and a complex web of economic interests,
social values, political preferences and national contexts shape individuals’
attitudes towards the EU. (Hix & Bjorn, 2011: 129)
1 https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/04/european-press-corps-
eu-fails/587083/.
THE POLITICISATION OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE ROLE … 95
If political elites continue with consensus politics, they risk provoking

more public opposition to the EU. Politicising the EU agenda in domestic
politics and at European level appears to Hix as the right sort of medicine
for Europe. He defends the point of view that there is a visible left-right
politicisation of the EU and that more of it is both possible and desirable,
“since such a form of politicization would strengthen the public debate
and clarify its terms” (Magnette & Papadopoulos, 2008: 7). Hix argues
further:
Rather than assuming that a European demos is a prerequisite for genuine

EU democracy, a European democratic identity might well form through
the practice of democratic competition and institutionalized co-operation.
(Follesdal & Hix, 2006: 550)
According to Hix, the best politicisation platform is the European Parlia-

ment, where evidence of the forthcoming left-right politicisation of the
EU is already visible:
Voting in the European Parliament is increasingly along Left-Right party

lines and decreasingly along national lines. In fact, the main political groups
in the European Parliament are now more ‘cohesive’ in their voting than
the Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress and only slightly less
cohesive than parliamentary parties in the national parliaments in Europe.
(Hix, 2006: 15–16)
Contrary to Simon Hix’s view that politicisation will have mainly posi-
tive effects on the integration process, Swen Hutter, Edgar Grande and
Hanspeter Kriesi shed some light on the negative effects of politicisation
mainly driven by populist radical right parties which highlight the negative
consequences of European integration.
The main path towards the politicisation of Europe is dominated by

Eurosceptic parties of the right. […] By challenging the pro-European
consensus of mainstream parties and the political elite more generally, the
populist radical right is seen as the most vigorous driving force of the
politicisation of European integration. (Hutter et al., 2016: 24)
Hutter, Grande and Kriesi argue that in this context, politicisation

is fuelled by multi-layered legitimacy conflicts, particularly by those
concerning sovereignty, identity and solidarity.
96 M. WARASIN
In cases in which European integration is politicised by the populist radical

right, this process is driven by a specific type of issue being emphasised and
a particular framing of European integration. More precisely, it focuses
on constitutive issues and uses a cultural-identitarian framing. […] By
emphasising constitutive European issues, the populist radical right puts
the spotlight on fears of loss of national sovereignty, identity and finan-
cial resources. Furthermore, opposing European integration by reference
to cultural-identitarian justifications is nurtured by the ‘nativist’ ideolog-
ical predispositions of radical right parties. In this way, the populist radical
rights has been successfully mobilising the potential losers from the further
opening-up of national boundaries in western Europe since the 1990s.
(Hutter et al., 2016: 24)
Contrary to Hix, Hutter, Grande and Kriesi emphasise the negative effects
of politicisation on the integration process and identify a cleavage between
pro-European and anti-European political forces, rather than a left-right
divide:
By putting Europe on the agenda and highlighting its negative conse-

quences, the populist right exacerbates tensions within mainstream parties
of the left and right, which can no longer so easily integrate European
issues in their programmes. (Hutter et al., 2016: 25)
Finally, Hutter, Grande and Kriesi conclude that politicisation has added
uncertainty to the system and is actually the wrong rather than the right
sort of medicine for the EU:
Our findings suggest that politicisation has led to a significant increase in

political uncertainty for political elites. Because of the ubiquitous threat
potential of politicisation, political decisions on European integration have
become much less calculable than in the times of permissive consensus.
(Hutter et al., 2016: 295)
However, the above-described understandings of politicisation embody

two sides of the same medal and reflect the Janus-faced nature of politi-
cising European policy-making. While in the past, the EU policy-making
process was described as technocratic, governed by faceless bureaucrats,
in recent years it has become increasingly difficult to build political
consensus. When agreements are reached in Brussels, they are more
contentious than ever; the European institutions seem fragmented; and
the European political debate is becoming more and more conflictual.

European integration polarises, and the political process has become
remarkably politicised.2
The share of votes for parties opposed to EU integration has steadily
increased in the past decade (Dijkstra et al., 2020): as many Europeans
have grown disenchanted with the Union and distrustful of its institu-
tions and policy-makers. At the same time, tensions between the national
and the European level are increasing. Euroscepticism—in all its forms,
from moderate to extremist—is no longer a fringe phenomenon (Manow
& Döring, 2006: 10)3 but a political reality. It has become one of the
most striking developments in modern European politics and will remain
relevant in the near future.
The politicisation of Europe is fuelled by multi-layered legitimacy
conflicts, particularly by ones concerning sovereignty, identity and soli-
darity (Anders et al., 2018: 11). During the last decade the constitutional
crisis, together with the financial and the migration crisis, brought
these conflicts to the fore, thus damaging the image of the EU’s unity
and labelling Europe as a cumbersome political system (Lübkemeier &
Ondarza, 2017). These types of conflict are not entirely new and have
always accompanied the integration process. They are intrinsic or natural
to European integration because member states find themselves forced
to accept shared sovereignty and common governance in order to best
manage interdependence, for which they were originally not designed
(Kauppi et al., 2016).
For pro-European political actors, there has been little alternative to
integration. Most of the heads of state and government that signed the
Lisbon Treaty in 2007 were in the opposition when their respective coun-
tries had signed the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Nevertheless, European
integration had a certain path-dependent nature, with little or no alter-
native. “Either we share our sovereignty, or we lose it”, said the former
EU-Commission President Romano Prodi. Obviously, the pro-European
2 ‘Politicisation’ is a term often used to characterize the process whereby an issue is

introduced into the political debate, transmitted from closed elite circles into the public
arena or translated from apolitical into political terms. In this chapter, I consider the
politicisation of EU policy issues more as a process of increased attention and conflict,
addressing the ‘increasing contentiousness’ and ‘controversiality’ of European integration.
3 The working paper described Euroscepticism as a fringe phenomenon, by locating the
vast majority of political parties in government and in opposition in the pro-EU space.
98 M. WARASIN
narrative did not contemplate the possibility of an anti-European politi-

cisation. Ruzza (2019) describes the present state of the EU facing the
‘populist turn’ as follows:
One can characterize the state of the EU facing populism as one of many
institutions still looking for a solution to the overarching problem of their
loss of legitimacy. (Ruzza, 2019: 138)
However, in parallel to the above-described downward spiral of construc-

tive politicisation, Europe is also witnessing a different, pro-European sort
of politicisation, mainly through parliamentarisation. The history of Euro-
pean integration is also a history of gains in legitimacy, most notably in
the gradual upgrading of the European Parliament from the Common
Assembly to the citizens’ chamber and the significant expansion of its
competences in EU legislation.
The politicisation of the European Union has taken various forms
including negative and positive criticism, as well as resistance against and
support for the political system. The Eurobarometer survey of May 2018,
for instance, showed record support for the EU.4 Conducted in April
2018 on 27,601 people in 28 member states, the survey revealed one
year ahead of the 2019 European elections that on average 60% of citi-
zens believed that the EU membership of their country was a good thing
while over two-thirds of respondents were convinced that their country
had benefited from being a member of the EU. This was the highest score
since 1983. Similarly, the results of the Eurobarometer survey carried
out in November 2019 on the euro area showed that 76% of respon-
dents thought that the single currency was good for the EU. This was
the highest level of support since the introduction of euro coins and
banknotes in 2002.
The President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani (EPP,
Italy), commented on the results as follows, clearly identifying the
polarising tendencies in view of the elections:
The next European elections will undoubtedly be a battle, not just between
the traditional parties of the Right, Left and Centre but between those
4 Eurobarometer Survey 89.2: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/at-your-service/files/

be-heard/eurobarometer/2018/eurobarometer-2018-democracy-on-the-move/report/
en-one-year-before-2019-eurobarometer-report.pdf.
who believe in the benefits of continued cooperation and integration at

EU level and those who would undo what has been achieved over the last
70 years.5
Moreover, the politicisation of the European Union is not in itself a

consistent or coherent phenomenon. It is asymmetric, changing intensity
from one policy area to another; it is “differentiated” (De Wilde et al.,
2016) and “punctuated” (Grande et al., 2016: 280), being characterised
by significant variations over time, across countries and political arenas.
Furthermore, the level of politicisation can vary from marginal or slight
to intense, while attitudes towards European integration may range along
a spectrum of positions from strongly in favour to strongly opposed (Dijk-
stra et al., 2020: 3). Whenever politicisation takes place, arguments driven
by politics and ideology count more than arguments based on expertise,
on practical constraints or time pressure.
Hence, politicisation is neither good nor bad per se. If it allows
democratic preference aggregation and promotes electoral competition—
particularly in view of European elections—it reinforces democratic
legitimacy. The expression of political dissent vis-à vis ‘Brussels’, often
depicted as excessively bureaucratised and defending the ‘there-is-no-
alternative’ approach, obviously has its benefits and its risks. Within the
three-dimensional policy space of party competition in Europe, path-
dependent/mainstream/mass parties (“Volksparteien”) are challenged to
position themselves as a moderate centrist alternative to the economic
left-right, the social Green/Alternative/Libertarianism (GAL), the Tradi-
tional/Authoritarian/Nationalist (TAN) and radical pro-/anti-European
integration parties, thus moving the European debate from “constrain-
ing” and occasionally “destructive dissensus” (Hodson & Puetter, 2019)
to a “constructive dissensus”. However, while politicisation is a purely
domestic phenomenon and is not manifest in all member states to an
equal extent, it may have a de-legitimising impact in the member state or
member states concerned. On the other hand, if politicisation is inter-
national—i.e. between countries—it carries the danger of positioning
member states against each other (De Wilde et al., 2016). This is partic-
ularly the case when populist sovereignist political movements form the
government or are part of a government coalition. In such cases, a clear
5 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/eu-affairs/20180522STO0
4020/eurobarometer-survey-highest-support-for-the-eu-in-35-years.
100 M. WARASIN
differentiation between the ‘national interest’ and the party’s position

becomes blurred. Thus, the strong commitment of European leaders
(Xafa, 2018) to Europe’s single currency, the Euro, has triggered opposi-
tion from new Euroscepticism in several member states, while the obvious
divisions in managing the migration crisis have opened a deep divide
among European Union members. As Lewis Dijkstra et al. (2020) put
it:
The EU is therefore identified - together with migrants - as the main

opponent. In party programme after party programme, electoral manifesto
after electoral manifesto, the EU is depicted as a threat to national identity,
to democracy and even to economic stability and progress. (Dijkstra et al.,
2020: 742)
In practice, politicisation of integration means that important questions

regarding the future of the European project—from the institutional set-
up to the recruitment of political leadership, from issues with economic
significance (such as economic policy, fiscal policy, social policy) to policies
related to sovereignty, identity and solidarity issues (such as immigration
policy, cultural diversity) are subject to public debate in parliaments, in
the media, as well as in other arenas of politicisation. These important
questions are debated by an increasing number of politicisation actors in
a controversial and divisive manner that distinguishes them clearly from
each other and exacerbates their disagreement, thus deepening the cleav-
ages and reducing the potential for consensus. Finally, the polarisation
between political actors may occur within the political arena of a given
Member State, but also between political actors of different member states
or even between political actors of a EU Member State or a group of
states, on the one hand, and the EU institutions on the other. The current
phenomenon of politicisation is further characterised by the fact that the
controversial and divisive positioning of the political actors refers not only
to specific policy proposals but also to the integration process as a whole.
The bad news is that the old days of ‘permissive consensus’ are
over; the politicisation of the EU affects supranational decision-making
profoundly and it is here to stay. The good news is that politicisation has
manifold manifestations that produce not only negative but also positive
criticism, and not only resistance against but also support for the political
system.
As the European Union and its policies have become more salient and
visible at member states level, the EU cannot bury its head in the sand
but must tackle the issue of politicisation head on. The institutions must
be willing to allow key politicisation agents, in particular political parties
which remain essential to the process, to voice their concerns, suggestions,
their resistance and their support—in short their political input to the
debate. Overall, the key question is whether the European Union is able
to absorb the stress test of politicisation. The European Parliament is in
many ways an example of best practice in absorbing politicisation. It is the
only directly elected EU institution allowing for democratic preference
aggregation, and it promotes electoral competition. It had this vocation
at its beginning, as the Furler Report already stated back in 1963, 16 years
before the first direct elections:
[…] le parlement doit exprimer les différentes courants d’opinion et centres

d’intérêt d’un peuple et trouver entre eux un équilibre garantissant le bien-
être général. […] En outre, le Parlement européen doit remplir les mêmes
taches que tous les parlements: il doit exprimer les différents courants de
pensée afin d’arriver à les concilier.6
In the treaty-architecture, the EP is a co-legislator responsible for the

democratic scrutiny of all EU institutions and establishing the EU
budget together with the Council. At the same time, it is the most
important arena for the politicisation of the EU and European poli-
cies. This becomes particularly evident during “critical events” (Anders
et al., 2018: 11) such as European elections, as described by Alexander
Clarkson (2019):
A decade or two ago, heads of state would have treated the European
Parliament election as a mere sideshow. Now, the increasingly visible
concentration of collective power in the hands of EU institutions has made
them prizes worth expending serious political capital to win. Everyone is
jockeying to decide the EU’s future. It’s not an easy battleground on which
to gain the upper hand. Successive crises — eurozone, migration, Brexit —
created the necessity for cross-border political debate. But their fallout has
polarized societies and envenomed national party politics. The high stakes
electoral game for the future of the EU has sharpened the ideological
6 Report on the competencies and powers of the European Parliament: http://aei.pitt.

edu/13815/1/doc.31.PDF.
102 M. WARASIN
battle lines between rival party networks within the European Parliament
and between political forces on a national level. This has made European
consensus hard to find on, well, anything. Everyone — pro-Europeans
and Euroskeptics alike — is jockeying to dominate the political debate and
decide the EU’s future. And the best tool to do that: flamboyant acts of
showmanship that harness European issues to their own advantage. That’s
how the new generation of EU leaders — including Macron and on the
other side, Italy’s far-right leader Matteo Salvini — are playing the EU
game. (Clarkson, 2019)7
The last European elections in May 2019 took place in the context of
increasing politicisation of the EU: the voter turn-out increased to 51%;
traditional parties lost substantial ground, while the share of votes for
parties opposed to EU integration had steadily increased over the last
decade reaching close to one-quarter of seats in 2019; many elected
members were newcomers (61%), so that the Parliament was more
fragmented and less predictable than ever.8
The next section of this chapter focuses on the political dynamics
of a parliamentary committee in the European Parliament, namely the
Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) as an
example of a highly politicised arena within the EP. These dynamics
mainly develop along the lines of the parliamentary groups; they are
largely influenced by them and occasionally threaten to obstruct the EU
policy-making process, leading to a deadlock.
Politicisation of EU Gender Policies:

The Political Dynamics in the European
Parliament Committee on Women’s
Rights and Gender Equality
Because the work of the European Parliament comprises two main
stages—the committee stage and the plenary stage—parliamentary
committees have a very important role: they draw up, amend and adopt
7 https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-theater-europes-greatest-sho
wman/.
8 VoteWatch report “European Parliament: current and future dynamics”, January 2020;
https://www.votewatch.eu/blog/european-parliament-current-and-future-dynamics/.
legislative proposals and own-initiative reports; they consider Commis-

sion and Council proposals and, where necessary, compile reports to
be presented to the plenary assembly (Warasin et al., 2019). The vast
majority of EU legislative acts are endorsed by early agreements—i.e. at
first or early second reading, when parliamentary committees de facto
drive the process. The trend towards early agreements is as strong as ever,
reaching a record high of 89% in the 8th term.
During the current legislative term, the EP has had 20 standing
committees (22 if one includes the 2 subcommittees) as well as a couple
of special ad hoc committees. They cover virtually every EU policy area
and are the following:
• Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET)9 ;

• Committee on Development (DEVE);
• Committee on International Trade (INTA);
• Committee on Budget (BUDG);
• Committee on Budgetary Control (CONT);
• Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON);
• Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL);
• Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety
(ENVI);
• Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE);
• Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO);
• Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN);
• Committee on Regional Development (REGI);
• Committee on Agriculture (AGRI);
• Committee on Fisheries (PECH);
• Committee on Culture and Education (CULT);
• Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI);
• Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE);
• Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO);
• Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM);
• Committee on Petitions (PETI).
9 The Committee on Foreign Affairs has two sub-committees: the Committee on

Human Rights (DROI) and the Committee on Security and Defence (SEDE).
104 M. WARASIN
Each committee is headed by a chairperson and three or four vice-

chairs, who are elected according to the agreements reached at the
Committees’ constituent meetings, so that the positions allocated to
each political group reflect its size. Moreover, every committee has its
own secretariat and a bureau. However, they differ very much not only
in size—the number of members per committee may vary between 25
and 71 members—but also in their workload and work performance. As
indicated in the Committee Statistical Report for the 7th Legislature—
2009–2014 (Pittella et al., 2009), compared to the other committees, the
Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality is a low performer
with respect to legislative procedures; but a high performer with respect
to non-legislative resolutions, which consist of political declarations rather
than of legal acts. Finally, it is an average performer when it comes
to public hearings with civil society and experts (European Parliament,
2014).
The FEMM committee was established as an ad hoc committee
following the first direct elections of 1979, and in 1984—after the second
European elections—a standing committee was created. The EP was the
first parliament ever to establish a committee on women’s rights (Brunn,
2004). Even though today, with the Lisbon Treaty, equality between
women and men is one of the fundamental principles of community law,
at the beginning the EU was much more worried about unfair compe-
tition or distortion of competition law between member states and less
about women’s rights, as the following two quotes stress:
In the course of history an interesting evolution has taken place in

European gender equality policies. This story started in 1957 when the
European Economic Community was founded and the principle of equal
pay for equal work for men and women was included in the Treaty of
Rome to avoid unfair competition and distortions in the free European
market. Soon the Treaty article would evolve into a broader demand
for equal rights related to work and result in a series of binding direc-
tives. In the eighties and nineties gender equality would increasingly enter
other policy domains by means of non-binding soft law and gender main-
streaming. More recently, the EU has turned towards an approach of
multiple discrimination which involves other grounds of discrimination,
such as race and sexuality. (Debusscher, 2015: 1)
Annex V of the European Parliament Rules of Procedures describes

in detail the powers and responsibilities of the standing committees.
Regarding the FEMM committee one reads:
Committee responsible for:
1. the definition, promotion and protection of women’s rights in the

Union and related Union measures;
2. the promotion of women’s rights in third countries;
3. equal opportunities policy, including the promotion of equality
between men and women with regard to labour market opportu-
nities and treatment at work;
4. the removal of all forms of violence and discrimination based on sex;
5. the implementation and further development of gender main-
streaming in all policy sectors;
6. the follow-up and implementation of international agreements and
conventions involving the rights of women;
7. encouraging awareness of women’s rights.10
The FEMM committee has occasionally been branded a ‘non-legislative

committee’ or an ‘opinion-giving committee’, implying that it works
neither on legislation nor on files, which are actually its competence,
but instead provides opinions to other committees, which are in charge
of the files. However, this is not correct. Parliamentary committees like
the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, the Committee on
Employment and Social Affairs, or the Committee on Environment,
Public Health and Food Safety, for instance, issue many more opinions
than the FEMM committee does (European Parliament, 2014).
The central role of the FEMM committee during the pre-Amsterdam
phase and afterwards is unquestionable. Since its creation from one
legislative term to the next, the committee has been the most prominent
and important EP-arena for the promotion of equality between women
10 European Parliament: Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament, Brus-

sels 2017. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+
RULES-EP+20170116+TOC+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN.
106 M. WARASIN
and men.11 During the 8th parliamentary term from 2014 to 2019 over
60 MEPs were members or substitute members of the FEMM committee.
However, not only from a global perspective but also from a Euro-
pean one as well, progress in achieving equality between women and men
has been slow. This is also emphasised by the Gender Equality Index
established by the European Gender Institute, which indicates that the
average EU score is only 54 out of 100 (Barbieri et al., 2017). In the EU,
women still earn on average more than 16% less than men12 ; while the
gender pay gap in pensions is a high 38%.13 And when it comes to a fore-
cast on gender equality under the current rate of progress, the European
Commission concludes:
Under current rates of progress, it will take almost 30 years to reach the
EU’s target of 75% of women in employment, 70 years to make equal pay
a reality and 20 years to achieve parity in national parliaments (at least 40%
of each gender).14
To quote the report on the Gender Equality Index, the EU is only halfway
towards reaching equality between women and men.
At this slow rate of progress, it would still take around 40 years to even
get close to gender balance in boardrooms (at least 40% of both sexes).15
But gender equality is not only an end in itself; it is also a means to an

end. It is of vital strategic importance to the EU to increase labour-force
participation, and raising the employment rate of women is crucial for
meeting the Europe 2020 headline target of 75% of the population aged
20–64 being employed by 2020.16
11 EP Broschüre: Frauen im Europäischen Parlament, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/

germany/resource/static/files/service/frauen-im-europaeischen-parlament-2017.pdf.
12 EC press release: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/8718272/3-
07032018-BP-EN.pdf/fb402341-e7fd-42b8-a7cc-4e33587d79aa.
13 EC press release: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-489_en.htm.
16 European Commission: https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/eco
nomic-and-fiscal-policy-coordination/eu-economic-governance-monitoring-prevention-cor
rection/european-semester/framework/europe-2020-strategy_en.
In order to meet this target, during the present legislative term

‘Europe’ obviously needs to develop coherent policy initiatives based on
a clearly articulated strategy. Since the beginning of the economic and
financial crisis in 2008, high rates of unemployment in the EU countries,
particularly among young people, have inevitably diminished citizens’
trust in European institutions. Furthermore, after every crisis, the image
of the European Union has been damaged, and the EU has presented
itself as a cumbersome political system. However, at the same time the
European political system has developed from what was once an abstract
idea into a supranational political actor, which not only reaches compro-
mises and makes decisions, but also polarises. In the current political
context of globalisation and new protectionisms, interdependence and
the quest for independence, as well as demographic and climate change,
Europe faces a financial crisis paralleled by a migration crisis. Hence
any proposed legislative action from fiscal policies to migration policies
becomes a potential cause of conflict, a crunch issue and an acid test for
the EU’s resilience. Europe’s ability to cope with, adapt to, and quickly
recover from financial and demographic shocks or challenges posed by
international relations has been repeatedly called into question. The EU
has entered a new phase characterised by issues of identity and values,
social and political resistance, the potential risk of disintegration, the
return of national stereotypes, the popularity deficit and the loss of trust—
in short, by the politicisation of integration (Hooghe & Marks, 2009).
In this framework, which is a poor match for an innovative policy on
gender equality, the political dynamics within the FEMM committee are
quite revealing and provide insightful findings. The level of politicisation
in FEMM is intense, and the committee can rightly be considered the
main arena for politicisation of the EU’s gender equality policy. Tradi-
tionally, the political groups are the principal actors in this arena, and
most conflicts are fought between parliamentary groups.
The independent organisation VoteWatch Europe17 regularly analyses
the voting behaviour of members of the European Parliament. The overall
results for the past five years (2015–2020) show rather high cohesion
rates among the different political groups. However, it is important to
stress that cohesion rates of political groups in plenary votes do not equal
17 VoteWatch.eu is an independent international NGO, based in London, which moni-

tors the decision-making activities of the European Parliament and the Council. https://
www.votewatch.eu/blog/european-parliament-current-and-future-dynamics/.
108 M. WARASIN
to the cohesion rates in the specialised committees. If one compares for

instance the cohesion rates in all policy areas with the rates and voting
behaviour in gender equality policies, the differences are striking. Indu-
bitably remarkable is the implosion of cohesion rates within the EPP (up
to minus 15%) and within ALDE (up to minus 8%).
Moreover, there are significant changes from one parliamentary term
to the next: analysis of all the votes which took place during the 7th
parliamentary term between 2009 and 2014 show that three potential
coalitions were possible in order to reach the absolute majority in the
Chamber. 70% of the votes were characterised by a ‘grand coalition’
composed of the EPP and the S&D group—and sometimes including
ALDE. Besides this first type, 15% of the votes were characterised by a
‘centre-right’ coalition of EVP, ALDE and ECR; and another 15% of
the votes by a ‘centre-left’ coalition of S&D, ALDE, Greens/EFA and
GUE/NGL. These findings confirm that from a holistic point of view
with all policy areas included, the 7th term was largely dominated by
the ‘grand coalition’; however, two alternative coalition-building options
were successful.
If one focuses on the votes in the FEMM committee between
2009 and 2014, one observes a rather different pattern with a clear
left/right dimension: 90% of the votes were won by a coalition comprising
S&D, ALDE, Greens-EFA and GUE-NGL. The relative influence of the
different political groups within the FEMM committee, on the one hand,
and within plenary sessions on the other, is remarkable.
The different coalitions in the plenary and in FEMM, respectively,
produced a variety of shortcomings during the 7th term. Occasionally,
it also happened that reports which had initially been adopted at the
committee stage were voted down at the plenary stage. This was for
instance the case of the Estrela Report presented in 2013 or the Zuber
Report in 2014.
Die Unterstützung des Europäischen Parlaments für eine fortschrittliche

Gleichstellungspolitik ist dabei keineswegs gesichert. So wurde der besagte
Estrela-Bericht aus dem Jahr 2013, wenn auch sehr knapp, abgelehnt.
Ebenso abgelehnt wurde der Zuber-Bericht über die Gleichstellung von
Frauen und Männern in der Europäischen Union aus dem Jahr 2014 […]
(Pimminger, 2015: 6)
During the 8th term, between 2014 and 2019, a similar trend can be
observed, but with one significant difference: there are no longer coex-
isting possible majority constellations; instead, there is only one single
coalition between the EPP and the S&D group, with the regular support
of ALDE.
Although the EP Rules of Procedure stipulate that the composition of
the committees shall as far as possible reflect the composition of Parlia-
ment, this is not the case of the FEMM committee.18 Following the
constitutive sitting in July 2014, a coalition of S&D, ALDE, Greens-
EFA and GUE-NGL commanded a majority of one vote over the other
groups until shortly before the end of the first half of the term. This
meant that while at plenary level no majority was possible other than
a coalition between the EPP and the S&D group, the composition of
the FEMM committee allowed for alternative coalition-building. This
particular circumstance enabled the agents of politicisation in FEMM to
cultivate a level of polarisation and conflict considerably higher than was
the case for the plenary session.
If one compares the cohesion rates of political groups in all policy
areas with those specific to gender equality policies during the 8th term,
conclusions similar to those for the 7th term can be reached. Again, the
implosion of cohesion rates within the EPP group (minus 15%) and within
ALDE (minus 6%) is striking; one also notes an increase in cohesion rates
in the remaining centre-left groups.
During the present 9th term (2019–2024) VoteWatch Analysis
suggests that not only will the coalition between EPP, S&D and Renew
Europe (former ALDE) continue to hold (it is currently the only coalition
able to guarantee an absolute majority), but the Greens/EFA group will
become increasingly part of majority building in the EP. This evidences a
new shift of the overall balance of power in the Parliament towards the
centre-left.
Obviously, the data provided by VoteWatch should not be overesti-
mated, and they may sometimes convey a slightly distorted picture. As
Lorenzo Cicchi proved in his study, the data say little about the quality
of the single vote. Indeed, in politically important vote sessions, the
18 Article 199 of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+RULES-
EP+20170116+TOC+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN.
110 M. WARASIN
fragmentation of political groups may be much greater than the overall

cohesion rates suggest.
[…] what is generally overlooked is that the high levels of party cohesion in
the EP may be a ‘statistical artefact’, in the sense that a substantial number
of divisive votes are drowned out by a large majority of votes where party
groups are highly or almost completely cohesive. (Cicchi, 2017: 1)
However, the cohesion rates provide sufficient empirical evidence to

assume that the European Parliament Committee on Women’s Rights and
Gender Equality as an arena of politicisation is much more polarised than
the plenary arena.
One of the many examples of the 8th term was the report compiled by
Maria Noichl (S&D) in 2015. Like most FEMM reports, this was a non-
legislative report, and it was presented on the occasion of the twentieth
anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action and on the Millennium
Development Goals. In the same year, the Commission Strategy on
Gender Equality expired. The aim of the draftsperson, Ms Noichl, was
therefore to encourage the European Commission to draft an ambitious
new strategy. It soon became evident that it was impossible to build a
broad coalition on the matter that would enable the European Parlia-
ment to speak with one voice with the European Commission and the
member states. Nevertheless, in June 2015 the resolution was adopted
in plenary with 341 votes in favour, 281 against and 81 abstentions.
Contrary to the usual practice, the draftsperson invited representatives
of the political groups which had supported the resolution to partici-
pate in the subsequent press conference. Hence, Ms. Maria Noichl (EPP,
Germany) held the press conference together with Ms Angelika Mlinar
(ALDE, Austria), Ms. Malin Björk (GUE/NGL, Sweden) and Ms. Terry
Reintke (Greens-EFA, Germany).
During the press conference, the voting behaviour of the EPP group
was criticised. In fact, 135 Members had voted against the resolution,
while 53 had abstained. The vote proceeded against the dominant trend
of a ‘grand coalition’ between EPP and S&D. The text could neverthe-
less be adopted, because for a non-legislative resolution only a simple
majority (and not an absolute majority of at least 376 votes) is neces-
sary. Furthermore, the votes in favour by some EPP members, as well as
the numerous abstentions, also helped to pass the resolution. The joint
press conference held by the ‘winners’ and the criticisms expressed against
the ‘losers’ conveyed the impression of a vote highly polarised between

FEMM-Members as agents of politicisation.
The European Commission did not present a new gender equality
strategy; an omission which was subsequent criticised by both the Euro-
pean Parliament and the Council of Ministers. Both institutions deplored
the “downgrading” of the previous EC-Communication about the EU
Gender Equality Strategy to a “strategic engagement” at the level of a
staff working document. They unsuccessfully invited the Commission to
adopt a new strategy, stressing that it should have the same status as the
previous one, meaning that it should be officially adopted as a Communi-
cation.19 Thereafter, the new Von der Leyen Commission made a U-turn
following the Parliament’s and Council’s concerns and drafted a new
upgraded European Gender Strategy.
Beyond the field of non-legislative files, also some legislative dossiers
have encountered deadlocks. The most prominent example has been the
amendment of the maternity leave directive in 2008.20 Although the
European Parliament had concluded its first reading in 2010, the file did
not receive enough support in the Council of Ministers. Because of the
obvious lack of progress, the Commission decided in 2015 to withdraw
its proposal.21
The same fate may await the Proposal for a Directive on improving
the gender balance among non-executive directors of companies listed
on stock exchanges and related measures.22 On this file, too, the EP has
already concluded its first reading procedure, but an agreement in the
19 EP resolution on the Equality between Women and Men, 14 March 2017:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type = TA&reference =
P8-TA-2017-0073&language = EN&ring = A8-2017-0046;
Schlussfolgerungen des Rates zur Gleichstellung der Geschlechter vom 16. Juni 2016:
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/06/16/epsco-conclu
sions-gender-equality/.
Outcome of the EPSCO council meeting 7 March 2016:
http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-6781-2016-INIT/en/pdf.
20 Council Directive 92/85/EEC of 19 October 1992 on the introduction of measures
to encourage improvements in the safety and health at work of pregnant workers and
workers who have recently given birth or are breastfeeding (tenth individual Directive
within the meaning of Article 16 (1) of Directive 89/391/EEC).
21 Press release: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-5287_en.htm.
22 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A52012PC0614.
112 M. WARASIN
Council of Ministers still seems far away. A withdrawal by the EC because

of the deadlock cannot be excluded.
The directives were presented in 2008 during the 6th term and in 2012
during the 7th term. On both, the EP concluded its first reading during
the 7th term: the first reading on the amended maternity leave directive
under Edite Estrela (FEMM, S&D, Portugal) in 2010; and the direc-
tive on Women on Boards under co-rapporteurship by Evelyn Regner
(JURI, S&D, Austria) and Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou (FEMM, EPP,
Greece) in 2013. In the European elections of 2014, neither Estrela nor
Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou were re-elected. The EP therefore nominated new
draftspersons in order to follow the files. Maria Arena (S&D, Belgium)
and Iratxe García Pérez (S&D, Spain) on behalf of the FEMM committee,
launched a rescue attempt and on 20 May 2015 submitted to the plenary
a resolution on maternity leave calling on all institutions to conclude
the file in a cooperative spirit. As happened during the vote on the
Estrela Resolution in 2010, more than 60% voted in favour. However,
the changing voting behaviour of the EPP group is evident: The Estrela
Resolution was adopted in plenary with 390 votes in favour, 192 against
and 59 abstentions.23 Out of 641 voting members, 255 were members
of the EPP group. More than half of them (146) had voted for the reso-
lution submitted by the S&D members. Only 25—less than 10%—had
abstained.
The motion for resolution submitted in 2015 was adopted with 419
votes in favour, 97 against, and 161 abstentions.24 Out of the 193 EPP
members, only 30 voted in favour, 35 against and more than half of them
(128) abstained. Whereas in 2010 more than half of the EPP members
had voted in favour of the legislative resolution on maternity leave, in
2015 more than half of them abstained from voting on a non-legislative
resolution.
The deadlock in the Council of Ministers, as well the changing inter-
group coalitions in the EP, could be used by the European Commission as
arguments for withdrawing the proposal, because legislative files require
23 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+
PV+20101020+RES-RCV+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN; S. 174 ff.
24 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+
PV+20150520+RES-RCV+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN; S. 33 ff.
absolute majorities during the second reading procedure. After the Euro-
pean elections in 2014, the possibility of achieving the required absolute
majority during a second reading was less than obvious.
Besides the typical manifestations of a more polarised debate, the EP
Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality has also witnessed
the ‘populist turn’ characterised by attempts at ‘destructive dissensus’.
This has been for instance the case of recommendations by Committee
coordinators which have been contested at committee level. As stated
in the EP Rule of Procedures (rule 214, version February 2020), the
political groups in the Parliament designate one of their members in each
committee to be a coordinator. These coordinators meet on a regular
basis to prepare decisions to be taken by the committee, in partic-
ular decisions on procedure and on the appointment of rapporteurs.
The committee may delegate the power to take certain decisions to the
coordinators, with the exception of decisions concerning the adoption
of reports, motions for resolutions, opinions or amendments. Ideally,
coordinators should decide by consensus. However, if consensus cannot
be attained, the coordinators may only act by a majority that clearly
represents a large majority of the committee and reflects the respec-
tive strengths of the various political groups. The Chair announces in
committee all decisions and recommendations of the coordinators, which
shall be deemed to have been adopted if they have not been contested.
Although several decisions and recommendations have been adopted by
the FEMM Coordinators representing a large majority of the committee,
they have been subsequently contested when announced in committee.
One of the several examples is the procedural vote on adoption of the
Coordinators’ recommendation on the allocation of the Opinion on the
“Determination of a clear risk of a serious breach by the Republic of
Poland of the rule of law”. The original recommendation was confirmed
in the FEMM meeting of 25 May 2020 by 26 votes in favour, 7 votes
against and 1 abstention. Another example is the procedural vote on
adoption of the Coordinators’ recommendation of 25 June 2020 on
the FEMM opinion on the DROI report on “Human rights protection
and the EU external migration policy”. The original recommendation
was confirmed in the FEMM meeting on 13–16 July by the vote in
committee, by 27 votes in favour, with 7 votes against and 0 abstentions.
The contestation of the recommendation of the coordinators and the
demand for a vote on it made the dissensus much more visible: while coor-
dinators’ meetings are held behind closed doors, committee meetings are
114 M. WARASIN
public and web streamed. Although the outcome of the recommendation

could not be changed, the disagreement with the policy approach of a
large majority of the political spectrum became more evident. Likewise,
the isolation of the contesting group(s) was more apparent and clear.
After the European Parliament elections of May 2019 and the
presentation of the Von der Leyen team in September 2019, gender
mainstreaming received unprecedented support from all Commissioners-
designate. Indeed, the designates to become EU-Commissioners had
to undergo a process of scrutiny and evaluation before parliamen-
tary committees. The first step in this process was the replies of
Commissioners-designate to a written questionnaire containing two
common questions on their general competence and impartiality as well
as cooperation with and accountability to the Parliament. A further set
of questions addressed specific policy matters linked to their portfolio.
The written part was followed by oral hearings of all the candidates. The
entire process was finalised with the vote of the Parliament in plenary
in November 2019. For the first time ever, one of the written questions
put to the Commissioners-designate referred to gender mainstreaming
and ran as follows: “How will you implement gender mainstreaming
and integrate a gender perspective into all policy areas of your port-
folio?” All designates were supportive of the question and some of them
outlined ideas already reflected in the Commission Work Programme
adopted in January 2020 and titled: “A Union that strives for more”.
Regarding internal EU policies, the Commission Work Programme stated
that equality is a core value of the European Union and is a driver of
economic growth and social well-being. The Commission would present
a Gender Equality Strategy to address the key challenges that women
face today, including gender-based violence, economic independence and
access to the labour market. Proposals on pay transparency would be put
forward.
The Commission would also take action to promote equality and better
inclusion of Roma people. A dedicated Strategy would help ensure the
equality of LGBTI people across the EU. Particular attention must always
be given to protecting the most vulnerable. The Commission would
put forward an EU Strategy for Victims’ Rights (European Commission,
2020).
Regarding the external policies of the EU, the Work Programme
announced an Action Plan on Gender Equality and Women Empower-
ment in External Relations. Indeed, EU action is needed. It has been
already pointed out above that the Vilnius-based European Institute for
Gender Equality (EIGE), which supports the EU institutions and the
member states in promoting equality between women and men and
combating sex discrimination, commented on the situation of gender
equality in the EU in 2015 thus: “With an overall score of 52.9 out of
100, the EU remains only halfway towards equality. Progress needs to
increase its pace if the EU is to fulfil its ambitions and meet the Europe
2020 targets.” (Barbieri et al., 2017: 3). Remarkably, the European public
seems to be supportive of an enhanced EU gender equality policy: a
survey in May 2017 for the Standard Eurobarometer 87 shows—like the
one of the previous year—broad support for the Europe 2020 headline
target of 75% of the population aged 20–64 to be in employment by
2020.25 Fact-based analysis as well as surveys suggests the need for action.
Neither of them, in this case, reflects the political dynamics of the highly
politicised arena of a parliamentary committee.
The FEMM committee is not only the most prominent and impor-
tant EP-arena for the promotion of equality between women and men;
it is also the main arena for politicisation of the EU gender equality
policy. Because political groups are the main actors this arena and because
most conflicts are fought along the lines of the parliamentary groups.
Intra-group cohesion and inter-group coalition remain key tactical consid-
erations in a politically competitive environment. And occasionally, as
outlined above, particularly polarised topics may lead to a deadlock. At
first sight, this may somewhat unsatisfactory. However, in the new phase
that the EU has entered, politicisation has become a driving force of
European integration dynamics.
The organisation of the European debate at the level of both the Union
and of Member states as well as the clarification and the politicisation of
European issues are essential to giving life to European democracy on
a daily basis. […] The future of Europe as a political project depends
on being able to mobilise European public opinion on political issues.
European political parties should make an essential contribution. (Priestley,
2010: 30)
25 https://data.europa.eu/euodp/it/data/dataset/S2143_88_3_STD88_ENG;
https://data.europa.eu/euodp/it/data/dataset/S2130_85_2_STD85_ENG.
116 M. WARASIN
In this context, the European Parliament has a competitive advantage over

the other EU institutions, because it is used to functioning as an arena of
politicisation. More and more policy areas are affected by the increasing
politicisation, from fiscal policy to migration, from defence to interna-
tional relations. Regarding gender equality policy, if and how rapidly
Europe can complete the remaining half of the route towards equality
will depend on the elected agents in the EP arena of politicisation.
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The European Parliament’s Treatment
of Religion in Times of Populism
Alberta Giorgi
Introduction---Religion and Populism

This chapter explores whether and how the populist challenge has affected
discussions on religion in the European Parliament. More specifically,
it documents whether the increasing presence of populist actors in the
European Parliament has resulted in increasing attention being paid to
religious matters or in changes in the frames related to religions. More-
over, in light of the increasing preoccupation of the European Union
with the rise of populism, it analyses whether the debates on populism
include concerns about the role of religion in the populist discourse. In
the remaining part of this section, I provide a brief overview of the current
research on religion and populism, while in the next sections I will intro-
duce the study, its methodology, and the results, which will be discussed
in the last section.
Systematic comparative research on the complex entanglements
between religion and populism is still developing (Norocel & Giorgi,
forthcoming): to date, apart from stand-alone essays (e.g. Brubaker,
2017; Camus, 2013; Minkenberg, 2018; Zúquete, 2017), only the
A. Giorgi (B)
University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy
e-mail: alberta.giorgi@unibg.it

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73411-4_6
120 A. GIORGI
edited contributions of Marzouki et al. (2016) and DeHanas and Shterin

(2018a) have focused specifically on this topic from a comparative
perspective (see also Fitzi et al., 2019).
Research on religion and populism has focused on a variety of aspects.
Recent studies have explored the sociocultural characteristics of the elec-
toral support for populist parties, finding that religious voters are less
likely to support radical-right populist parties (Arzheimer & Carter, 2009;
Minkenberg, 2018; Molle, 2018). However, the results change if separate
consideration is made of religious voters who do not regularly attend reli-
gious services—and who instead express a clear preference for radical-right
populist parties (Immerzeel et al., 2013). A limited number of studies
have analysed whether religious institutions support populist parties, ideas
and movements (Smith & Woodhead, 2018) and whether religious actors
adopt populist discourses and stances (Tranfic, 2019).
Many inquiries have focused instead on populist actors, exploring
how populist leaders mobilize religion in their political discourse (e.g.
Schwörer & Fernández-García, 2020) and, more broadly, how populist
parties make reference to religion (for a comparative overview see
Minkenberg, 2018). Mainly religion plays a role in relation to the
Manichean separation between ‘us’, the people and a series of ‘others’
which is one of the distinctive features of populism (Albertazzi &
McDonnell, 2015; Ruzza & Fella, 2011; see also Wodak, 2015).
According to Zúquete, two main streams of analysis, which in reality
intersect, can be identified in this regard: analysis of the sacralization of
politics, and analysis of the political use of religion (Zúquete, 2017).
In the former case, scholars focus on the similarities between the polit-
ical and the religious discourse, and point out, for example, the use
of religious arguments, the sacralization of ‘the people’, or the ‘politics
of salvation’ (de la Torre, 2015). According to DeHanas and Shterin
(2018b), populism has a quasi-religious connotation, because in its advo-
cacy on behalf of ‘the people’, ‘us’ acquires a sacred character. Zúquete
(2013) speaks instead of missionary politics against anti-political disen-
chantment, citing the frequent appeals to restore the true democracy and
the ‘true citizens’ will’ made by many radical-right populist parties. In this
stream of analysis, populist discourse has the same characteristics as reli-
gious discourse and has a ‘style’ fundamentally different from the more
traditional forms of political discourse.
Analyses of the political use of religion focus instead on how religion
becomes, in the populist discourse, a marker of identity and difference
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT’S TREATMENT OF RELIGION … 121
which separates the people from the ‘others’ (Roy, 2016). Some scholars
use the concept of ‘religious populism’ to mark a difference from the
other types of populism (Halliday, 1982; Zúquete, 2017). This use of reli-
gion has developed since the 1990s (Marzouki & McDonnell, 2016) and
particularly in the past fifteen years (Brubaker, 2017). Populism conceives
society as a homogeneous community, and it is a profoundly majoritarian
discourse (Mudde, 2004): thus religion can be mobilized, first of all, as a
dispositive of othering to mark the out-group (Wagenvoorde, 2019). In
fact, populism is often connected to nationalism (Brubaker, 2017; Fokas,
2016; Minkenberg, 2018; Mudde, 2004). An example of religion being
used to identify ‘the others’ is the discourse of populist leaders in the
Netherlands: Pim Fortuyn and, later, Geert Wilders repeatedly warned
against the rise of Islam, which allegedly threatened Dutch liberal values
(Van Kessel, 2016). This ‘religiosization’ of ‘the other’ is most common
in central or Northern Europe, and it is often coupled with the defence
of women’s and LGBT + persons’ rights, and even feminism, allegedly
endangered by multiculturalism—scholars speak about ‘femonationalism’
or ‘homonationalism’ to indicate the invocation of women’s or LGBT+
persons’ rights to stigmatize Muslim men (Arfini et al., 2019; Farris,
2017; Spierings, 2020). In other cases, the religious ‘other’ is opposed
to the secular ‘us’—as in the case of the French Front National, whose
leader Marine Le Pen claims that France must be defended against the
threat of Islamization and radicalization (Roy, 2016). Liberal values or
secularism characterize the nation that has to be protected from the reli-
gious ‘other’ with a form of cultural racism (Wodak, 2015). Islam is
depicted as having values radically different from and incompatible with
secularism and democracy, which are interpreted instead as markers of the
Western world. The main populist narrative about Islam is that it is a
threat to social cohesion, identity, and, in some cases, a physical threat—
when reference is made to terrorism, which is entangled with Islam in
some right-wing politicians’ discourses (Forlenza, 2019).
In many cases, however, religion characterizes both the ‘others’ and
‘us’, not only marking the cultural outsiders but also identifying what
is shared within a community. From this perspective, the role of different
religions in the populist discourse depends on what is the religion, or reli-
gious heritage, that the majority share: that religion can furnish symbols
and resources that can be mobilized in political discourse to identify ‘the
people’.
122 A. GIORGI
In secular Europe, the Christian religious tradition often takes the form
of a vicarious religion practised by a minority but relevant to a majority
(Davie, 2007). As Joan Scott (2018) and Roger Brubaker (2017) point
out, the understanding of Islam often adopts the stance of old Orien-
talism whereby secularism can be articulated with Christianity: Islam, in
fact, is conceived of as the other of the Western world, and this latter
gains its identity precisely from comparison with the other, the Eastern
world, depicted as a homogeneous and unified entity (Forlenza, 2019;
Scott, 2018; Wagenvoorde, 2019). Hence, as Brubaker explains, Chris-
tianity is often “embraced not as a religion but as a civilizational identity
understood in antithetical opposition to Islam” (Brubaker, 2017: 4). The
‘Christianity’ that is relevant to the populist discourse is not a doctrine,
often it is not even a religion: rather, it is the shared tradition, the
cultural heritage that characterizes the territory (Giorgi, 2019a, 2020).1
Specific religious traditions within Christianity—such as Catholicism, or
Lutheranism—are rarely, if ever, mentioned by populist leaders, and reli-
gious hierarchies and the clergy are often the object of criticism (Marzouki
et al., 2016).2
In other words, religion is a matter of b elonging, not a matter of
believing (Roy, 2016): whence derives the importance of visible symbols,
such as the crucifix, or the hijab, and the defence of space against the visi-
bility of the ‘others’, as in the banning of minarets and burqas, which
“would not fit” in Europe (see, e.g., Betz, 2013; Göle, 2011). The
complex story of the display of the crucifix in Italian classrooms, which
was debated twice at the European Court of Human Rights (Annicchino,
2010), is another case in point. In the discourse of the supporters, which
1 As Forlenza (2019) wrote, Christianity is also a common heritage—not just a religion.

Here, my argument is that it is specifically this aspect of religion, among the many
meanings that religion and religiosity may have, that is important in mainstream right-wing
populist discourse.
2 This intersects with the general decline in the role of religious authority as one
of the results of the secularization process (see, e.g., Chaves, 1994) and the increasing
conception of religion as a ‘choice’ (Taylor, 2007). In addition to personalized forms
of religion, atheism or agnosticism, and traditional religious practices, religiosity in post-
secular societies also assumes the form of disputing religious authority on theology and
practice: this is the case, for example, of marginalized groups that demand institutional
recognition and inclusion, such as Christian LGBT+ people (Giorgi, 2019b), or feminist
theology, which re-interpret the sacred texts.
included the radical-right populist Lega Nord, the crucifix was not a reli-
gious symbol: rather, it represented Italian culture, tradition and society
(Beaman, 2015). In the same vein, Matteo Salvini, the Lega Nord leader,
frequently publicly shows or kisses the rosary,3 defends the display of
nativity in schools and makes reference to the Virgin Mary or to elements
of popular religiosity, such as Medjugorje: all these cultural and mate-
rial symbols are markers of a shared Christian identity which visibly
characterize the ‘heartland’ of Europe.
On the other hand, in countries where Islam predominates, Christians
become the ‘others’—this is the case, for example, of Erdogan’s Turkey
(Yabanci & Taleski, 2017; Yilmaz, 2019). One of the first studies on reli-
gious populism focused on the Iranian revolution guided by Ayatollah
Khomeini, who presented himself as the true interpreter of religion
against the elite (Halliday, 1982). Studying the relationships between
populism and other religious majorities—Hinduism and Buddhism, for
example—would also be particularly interesting for a comparative analysis
that yields better understanding of the interweaving between religion and
populism (Zúquete, 2017; Norocel & Giorgi, forthcoming).
From this brief overview, it is apparent that religion is important for
European populism: religious minorities, and Islam in particular, may
be discriminated against; non-Christian Europeans and internal outsiders
may feel excluded by populist claims; Christian actors may be supportive
of populist actors, discourses and policies, which in turn may increase
political and social polarization. Considering that the European Union
is increasingly and publicly concerned about populism (Ruzza, 2018), it
is important to understand whether and how this concern includes the
role of religion. Moreover, given the increase in the number of MEPs
elected from populist parties, it is important to explore whether this pres-
ence has changed the ways in which religion is discussed at the European
Parliament, or whether attention to religious matters has increased.
3 https://www.euronews.com/2019/08/20/salvini-kisses-rosary-after-conte-criticism-
over-religious-symbols.
124 A. GIORGI
Religion in the European

Parliament: Methodology
Broadly speaking, religion has a role in the project for European inte-
gration and its implementation (Foret, 2015). The current literature on
religion and the EU shows that religion is often the subject of debate
in the European Parliament, in the absence of specific policies on reli-
gions mediated by other subjects (Foret, 2014). In addition to foreign
policy, in which the EU pays specific attention to the protection and
support of religious freedom (Foret, 2015), many internal policies inter-
sect with religious matters: this is the case, for example, of migration,
anti-discrimination, education and culture, and security policies (Carrera
& Parkin, 2010). A research programme that investigated the role of
religion at the EU level (among the MEPs and in EU institutions and
decision-making processes) found that individual religiosity and religious
networks did not play a significant role in the selection of MEPs, in
the electoral campaign for the European elections in many countries,
or in MEPs’ socialization and ordinary lives once at the EP. However,
MEPs believed that religion had a role in the European Parliament’s
decision-making process and that it was a significant issue when discussing
European identity (Foret, 2014). The research stemmed from the value-
loaded debates on bioethical and multicultural issues which redirected
political attention to religion, and religion attention to politics (see also
Ozzano & Giorgi, 2016).
Over time, the situation has changed. First of all, in recent years the
number of MEPs from populist parties and movements in the EP has
increased. In addition, the counter-radicalization and security policies put
in place after terrorist attacks have contributed to the development of new
ways to address religion and topics related to religion. Research shows in
fact that the EP has increasingly paid attention to religion and religion-
related issues, but institutional inertia has limited the impacts of these
potentially transformative factors in terms of policies and initiatives:
Ultimately, the treatment of religion by European institutions does not

differ much from past policies that had to deal with faith matters. Religion
is only minimally acknowledged as an object in itself and is hollowed out of
its normative content to be, instead, mobilised as an instrumental resource,
as a mere cultural component or even as an empty signifier to reassert
‘European values’ and public order. (Foret & Markoviti, 2020: 13)
In other words, even though attention to religion increases, the insti-

tutional logic prevails, and the debates on religion are ultimately de-
politicized (Foret & Markoviti, 2019).
Against this background, my research reported in this chapter focused
on debates at the European Parliament. Its purpose was to determine
how MEPs frame religion in relation to populism, whether discussions
involving religion have increased, and how the ways in which religion is
framed have changed over the years in relation to the increasing number
of MEPs from populist parties.
In order to assess whether and how discussions of religion in the Euro-
pean Parliament have changed, and whether or not religion is considered
a problematic issue with respect to populism, I performed a content
and frame analysis of transcripts of the European Parliament plenaries
collected in the timeframe 2004–2019 (3 terms). Documents in the
plenaries comprised debates, explanations of vote and transcripts of Ques-
tions during question time (QT). I used the MAXQDA software to code
the texts and organize the analysis. First, I selected all the transcripts
which included the words ‘religion’ or ‘religiosity’ for a general assess-
ment of the importance of the topic of religion. Generally speaking, apart
from the visits of religious leaders, such as the Roman Catholic Pope or
the Dalai Lama, religion was a topic of discussion insofar as it represented
a problem. In some cases, religion was used metaphorically, as in: “There
is simply the quasi-religion that so much effort is going into establishing.
In any case, reductions in carbon dioxide emissions are really only possible
in Europe”.4 Although my analysis did not focus on the sacralization of
politics (Zúquete, 2017), I decided against excluding these references,
for two reasons. Firstly, metaphorical usage was quite limited and hence
had a limited influence on the data. Secondly, this usage falls into an
understanding of religion as irrational faith and potentially problematic,
without deviating from the analysis. The second step involved fine-tuning
the analysis by focusing on the specific religion under discussion and the
problematic issue at stake. Therefore, I coded for the name of religion, the
topic of discussion, and the reasons why religion might be an issue (as a
source or a victim of discrimination, for example). More specifically, I was
interested in understanding the framework in which religion was consid-
ered: whether it was, for example, a matter of terrorism and security, or
4 Thursday, 10 April 2008—Brussels (PV 10/04/2008—4), p. 4.

126 A. GIORGI
part of a broader discourse on human rights and discrimination. Third,

among the pre-selected documents I searched for keywords connected to
populism (‘populism’, ‘far right’, ‘extreme right’) and analysed the coded
segments in order to determine whether the issue of religion was indeed
connected to the populist challenge.
Results
The importance of ‘religion’ as a matter of discussion, both directly or
mediated by other topics, clearly declines over time, as shown in Fig. 1:
between 2004 and 2019 mentions of religion, religiosity and religious
issues in broad terms decreased. Contrary to what might be expected,
this also applies to mentions of ‘Islam’5 : although, in general, the data
remain quite stable (in particular between 2014 and 2019), there is no
sign of increased attention.
The relevance of ‘religion’ as a matter of discussion, both as religious
matters or mediated by other topics, seems to remain stable over time,
as shown in Fig. 1: between 2004 and 2019 the mentions of religion,
Religion(s) over time
Religion
Christianity
Islam
Other
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
2014-2019 2009-2014 2004-2009
Fig. 1 Religion in debates at the European Parliament (Source Created by the

author)
5 And related words, such as: ‘Islamic’, ‘Islamist’, ‘Muslims’….

religiosity and religious issues in broad terms have not changed much.
Contrary to what may be expected, this is also the case for mentions of
‘Islam’: although, in general, data slightly increased, there is no sign of
an over-attention. Matters concerning ‘Christianity’, instead, show a peak
of attention in 2009–2014, while in 2014–2019 the attention decreases
again. ‘Other’ religions, a category that includes both traditional world
religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, or Jewish religions, as well as
more recent or local religions, remain quite invisible in the debate, even
though, as many scholars underline, the increasing visibility of Islam also
brought the public attention to other religions and religious minorities
(Beckford, 2014).
Of course, mere numbers do not tell the entire story: when considering
the topics at stake, in fact, differences emerge. Between 2004 and 2014
religion was, mostly, a matter of discrimination beyond the European
borders, while between 2014 and 2019, in line with Foret and Markoviti’s
(2020) results, the attention shifted to the topic of radicalization.
As shown by Figs. 2 and 3, in 2004–2009 religion was mostly discussed
in relation to reports about episodes of violence and discrimination
beyond the European borders. However, other topics too were rele-
vant: the role of religion in the potential EU membership of Turkey, for
example, and religious freedom in the European Union.
In 2014–2019, however, as shown in Fig. 4, the attention shifted to
radicalization: while the status of religion—and Christian minorities in
Fig. 2 Topics related to religion—2004–2009 (Source Created by the author)

128 A. GIORGI

particular—outside Europe remained a concern, the prevention of self-

appointed ‘religiously-inspired’ terrorism moved to centre stage.
The main topic with respect to religion, in general, relates to radical-
ization and violence, within and outside Europe. From 2014 onwards, in
fact, Europe faced an escalation in the number and violence of terrorist
attacks that have been linked to the ‘IS-effect’ (Nasser et al., 2016):
the Charlie Hebdo attack in 2015 had a huge impact on the debate.
In response, the European Commission developed its counter-terrorism
approach. It issued two communications, in 2014 and 2016, on the
prevention of radicalization which the Parliament debated.
As to be expected, different religions are matters of concern in relation
to different topics: therefore, the analysis could be fine-tuned by consid-
ering the topic, the issue at stake, and which religion was the matter of
concern (associations of codes6 ).
In 2004–2009, as said, the main concerns regarded what was occur-
ring outside European borders: discrimination on the grounds of religion
and beliefs, discrimination against Christian communities, Catholics, and
other religious minorities, particularly in Muslim countries (Fig. 5). The
following excerpt, in which a member of the PPE comments on this topic,
is a case in point:
Mr President, over the decades, European states have learned to show

a minimum of respect for the culture and religion of millions of immi-
grants. Alarmingly, the opposite is true for most of the home countries
of the same people. It has become common in the Middle East, Asia and
Africa for people who profess Christian beliefs to face social, political and
economic discrimination. In practically all Muslim countries people who
decide to join a Christian church risk their lives. The traditional Christian
population in all those countries shows a dramatic decrease. Even in an offi-
cially secular country like Turkey, Christians face intimidation, harassment
and even murder. One can but agree with the proposal by a well-known
commentator that Turkey will only be ready to join the EU when it is just
as easy to build a Christian church in Turkey as it is to erect a Turkish
mosque in Germany today. I call on the Commission and the Council
to pay urgent attention to this aspect in dealing with governments that
do not allow even a minimum of respect and protection for their indige-
nous Christian minorities. (‘One minute speeches on matters of political
importance’, 9/07/2007, p. 10)
6 I include here only the first 15 combinations.

130 A. GIORGI
Fig. 5 Word clouds: Islam (2004–2019) Christianity (2004–2019) (Source

Created by the author)
The possible accession of Turkey to the European Union as a member

state also raised concerns: on the one hand, many MEPs pointed out
discrimination in Turkey against religions (in general) and other minori-
ties; on the other, the accession of a large country inhabited by a Muslim
majority was discussed in terms of social cohesion and potential difficulties
of coexistence with the European Christian majority (on the EU debate
see, for example, Shakman Hurd, 2010). MEPs favourable to the acces-
sion of Turkey tried to counter these arguments by turning them into a
valuable asset, as the following quotation, from a member of the PSE,
clarifies:
But above all, by opening up to a country that is secular but where

the majority religion is Islam, the Union would make a major contribu-
tion to peace and mutual understanding between peoples in these times
of increasing tension, aggravated mistrust and conflict between Muslim
and Christian countries. This contribution, over and above its symbolic
significance, is of major strategic importance. (‘Turkey’s progress towards
accession’, 13/12/2004, p. 10)
Some of the debates mentioned the role of Christianity in the EU, as

well as the government of religious diversity within the European borders
(on this topic see, for example, Koenig, 2007). Many of the arguments
echoed the debate of the early 2000s on the opportuneness of making
reference to the Christian roots of Europe in the constitution of the EU
(Ozzano & Giorgi, 2016). Hence, in the debate on forms of ‘Dialogue
with churches and non-denominational organizations’ (5/09/2005), the
positions ranged from a defence of secularism to a plea for acknowledging
the role of Churches in Europe. An example of the former argument is
provided by the following extract from a speech by an MEP belonging to
the ALDE group: “Yes, freedom of religion is a fundamental right in the
European Union, but separation of Church and State is one of the basic
principles underpinning our modern society” (p. 4). At the other end
of the spectrum, a member of the Polish national-conservative Christian
democratic and right-wing populist party Law and Justice countered thus:
“Marx once said that religion is the opium of the people. One hundred
and fifty years have passed since then, and there is no longer any point
to such idiotic statements. Churches of all denominations, including the
Catholic Church, are a part of Europe” (p. 3).
132 A. GIORGI
The debates also touched upon terrorism and religion-related violence,

both within and outside Europe, with specific reference to Islam (Tables 1
and 2).
In 2009–2014, instead, the main topic of discussion in terms of reli-
gion was religious freedom outside European borders with regard to
all the different religions and regions involved, among them Nigeria,
China and the North African region. In addition to discrimination on
the grounds of religion and beliefs, the debate increasingly adopted the
language of rights to frame the concerns (on this topic see Giorgi, 2018).
A member of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, for
example, stated:
the number of cases of religious violence has multiplied recently

throughout the world, causing concern and indignation. Banning the exer-
cise of religious faith is a blatant infringement of fundamental rights and of
international law, which stipulates that the right to faith is inalienable and
self-evident. (Situation of Christians in the context of freedom of religion
(debate), 19/01/2011, p. 11)
Table 1 Association of codes (2004–2009), in percentage
Religion Topic Issue 2004–2009
R_general ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_discrimination_racism 19

R_Christians ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_discrimination_racism 14
R_Islam ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_discrimination_racism 11
R_Islam EU_Turkey Religion_problem_coexistence 7
R_general EU_Turkey Religion_discrimination_racism 6
R_other ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_discrimination_racism 5
R_general ReligiousFreedom_UE_equality Religion_discrimination_racism 5
R_Christians RoleReligion_UE_sec Religion_identity_culture 5
R_Catholic ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_discrimination_racism 5
R_general ReligiousFreedom_UE_equality Religion_right 4
R_Islam ReligiousFreedom_UE_equality Religion_discrimination_racism 4
R_Islam Terrorism_fundamentalism_violence Definition 4
R_Christians EU_Turkey Religion_discrimination_racism 4
R_Islam EU_Turkey Religion_discrimination_racism 4
R_Islam ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_problem_coexistence 3
100


R_Christians ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_right 6
R_general ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_right 6
R_Christians ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_identity_culture 6
R_general ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_identity_culture 4
R_Christians ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_problem_coexistence 4
R_Islam ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_identity_culture 4
R_general ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_problem_coexistence 3
R_other ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_discrimination_racism 3
R_Christians Discrimination_Christians_EU Religion_identity_culture 2
R_Islam ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_right 2
R_Christians RoleReligion_UE_sec Religion_identity_culture 2
100
The discussions touched upon the possible tensions related to the pacific
coexistence of different religions, paying attention to the role played
by religious identity, and Christian and Muslim identities in particular.
In reporting the violence of Boko Haram in Nigeria,7 for example, the
President-in-Office for the council, speaking on behalf of the High Repre-
sentative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, commented
that: “the Boko Haram crisis has also brought the best out of many
Nigerians such as Muslims and Christians protecting each other” (p. 2).
Other MEPs mentioned instead the “religious conflicts between the
Islamic North and the Christian South” (p. 3), and “the persecutions
and killings of Christians” (p. 4). Also, in 2009–2014 MEPs started to
raise their voices about what some of them defined as discrimination
against Christians in (and by) the European Union: the protection of
women’s and LGBT+ rights, and concerns about potential discriminations
against Muslim immigrants, led some MEPs to denounce unfair treatment
suffered by the Christian majority and to urge acknowledgement of the
role of Christianity in Europe.
7 Situation in Nigeria, Debate; 14/03/2012.

134 A. GIORGI
For example, one MEP without group membership at the European

Parliament, elected in the Democratic Unionist Party (Northern Ireland),
during a debate on the ‘Situation of Christians in the context of freedom
of religion’ (19/01/2011) protested that:
This year, we celebrate the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, yet
today, to express beliefs founded upon the contents of the Bible is often
deemed unlawful. We face a situation where Christians are being excluded
from certain professions because of their faith and hauled before courts
because of their faith. In the United Kingdom, equality laws are being
used more as a sword than a shield, to punish expression of Christian
faith. This marginalisation of Christianity was exemplified recently by the
Commission in the publication of their diary: Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish
and Chinese festivals were marked – yet there was nothing about Christian
celebrations. I have no doubt that this was no accident, no oversight and
I find it deeply regrettable. (p. 7)
This excerpt illustrates how the self-appointed defenders of Christianity

had started to adopt the language of rights to frame majority religion as
an endangered minority, using expressions such as ‘Christianophobia’ and
‘Christianophobic acts’. During the same debate, another MEP, from the
PPE, commented that.
The European Union fails to provide sufficient defence for Christians

because the Union is terrorised by political correctness, which suppresses
freedom of religion. The ideology of laicism ties our hands and suppresses
freedom of religion. The Union finds it hard to protect and defend Chris-
tians worldwide because it does not respect Christian philosophy itself.
Some Members also disagreed with religious leaders making speeches in
our Parliament. (p. 16)
The main argument here is based on comparison between Christianity and

the other religions. While in the previous term Christianity was defended
as intrinsic to European identity, in 2009–2014 the main framing strategy
focused on reclaiming for Christianity the same rights as granted to
other religions, downplaying the power role associated with the status
of majority religion in Europe. In 2014–2019 term, however, there was
another twist (Table 3).
In recent years, the topics of discussion have changed: even though
religious discrimination and persecutions in the world (Asia and Middle

R_Islam Terrorism_fundamentalism_violence Definition 9
R_Islam ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Definition 7
R_Islam ReligiousFreedom_UE_equality Religion_discrimination_racism 4
R_Islam Multiculturalism_incompatibility Religion_intolerant_threat 4
R_Islam Terrorism_fundamentalism_violence Religion_problem_coexistence 3
R_Islam Terrorism_fundamentalism_violence Religion_intolerant_threat 3
R_general ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_problem_coexistence 3
R_Christians ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_problem_coexistence 3
R_Islam Terrorism_fundamentalism_violence Religion_discrimination_racism 3
R_Islam Multiculturalism_incompatibility Religion_problem_coexistence 3
R_Christians ReligiousFreedom_extraUE Religion_right 2
100
East in particular) remain a central topic, many discussions now consider

what happens within the European borders and touch upon terrorism
and violence, as well as radicalization, in relation to Islam. MEPs try to
disentangle the relationship between Islam and self-appointed ‘religiously-
inspired’ terrorism. Some MEPs reason that the European Union is
fighting extremism, not Islam, while others instead affirm the intrinsi-
cally intolerant nature of Islam and the incompatibility between Islam
and democracy.
The following excerpt, from the speech made by a member of the
UK independent party during a debate on ‘Recent terrorist attacks’
(8/07/2015), illustrates how for some MEPs the issue is related to the
degree of fundamentalism of Muslims.
The problem is that the extremists and the fundamentalists actually choose
the bits that they like in order to satisfy their bloodlust and earn themselves
72 virgins in paradise, although nobody has actually come back to confirm
that they get them. Western liberal democracies must make it plain that
extremist, fundamentalist Islam has no place in western society. We all
come into contact with moderate, peace-loving Muslims every day. They
are not the problem. (p. 9)
136 A. GIORGI
Other MEPs instead warned against Islam itself, as shown by the

following quotation from a speech made by a member of the Europe
of Nations and Freedom group during the debate following the Charlie
Hebdo attack (27/11/2019):
The problem is not IS. The problem is Islam. Islam cannot be recon-
ciled with our Western values and I ask this Parliament the question of
conscience: do you want to guarantee the primacy of our Western values
in the EU? Then you must fight Islam. We must stop foreign funding for
mosques, expel hate-imams and close national borders to Islamic countries.
(p. 17)
This position voices the populist reference to Islam as the ‘other’ of

Europe discussed in the first section. In this specific case, the othering
is spatially constructed: Islam is not compatible because it is not “West-
ern”. The issue of religious coexistence has gained increasing prominence
in debates concerning religion: religion can be either the ground of or
the reason for discrimination, and different religions can have difficult
relationships with one another.
However, the Parliament also records success stories, such as the one
described by a MEP from the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and
Democrats:
There is a crucial need for interfaith dialogue and cooperation. I have

seen the success of this work in my own hometown, Manchester, where
Jewish and Muslim communities are working together to combat hatred
and discrimination. Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia cannot be seen as
a Jewish-Muslim problem, but rather a European issue jeopardising the
democratic fundamental rights and the values of all EU citizens. Embracing
diversity is the only way forward if we are to find hope. (Rise of anti-
semitism, islamophobia and violent extremism in the EU, 11/03/2015,
p. 10)
Indeed, the words used to discuss Christianity and Islam focus on

different aspects.
Christianity (on the left) is connected to ‘us’ (we), Europe and
religious rights. The discussions deal with communities that are discrim-
inated against, freedom, religious institutions (such as the Church) and
values. They also involve the institutional dimension (parliament, govern-
ment), calling for the respect? of minorities against persecution. Besides
Europe, some other geographical locations—Turkey and Iraq—are recur-

rent. Considering the 3 periods, other countries appear to be significant,
such as India (2004–2009), Pakistan, Egypt and Nigeria (2014–2019),
and Syria (2014–2019).
Discussions involving Islam, instead, are clearly organized by a binary
understanding of Islam as something different from ‘us’—‘we’, at the
centre of the cloud, is the word most frequent used when dealing
with topics related to Islam; also, the ‘we’ at the centre shows the
perspective from which the discussion is organized. This resonates with
what was discussed in the introduction: Christianity comes to repre-
sent European (Western) identity, which is defined as different from
the ‘other’ (Brubaker, 2017; Scott, 2018). Words related to Islam are
also ‘terrorism’, ‘security’ and ‘violence’. Broadly speaking, security has
become an increasing concern at the EP and in broader society (Foret &
Markoviti, 2019). Also, institutional matters of democracy and govern-
ment are mentioned. Other relevant topics are community and society,
and also dialogue and freedom. Women are also mentioned in discussions
related to Islam in order to either support or undermine the narrative
according to which Islam endangers women’s (and LBGTQ + ) rights.
On discussing the EU strategy for equality between women and men in
2015 (27/11/2019), for example, a MEP from the Dutch populist Party
of Freedom stated:
In 40 pages of text there’s not a single word about Islam, that ideology
with medieval views on the position of men and women. Because according
to Islam, the testimony of a man is worth as much as that of two women
and a man may marry more than one woman and a woman only one man,
and in matters of inheritance the woman does not receive the same as a
man in her position. This is an ideology that is increasingly gaining ground
in the EU and a Gender Equality Commission that forgets to mention this
in a report on gender equality is really not worth a look. (p. 7)
Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan are often mentioned—and in 2004–2009 also

Iran attracted attention. In 2014–2019 the discussion included Daesh and
Isis, and the danger that they represent for the European Union.
Rarely do the debates on religion explicitly deal with populism. In
2004–2009 one MEP spoke about the ‘theocratic populism of Syria’,
while in 2009–2014 the intersections mainly concerned Islam. Apart
from one mention of the ‘Buddhist populist mainstream’ in Myanmar,
138 A. GIORGI
the topics mentioned involved ‘populists’ against ‘Islam’—such as in the

case of the clash between the member of a populist party and Muslim
worshippers in Bulgaria, or when an MEP listed among the ‘populist
subjects’ the protests against minarets and Islam in Europe. In 2014–
2019, instead, ‘populism’ more clearly entered the MEPs’ vocabulary
and the intersections increased and expanded their range, although their
number remained limited. Four frames emerge. As in 2009–2014, so
in 2014–2019 ‘populism’ was framed as inciting hatred against Islam
through the posting of fake news and hate speech on digital platforms, for
example, or through the overlap they make between terrorism and Islam.
This is the othering strategy well known in the literature (e.g. Brubaker,
2017; Roy, 2016).
A slightly different frame depicts populism as discriminatory against
all religious minorities—not necessarily Islam. One representative of
the European Conservative and reformist group, for example, linked
populism with “so-called ‘discussion’ of the Holocaust, and verbal and
physical violence against Jews in European cities” (Combating anti-
semitism, 31/05/2017, p. 3). From this perspective, the populist attack
(or discrimination) against religious minorities is relocated into general
defence of majority rule (see Urbinati, 2018). A third frame instead
proposes the connection between populists and the discursive mobiliza-
tion of Christianity in terms of national or European identity—which
mostly emerges in the debates on Hungary. One example is the speech
by an MEP from the French Green party commenting on populism and
nationalism in Hungary:
However, a modern state and an open society cannot be based on a

religion. Otherwise, the atheists, Jews, Muslims and people of other
persuasions would not feel comfortable in this country. That is precisely
what many people in Hungary today find oppressive. The nationalist
and chauvinist atmosphere makes them uncomfortable. (Recent political
developments in Hungary, 18/01/2012, p. 29)
Nonetheless, this frame is also interpreted as praise for the courage of

Hungary in defending Christianity, countering the allegation of ‘pop-
ulism’. Commenting on the revised Constitution of Hungary, one MEP
for example maintained: “As a Christian-Democrat, I am absolutely
delighted that there is a reference to God and Christianity, because it
is a fundamental part of our culture and our history and I think it is
far better to have it included than excluded and creating a godless soci-
ety” (Revised Hungarian constitution, 8/06/2011, p. 14). Yet another
frame concerns the parallelism between ‘populism’ and ‘radical Islam’,
both considered as extremist points of view. This is particularly inter-
esting because it stems from the attempt to find a middle ground between
populism and fanaticism, as illustrated by the following excerpt, in which
a socialist MEP discusses the right to freedom of expression and respect
for religious beliefs (15/02/2006):
We want to send a clear signal today: we are determined to ignore new

provocations, which cannot be used by extremists in Europe and in the
Muslim world to inflame violence and intolerance and create new myths
about each other. We have seen it so many times before from xenophobic
and populist parties in Europe and from the extremist movements in the
Muslim world. We say ‘no’ to those who claim it is ‘them against us’.
(p. 5)
The parallelism is identified precisely in the Manichean opposition

between ‘us’ and ‘them’, which can be found in fundamentalism as well.
Discussion: Different Impacts, Nuanced Debates

By considering the multiple intersections of populism and religion, this
study has sought to determine whether populism has in fact had an impact
in discussions on religion at the European Parliament. The aim has not
been to identify the populist arguments adduced to defend Christianity
or warn against Islam. Rather, the purpose of the analysis has been to
understand the topics and frames associated with religion and to assess
whether there has been a change due to the increase of populist MEPs
(and discussions on populism).
As the analysis has shown, there has in fact been a change during the
last term of the EP: the discussions concerning religions touch upon what
occurs within the European borders, traditionally a topic of reluctance
for the EP (Foret & Markoviti, 2019). Whereas until 2014 religion was
something to be taken into account when discussing other countries and
continents, since 2014 it has become something that matters to Europe
as well. At first, MEPs discussed discrimination on the grounds of reli-
gion and belief in Europe, with some MEPs claiming for Christianity
the same treatment as granted to other religions. From 2014 onwards,
140 A. GIORGI
Islam came to prominence as a matter of debate in relation to terrorism

and radicalization, and in relation to the identity of Europe. Religion is
in fact a matter of belonging, as Roy (2016) put it: therefore, religion
is discussed in relation to immigration and European identity. This may
be partly related to the changes in the topics concerned—in particular,
to the increasing importance of counter-radicalization policies (Foret &
Markoviti, 2020). To some extent, however, it is also related to changes in
the composition of MEPs. This can be seen, in particular, in the increasing
attention paid to what some MEPs call ‘discrimination against Christians’
in Europe and by the European Union, and in the less evident and yet
present increasing ‘genderization of racism’ (or femonationalism, Farris,
2017), whereby Islam is depicted as discriminatory against women (and,
in some cases, against LGBT+ people). The increase in the number of
MEPs elected in the ranks of populist parties, combined with the growing
attention to populism within and outside the European Parliament, has
led to the increasing importance of religion as a matter of debate.
More broadly, the references increase to the binary conceptualization
of Christian and Muslim as opposing and radically different identities.
In line with the literature pointing out the re-enactment of the colo-
nial discourse’s use of religion as an othering device (Brubaker, 2017;
Scott, 2018), Christianity and Islam are often opposed in the EP debate.
This is not to say that the EP has become the champion of Christianity
against the Muslim threat: the study only accounts for the fact that this
frame is increasingly put forward in the EP discussions and, therefore,
that it is a significant matter of debate. However, this analysis does not
distinguish between those who support this view and those who want to
counter this understanding of the relationships among Islam, Christianity
and Europe. The debate is complex, vocal and still ongoing, and it inter-
sects with many different and delicate topics. The most relevant feature
is that the populists in power (Albertazzi & McDonnell, 2015) do not
change or modify their discourse in the EP arena. MEPs from populist
parties have contributed to changing the matters discussed in relation to
religion, and the alleged binary opposition between Christianity and Islam
has become the most important frame. As a consequence, the increasing
number of populist MEPs in the EP will lead to discussion of religion
mostly as a matter of identity and culture. It is safe to assume that the
related policies will change as well.
However, this risk appears to be underestimated by MEPs. The anal-
ysis has also shown that those who raise concerns about populism rarely
express disquiet about the role of religion in the populist discourse,

and those who raise concerns about discrimination against religion rarely
frame it in terms of populism. Warnings against populism mostly regard
the possible discrimination against minorities, such as sexual minorities,
or Roma groups, and against migrants. On some occasions, also the anti-
Muslim attitude is called out. However, the role of Christianity is treated
with more ambiguity in populist discourse, and it is rarely described as
a matter of concern. Only in the debate on Orban and Hungary was
attention directed to how Christianity has become a central aspect of
Hungarian national identity. Nonetheless, even on that occasion only few
MEPs warned against the connection between the prominence of one reli-
gious tradition and the possible discrimination against minorities. Many
other MEPs instead praised the courage shown in explicitly acknowl-
edging the role of Christianity in Hungarian culture, or they maintained
that it would not be a problem. For European MEPs, Christianity appears
to be a delicate matter for discussion: the complex debate on the Chris-
tian roots of Europe, and the fact that all the European treaties, while
fostering equality and non-discrimination, state that religion is a country-
related topic, testify to the attentive and balanced approach that the
European Union has tried to maintain with respect to religion (Foret,
2015). However, the presence of populist MEPs is likely to unbalance
the EU approach to religion in the next few years.
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The European Commission and Reactions
to the ‘Populist Turn’ in Anti-discrimination
Policy
Carlo Ruzza
Introduction
This chapter examines the impact of populism on the European Commis-
sion. It frames this impact in the general context of the reactions of
all European Union (EU) institutions to populism. After a brief general
introduction on the meaning of populism and its impact on the European
Union, it focuses on reactions of the European Commission (hence-
forth Commission) at three levels—the level of Commission presidents,
the level of the college of Commissioners, and the civil service of the
Commission. Overall, the chapter argues that the Commission has been,
and still is, worried about the successes of populist parties. However, these
successes appear to have declined to some extent during the COVID-
19 pandemic, and this has given the Commission a new impetus to
relaunch the European project. As has often, but not always, been the
case, while undermining some aspects of the European project, crises also
furnish opportunities to expand it. This may happen when, among other
factors, path-dependencies resulting from earlier integration decisions
C. Ruzza (B)

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73411-4_7
148 C. RUZZA
stimulate the mobilisation of interests in the consolidation of integration

(Schimmelfennig, 2018). These path-dependencies may involve a variety
of institutional processes, as pointed out by post-functionalist theories.
However, it is argued here, they may also result from perceived threats to
cherished values and the self-definitions of a key body of professionals
at the core of the European project—the Commission in its political
wing and in its civil service. This chapter argues that the threat raised by
populist formations to the legitimacy of European integration has deeply
affected the Commission, and that it has mobilised a reaction that has
resulted in a strengthening of some aspects of the European project.
To substantiate this point, the chapter will examine how populism has
affected the Commission’s various echelons and how they have reacted.
Discussion of the Commission and populism cannot ignore the broader
geopolitical context in which it operates. However, it is also important
to acknowledge that the Commission is internally fragmented, and while
a thematic analysis can reveal its overarching reactions to populism, the
views of the Commission need to be framed in terms of types of actors,
organisational sub-domains with different functions, and time frames.
Thus, this chapter will start by framing populism in the historical context
that has shaped European integration and by considering some of its
organisational dynamics most affected by populism.
The Commission is a transnational bureaucracy structured in a complex
set of entities that differ in their organisational cultures, functions, and
histories. Over recent decades, the political climate of member states has
been significantly affected by the electoral successes of populist parties,
particularly populist parties of the radical right. These victories impinge
on the EU in several ways and are therefore highly consequential for
the EU project and several of its institutions. Secondly, the impact of
populism on the Commission is filtered by its effect on other EU insti-
tutions, notably the European Parliament (EP). Brief discussion of this
impact will therefore be necessary. Thirdly, the impact of populism is
shaped by the political cultures of the Commission and the changes that
have characterised it over the years. Consequently, a section of this chapter
will discuss this impact, which cannot be inferred solely from the policy
output of the Commission. It also needs to be documented on the basis
of how the issue of populism is conceptualised in the political and policy
texts of the Commission and in the political culture of its civil servants.
Thus, the same section will also present empirical research on a range of
texts.
THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION AND REACTIONS … 149
The Success of Populist Parties and Euroscepticism

Populism is not a new phenomenon. It is often conceptualised as a
political ideology that focuses on a cleavage between elites and ‘the
people’ seen as an undifferentiated and all-encompassing constituency
of individuals perceiving themselves as excluded from power (Mudde &
Kaltwasser, 2017). In this perspective, over the years, there have been
several EU right-wing populist movements and parties that have thema-
tised an emerging ‘people versus elites’ cleavage. They have also stressed
the resentment that accompanies perceptions of exclusion and betrayal
among social constituencies that perceive themselves as culturally and
economically marginal. However, anti-elitism is a broad characterisation
that leaves the concept of populism under-specified. Therefore, several
additional characterisations are utilised to make its usage more precise,
such as right-wing and left-wing populism. These specifications have also
included attempts to differentiate populism’s distinctive traits from other
features with which it often co-occurs, such as an anti-system political
style, authoritarianism, or a nationalist ethos (De Cleen et al., 2018).
The question of what is considered populism is important not only in
academic terms, but more broadly in terms of how its supporters and its
opponents aim their political activities. It is therefore useful to examine
how the Commission has conceptualised populism, how it has set out to
oppose it, and on which aspects it has sought compromise. This chapter
will focus on these aspects.
In particular, the distinction between nationalism and populism is
essential in Europe because of the long history of nationalism. Emphasis
on the concepts of ‘the nation’ or ‘the people’ produces different
constructs and may lead to diverse types of movements, although both
concepts may also co-occur (Brubaker, 2019; Kaltwasser et al., 2017).
An integration of populism and nationalism is typical of the European
Union and tends particularly to occur at the EU level, where non-
nationalist populisms are under-represented. Except for some regionalist
ethno-nationalisms, the nationalisms active within EU institutions are
generally of the right. When nationalisms and populisms occur together,
they usually combine the populist anti-system stance with extreme
right anti-migrant exclusionism. This chapter will only focus on these
parties. However, the distinction between a nationalism-driven concept of
populism and one with a main emphasis on ‘the people’ is important for
the analysis of anti-populist movements. In the opposition against radical
150 C. RUZZA
right populists (RRPs), it is useful to consider whether nationalism is

included and how prominently. Nationalism is the ideology against which
the EU has defined its existence, and it should not be conflated with
populism, although it often co-occurs with it.
The impact of RRPs is a politically and socially important issue because
the substantial expansion of European nationalist populisms of the past
few decades has been attended by a shared sense of alarm which dates back
some decades. Right-wing populisms have included the extreme right
ethno-nationalist populism of the Italian Northern League in the late
1980s, as well as Pim Fortuyn’s LPF in the Netherlands, and the extreme
right populism of Jörg Haider’s FPÖ in Austria and Jean-Marie Le Pen’s
FN in France. All these movements, and most of the ones that followed,
were characterised by a strong right-wing positioning. So too, though less
markedly, was the centre-right neoliberal populism of the media tycoon
Silvio Berlusconi in the 1990s.
During the early 2000s, most European right-wing populisms
embraced and then radicalised an anti-EU stance. Nationalist populists
saw the European Union as the outcome of an elitist social and political
project to be combatted through the reassertion of national allegiances. A
connection among the EU, nationalist sentiments, and a populist ideology
emerged within EU institutions, but it received only scant scholarly
attention. And even when academics focused on this party family, they
considered only the EP, without attention to its impact on other insti-
tutions. This inattention obscured the vital role that the EU level can
play in providing a common platform to populist parties in the Parlia-
ment, in shaping several key policies that involve populist actors in the
Council and other institutions, and in documenting reactions of the EU
Commission. The Commission’s role in agenda-setting, particularly in
crucial policy areas such as migration, is notably affected by member
states’ general political climate and other EU institutions. Populist actors
have been instrumental in spreading alarm about the impact of migration
flows and therefore, the necessity for a stricter migration policy in several
member states (Ruzza, 2018; Wodak, 2015). More broadly, populism
has impacted on anti-discrimination policy by, for instance, undermining
human rights policies, views on the role of civil society groups, and
commitment to the rule of law (Ruzza, 2014).
However, it would be reductive to conceptualise the impact of
populism only in terms of the signature policies of populist actors or the
communication strategies of the EU. The EU needs and seeks cultural
and political legitimacy. For this reason, the opposition to populism is

critical in discursive terms. By and large, the Commission has been an
opponent of RRPs. Thus, the Commission’s role should be defined as
that of engaging in various forms of anti-populism, which is performed
in a variety of ways through its full range of policies, its institutional
dynamics, and its external political discourse. The Commission’s role in
the public sphere includes a constant presence in social media, and it
addresses key issues such as reactions to the populist turn in member
states and responses to accompanying phenomena, such as Brexit (Pejovic
& Cossarini, 2020; Ruzza & Pejovic, 2019).
In opposing populism, institutions such as the Commission are forced
to specify how they understand it, and what aspects they oppose. That is,
they must explain why they see the joint nationalist and populist ideolo-
gies as detrimental to the process of EU construction. However, before
populism attracted the attention of the Commission, nationalism was its
main target.
Populism and European Institutions

The successes of nationalist and then nationalist-populist parties in several
member states and in the EP came slowly, and it gradually impacted
on not only the political activities of the Commission but also its civil
service, which was very politicised from the outset. As several historical
works show, the European project was never a project merely focused on
maximising prosperity and security. A federalist blueprint was present at
the beginning of the process of European construction, and for several
decades, it prevailed over competing interpretations of the nature of
the process (Beland & Cox, 2011; Parsons, 2011). Thus, an integra-
tionist approach has always characterised the large majority of the EU’s
personnel, and particularly the Commission, even if this feature may have
declined to some extent over time (Hooghe, 2001).
Thus, a revamping of nationalism as advocated by right-wing populist
actors has always conflicted with the political culture of EU institutions.
Nonetheless, historically, nor was a fully federalist programme espoused
by the architects of EU integration, who generally preferred the term
‘integration’ to ‘federation’ precisely because it was less constraining
(Anderson, 2021). Consequently, there has always also been sufficient
space for support for, or at least tolerance of, a degree of nationalism
among the advocates of the process of EU construction, so that the
152 C. RUZZA
nationalist blueprint has been potentially viable for its institutionalisation

in the structure of EU institutions.
The tension between an intergovernmental and integrationist perspec-
tive reflects the dualism implicit in the integration process, but nation-
alism clearly remained controlled and delimited by the disquieting
evidence of the damage that its extreme forms had caused in the previous
decades. Only later did stronger versions of nationalism re-appear and
accompany growing opposition to the process of European construction.
When this initially occurred, the ideology and the concept of populism
were still not relevant or used to interpret European political events.
For several years, nationalism was accepted and partially institutionalised
like all dominant ideologies have been institutionalised in the European
project. This took place also because of the distinctive and institution-
ally necessary propensity for compromise that has always characterised
the EU policy style and facilitated the absorption of all ideological stand-
points into the EU framework. In a weakly authoritative institutional
framework that lacks the constraining power of a nation-state, all ideo-
logical standpoints need to be fully taken into account and to some
extent incorporated. This ambivalence has characterised the EU since its
inception.
In describing the reactions of the Commission to populism, it is useful
to start by briefly reviewing the political discourse of the presidents of
the Commission. It is also useful to examine the views on populism
and nationalism expressed by other key Commission actors, such as the
Commissioners and their civil service, who have stated their opinions on
this subject. A methodology for this purpose will now be proposed.
Methodology: Text Analysis

of Populism and the Commission
The EU Commission produces a large number of texts of different kinds.
Most of these texts have no relevance to the analysis of populist discourse,
how it is conceptualised, reactions to it, or connections made among
related issues. Moreover, the word ‘populism’ is rarely used in legal docu-
ments, and not even in speeches aimed at the general public. References
to RRPs might be obvious to a reader but not identifiable through a
single-word analysis.
For this reason, first created for the research reported here was a short-
list of keywords to identify which Commission’s texts were potentially
relevant to the thematic area of populism and anti-populism. This list

was based on an initial exploratory analysis which suggested keywords
that would facilitate the identification of relevant texts. Available sources
of EU texts were then examined by selecting Commission documents
that contained references to at least two of the themes identified by
the chosen keywords, which were: Populism, Discrimination, Hate speech,
Xenophobia, Euroscepticism, Migration, Brexit, European democracy, Euro-
pean values. Commission documents were downloaded from the EU
website and comprised speeches, press releases, and communications to
the EP and other institutions of Commissioners and Commission presi-
dents. By progressing from 2013 until the end of 2020, a database was
created whose internal composition was a first finding on who in the
Commission discussed themes defined by the keywords mentioned above.
A second finding concerned the more detailed content of these texts,
which were examined and classified by adding new codes after scoring
them.
For instance, the frame Euroscepticism, which was one of the initial
keywords, was defined as relating to fundamental criticism of the EU. The
frame Democracy in the EU , which was not one of the initial keywords,
was identified by the text analysis because RRPs are often accused of
undermining European democracy. References to Democracy with explicit
or implicit reference to RRPs were then used to select excerpts from the
previously selected texts. This code was defined as including all explicit
references to a variety of issues relating to democracy in the EU and
including threats raised by RRPs. The unit of analysis was a meaningful
portion of the text, or ‘frame’, which in some cases was a sentence, or a
paragraph if consecutive sentences repeated the same concept. A team of
four analysts coded the texts identified. After practising on a small sample
of texts and discussing the outcomes, they attributed additional codes in
order to document the full thematic range that characterises Commis-
sion’s texts that discuss issues where populism is implicitly or explicitly
significant. At the end of the process, codes that had appeared only a few
times were merged with more frequently occurring ones.
This methodological approach is frequently utilised in the social
sciences, and it is generally characterised as a type of frame analysis (David
& Baden, 2017). This thematic analysis provides an understanding of
how frequently the Commission conceptualises RRPs, how it understands
populism when it discusses it, and the hierarchy of concepts through
which it frames issues that are seen as connected to the range of themes
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central to RRPs’ political discourse. The analysts retrieved 206 populism-

relevant documents during the period 2013–2020 and identified 45
codes. Each coded excerpt identified as relevant by the analysts could
then be classified with one or more codes. This furnished understanding
of code frequencies, of co-occurrences, and of the entire thematic space
that these documents discussed.
After the text analysis, some identified codes were retained but also
aggregated into larger units, thus producing more general codes. For
instance, a broader definition of the code Populism would encompass
Solutions to populism, Populism as a threat to the European Project, EU
reactions to populist policies, and Populism in Hungary, thereby signifi-
cantly increasing the relevance of this topic. However, by disarticulating
the code Populism between a generic reference to the issue and specific
contents that qualify it better, it is possible to understand why and how
populism matters for the Commission.
This methodology should be conceived as a structured way to read
EU texts. The frequencies of interpretive codes, or frames, are indicative
of their centrality in the Commission’s discourse, but the methodology
remains mainly interpretive and has to rely on excerpts as examples of the
frames identified. Small differences in frame frequencies should not be
over-interpreted. Nevertheless, substantial differences in the number of
frames reveal the varying priorities of different actors. Before discussing
the results of the frame analysis, it is necessary to briefly outline the views
of the Commission on nationalism and populism in historical terms.
The European Commission and Its

Views on Nationalism and Populism
Like other political and social institutions, over the years, the Commission
has been ambivalent on several issues and has embraced emerging social
and political ideologies to gain legitimacy. The impact of radical right
populists is filtered by the mix of prevailing ideologies shaping the EU at
any moment in time. A brief characterisation of these changes is useful.
There are several periodisations of how the EU has changed its ideas over
time.
The first characterisation of the nature of the EU’s attitude to nation-
alism took place under the presidency of Walter Hallstein (1958–67),
whose approach was strongly federalist and distinguished by its rejec-
tion of the nationalist sentiments that had engendered the Second World
War. For Hallstein, and for the first groups of architects of the Euro-
pean project, a strong federalist ethos was the best way to curb the
extreme nationalisms that had led to the war (Dedman, 2009: 18).
Hallstein fought fiercely to buttress the Commission’s role against any
neglect by the Council—which was sometimes intent on undermining
other EU institutions—as several of his speeches demonstrate (see, for
instance, Hallstein, 1966). A second important feature of this period
was the depiction of the European project as a cosmopolitan globalist
project, particularly in the sense of a transatlantic project, to be protected
from inter-state manoeuvres—an undertaking spurred by transnational
layers engaged in informal ‘constitutionalisation’ of the European project
(Vauchez, 2015: 21). This globalist project coexisted with neoliberal
elements, as well as with a federalist ethos. From the outset, although
several of its supporters differed in their philosophies, they agreed on
the value of free-market competition and therefore against economic
nationalisms (Denord & Schwartz, 2010). Thus, Hallstein, for instance,
emphasised his opposition to the ‘economic nationalism inherited from
the past’ (Hallstein, 1958).
These elements laid the basis for a project that was principled in nature
and strongly opposed to a radical right viewpoint, which was often not
only anti-globalist but also protectionist and inimical to the neoliberal
ethos of ‘big business’, which was seen as culturally and economi-
cally threatening the local communities that right-wingers attempted to
represent—that is, the ‘losers of globalisation’ as the relevant literature
describes them (Norris & Inglehart, 2019). Thus, from its inception,
the EU represented an arch-enemy for extreme right-wingers. These
founding principles were never substantially changed thereafter. Succes-
sive presidents continued along this path. However, other significant
changes took place with another two-term president—Delors. His advo-
cacy of a social dimension included attention to inclusive policies, which
although never achieved, once again grated with the ethos of right-wing
populists. The same can be said several years later about the presidency
of Romano Prodi, who took office after the crisis-ridden presidency of
Santer. He attempted to relaunch the European project with new and
explicit efforts to constitutionalise the EU, which he pursued by also
attributing a unique and essential role to organised civil society. This
role was enshrined in the influential White Paper on Governance, and
the several dedicated committees that wrote it constituted other areas of
156 C. RUZZA
disagreement between RRPs and their opponents (European Commis-

sion, 2001; European Commission et al., 2001). In emphasising the role
of intermediary associations, the White Paper opposed the disintermedi-
ation ethos of RRPs, for which European civil society was simply part
of an international elite that had to be combatted as a remote traitor
of ‘the people’. Moreover, empowering civil society meant accepting
its priorities and notably its focus on anti-discrimination, human rights,
and social inclusion of minorities—themes which, as said, were under-
mining the ‘natural’ unity of ‘the people’ posited by populists. Prodi’s
priorities had an ambivalent impact. On the one hand, issues related to
the role of civil society and more generally to the preferences of citi-
zens in decision-making processes acquired visibility and some viability
within EU institutions. On the other hand, the ambitious process of
constitutionalising the EU failed after its 2005 rejection by French and
Dutch voters. The more substantial EU integration process opposed by
right-wing Eurosceptics was shown to be also unpopular with many EU
citizens.
The uneasy relationship between RRPs and the Commission presi-
dency continued in the following years. In 2007–2011, the financial crisis
increased the ranks of the ‘losers of globalisation’—a social category to
which scholars have attributed the renewed significance of populism. In
that period, the solid link among strong nationalism, Euroscepticism,
and populism interpreted mainly as anti-elitism began to acquire broader
scholarly relevance. Academics interpreted the emergence of populism in
several ways, but two explanations attracted most support. One concerned
disenchantment with the neoliberal turn in Western economies because of
its impact on the poorer and less skilled sections of the population, which
in a highly globalised economy were increasingly facing competition from
migrants. The second explanation centred on cultural resentment engen-
dered by the cultural changes induced by significant migration flows. In
both cases, a renewed focus on migration defined populism and nation-
alism as mainly characterised by an anti-migrant ethos. Measures intended
to restrict immigration became signature policies of the populist right and
a major political opportunity for emerging populist leaders.
In this respect, to be noted is that the next Commission president—
José Manuel Barroso—began openly to criticise populism, which became
a strong and shared concern during his two terms. In 31 documents
included in the textual dataset, he makes reference to populism 28 times,
often as a threat to the EU . If one considers all items relative to RRPs,
which include codes relative to the extreme right, to populism, and to

Euroscepticism, Barroso’s mentions of these codes amount to 58 instances
in the 31 documents sampled for this actor. Even when the analysis is
restricted to Barroso’s remarks on populism, this code was third in his list
of most frequently used frames. The first most frequent Barroso frame
was extolling European values, and the second was European solidarity.
Populism for Barroso was related to another defining topic often included
in academic definitions of populism—Xenophobia, a code that occurred
15 times, and Euroscepticism as a threat, which occurred 11 times. Thus,
the image arises of a president of the Commission who was worried
by populism, which he saw as undermining the European project in its
founding values and as spurring xenophobic reactions in a general context
of mounting negative views of the EU. His main purpose was to reaf-
firm a neoliberal ideology, a framing that constituted a trademark of his
presidency and a contentious position for RRPs, which generally adopt
an ideology of social nationalism (Anderson, 2021: 13). The following
excerpt illustrates Barroso’s viewpoint.
Faced with the resurgence of populism, extremism and xenophobic feel-

ings, we have again to stand up clearly for this core value we believe in:
freedom. And we have to reject all kinds of stereotypes and prejudices.
Confronted with the challenge of a fast-changing globalised and interde-
pendent world, we have to be emboldened by the daring of our founding
fathers. A Europe which had been reconciled and unified and had defeated
totalitarian regimes cannot turn into a fearful and worried Europe. We have
to be true to our own values of peace, freedom and respect for human
dignity. (Barroso, 2014)
After Barroso, concerns about populism combined with worries about

the extreme right and Euroscepticism remained central to the attention
and speeches of the next Commission presidents. They occurred a fifth
more frequently in the speeches of Junker (18 times in 7 documents). In
his one term in office, RRPs were again expanding. The migration crisis
of 2014–2015 further strengthened RRPs, and it made Migration even
more the defining issue of the populist party family. In the meantime,
the issue of ‘illiberal democracy’ was broadening the RRPs’ repertoire by
including even stronger opposition to civil society organisations and more
substantial concerns about social conservatism.
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These new themes started to reverberate in Brussels, where conserva-

tive civil society associations were beginning to establish a presence which,
while remaining marginal, grew over time (Ruzza, 2021). With populist
leaders such as Orbàn still in the European Popular Party, although
suspended, and with a geopolitical situation in which there arose populist
leaders like Boris Johnson in the UK and Trump in the USA, it appeared
that RRPs were becoming at least partly institutionalised. Some of their
values were becoming more broadly accepted. The previously undisputed
ethos of globalisation was beginning to be more widely questioned. After
the financial crisis, the EU grew more intergovernmental as heads of state
were significantly taking over in deciding EU actions. This was justified
with the need for rapid decisions, and it accelerated a process of presiden-
tialisation of the EU rooted in re-emerging nationalism. In this context,
the Commission appeared weakened.
These perceptions are reflected in the discursive framings of Junker,
who appeared not only more worried about populism but also more
concerned about Euroscepticism. His sampled documents show acknowl-
edgement that the European project is in trouble and include, like for
Barroso, calls for European solidarity and European values. Similarly, the
analysis of Junker’s speeches identifies the similar code EU Self-praise,
which indicates a congratulatory tone in assessing the actions of the
EU. Thus, similarly to Barroso, despite their different ideological back-
grounds, for Junker the RRPs constitute a threat to a cherished image
of a solidaristic and value-defined EU. A couple of short examples of his
views on populism will suffice.
Right across the world, we have seen populist movements wanting – and
sometimes succeeding – to subvert the Rule of Law and create divisions
and disharmony in our communities. (Junker, 2017)
The other continents do not understand the rise of stupid, pernicious forms
of populism that are in danger of rending Europe asunder, a Europe that
has been so patiently built step by step, conviction by conviction, over the
past decades. (Junker, 2016)
During the von der Leyen presidency, the entire EU framework has
been shaken by the COVID-19 crisis. Her focus has to some extent
shifted away from debating populism. However, it has been increasingly
considered indirectly in the predictable context of Brexit and in rela-

tion to populist-endorsed conspiracy theories related, for instance, to
COVID-19—a theme to which the EU has started to pay more systematic
attention (see, for instance, the website identifying conspiracy theories |
European Commission).1
However, in the context of COVID-19, several observers have noted
that the still ongoing crisis has revealed the weakness of RRPs. Their
dislike of experts has backfired when they are in decision-making roles.
Conversely, the Commission, an institution that makes expertise its over-
arching credo, has in several ways benefitted. Overall, the EU has reacted
to this unexpected and momentous challenge with sufficient unity, speed,
and efficacy (Christiansen, 2020). It is, however, too early to consider this
issue comprehensively.
Nonetheless, the Commission of recent years is very different from the
ambitious Commission intent in pursuing a constitutionalising strategy of
a decade ago. It is less ambitious partly because its attempts at legitima-
tion have generally failed, but also because its personnel have different
backgrounds and have been less committed to the European project for
years. The committed Europeanists of a few decades ago are retiring. The
top echelons of the Commission used to have a legal background or just
below in the hierarchy they often had even a background in European
studies, but after the reforms of recent decades, particularly the Kinnock
reform and the long time taken to implement it fully, they now tend
to have a management or business background and are more concerned
with output efficacy than with legitimation (Anderson, 2021: 13). Over
the years, successive reforms have changed the culture of the Commis-
sion in important ways, often institutionalising principles of New Public
Management (Georgakakis, 2017).
For some Commission personnel, the RPPs threat does not have a
strong emotional impact because they may be sympathetic to a less ambi-
tious and more intergovernmental union, just as RRPs desire (Dehousse
& Thompson, 2012). Nonetheless, many others civil servants still see
RRPs as a threat. Aware of these views, RRPs see a less ambitious
Commission as possibly less of a target for RRPs. With Christiansen
(2020), it can be argued that if the dream of a strong and legitimated
EU has failed, the Commission together with other EU institutions has
1 https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/coronavirus-response/fighting-disinf
ormation/identifying-conspiracy-theories_en.
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shown a remarkable ability to ‘muddle through’ and even expand its

powers, as it has often done in periods of crisis (Christiansen, 2020).
These include the financial crisis and the current COVID-19 crisis, where
the Next Generation EU initiative may have taken a substantial new step
towards European financial and political unification and possibly retrieved
some of the legitimacy that other crises undermined (Picek, 2020). Even
so, RRPs remain among the main threats to the Commission because
their existence and their political discourse clash with many aspects of the
Commission’s ethos, even when account is taken of its internal diversity,
which should not be ignored when considering populism.
Nonetheless, the origins of the Commission’s anti-populist discourse
that previous paragraphs summarised have remained. The Commission
has solidified a set of views that have remained largely shared over the
years. Thus, the aversion to nationalism of the early years, the rejection of
the populist xenophobic discourse of subsequent times, the concern about
other grounds of discrimination, the emphasis on expertise, the appreci-
ation of intermediate bodies of civil society, and the valuing of the rule
of law of recent years have solidified in a political discourse that consti-
tutes the foundations of the European project against which opposition
by RRPs is directed.
However, it should be noted that the Commission discourse extends
beyond the ethos of its presidents. The Commission is, on the one hand,
a hierarchical bureaucracy and is therefore shaped by its president’s views,
at least in the way it presents itself in the public sphere and in the way
its strategic ‘high politics’ objectives are devised and implemented. On
the other hand, below its Commissioner and top bureaucratic levels, it
is also a decentralised structure where its units are governed by different
ideologies. In the words of the classic study by Michelmann (1978), it is
a set of ‘cottage industries’ where every directorate differs somewhat in
priorities and taken-for-granted assumptions (see also Georgakakis, 2017;
Michelmann, 1978). Thus, the impact of populism is more direct in the
areas of the Commission guided by principles that are most at loggerheads
with the radical right populist ideology.
These are typically areas concerned with signature populist policies,
notably migration policy and anti-discrimination policy, since these are
the areas in which confrontations tend to be stronger. This is because
the ‘politics of the enemy’ ethos of populism tends to emphasise national
belonging and cultural roots, while both migrants and minorities, such
as sexual ones, are defined as outsiders. For this reason, the rest of this
chapter will mainly focus on these issue areas.
Populism and Political Discourse Analysis

Using the methodology described above, the political discourse analysis
identified the most frequent concepts in the Commission’s discourse.
These are presented in Table 1. The code European Values (all the
Table 1 List of codes

European values 273
identified
Populism 124
Discrimination 119
Solidarity 119
Xenophobia 100
Extremism 79
Gender equality 77
Solution for European challenges 74
Migration 73
Radicalisation 69
Future of Europe 55
Hate crime 53
EU self-praise 37
Solution for Euroscepticism 37
EU reaction to populist policies 35
Solution for populism 31
Evoking the past 27
Euroscepticism as a threat 25
Democracy in the EU 24
European identity 23
European project in trouble 23
Populism in Hungary 20
Rebutting Europhobic myths 20
Need to create a counter-narrative 18
Populism as a threat to the European project 18
Criticism of discrimination against minorities 17
Clash between national and EU levels 15
Criticism of enemy politics and scapegoating 15
Online extremism as a threat 15
Cooperation with other international bodies 14
Violation of law 14
Violation of the rule of law 14
Monitoring role of EU bodies 13
Populism in Poland 13
Illustrations of right-wing extremism 10
Reasons for the surge of populism 10

162 C. RUZZA
actual codes identified and utilised in the frame analysis are capitalised
and set in italics for ease of identification) is in absolute terms the most
frequent code, showing a persistent preoccupation of the Commission
with advancing and protecting the European project. A second family
of codes concerns preoccupations with populism. A third set of codes
concerns issues that are seen as thematic areas affected by the populist
threat, which include discrimination in its various forms. However,
it should be noted that Discrimination for the Commission concerns
gender and ethnicity above all other grounds for discrimination. While
article 19 of the Amsterdam Treaty identifies and sets out to oppose five
forms of discrimination (action to combat discrimination based on sex,
racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orienta-
tion), only gender and ethnicity appear prominently. In response to these
threats, the third code emphasises the necessity to enhance social soli-
darity. Other codes often specify and clarify the nature of these three types
of codes. However, there are also codes that are part of the RRPs’ signa-
ture concerns, such as the code Radicalisation, which refers to Islamism,
or general codes such as concerns about the Future of Europe.
The second set of findings from content-analysing the Commission’s
texts is provided by a co-occurrence analysis of populism with other
codes. Of the keywords utilised to construct the dataset, the frame
populism occurred 124 times; the next frame among the keywords used
to select texts was discrimination (119 times) and then Migration (73
times). Other keywords appeared less frequently. Thus, the Commission
is concerned about ‘populism’ and uses it as an interpretive lens when
discussing a range of issues. By checking which codes co-occur with
populism, it is then possible to identify some of these issues. Excerpts
that discuss populism will also discuss other issues in the rest of the same
document. However, an initial step is to identify which specific issues are
discussed jointly within the same excerpt, that is, within the same sentence
of a short paragraph.
The codes most frequently associated with populism are European
values, which occurs 18 times, and Solutions to populism which also occurs
18 times. Hence, populism is mainly understood as a threat to European
values, confirming the constant pro-EU stance of Commission officials.
Moreover, populism is seen as ‘a problem’ which needs to be solved,
and the Commission takes a pragmatic problem-solving approach in
addressing it. The third most frequent code co-occurring with populism
is Migration (10 instances). The next most frequent codes are Euroscep-
ticism (9) as a threat and Extremism (7). Thus, views of populism are
invariably negative, showing the anti-populist nature of the Commission’s
political discourse.
As said, textual data were collected and analysed for the period 2013–
2020. This comprises the entire eighth legislature of the EP, one year
before and one after. An analysis of the timing of populist concerns did
not reveal significant patterns in terms of proportions of mentions of all
populist frames on the number of documents for each year. This indicates
that populism is a long-standing concern of Commission personnel that
has not varied significantly over time, as Populism was already a concern
at the beginning of the legislature. It varies, however, if one looks at how
often specific actors in the Commission mentioned the frame Populism,
regardless of the length of their tenure in office. For instance, Pierre
Moscovici, European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs,
Taxation and Customs from 2014 to 2019 made direct frequent and
alarmed references to RRPs—the highest level as a proportion of the
documents scored. Moscovici is followed by Frans Timmermans, who
from 2014 to 2019 dealt with the Rule of Law and the Charter of
Fundamental Rights, Cecilia Malmström who in the same period served
as European Commissioner for Trade, and Vera Jourova as the Euro-
pean Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality in the
same period. Other Commissioners mention these themes less frequently.
Dealing with issues relevant to anti-discrimination policy, as in the case of
Vera Jourova, or issues concerning human rights as in the case of Timmer-
mans, leads to a professional concern with RRPs. Consequently, a variable
that explains their propensity to address these themes is their portfolio as
Commissioners, but this does not constitute a full explanation, because
some ministers with economic portfolios are also interested in these issues.
In some cases, an alternative explanation appears to be the political and
personal background of Commissioners, such as the socialist and in his
youth Trotskyist Pierre Moscovici.
Nonetheless, the individual differences are secondary to the overar-
ching concern of the Commission with RRPs, and particularly the fact
that this preoccupation is connected with the European project. This
emerges from Table 2, which sets out the co-occurrences of codes with
the most frequent code in the entire sample, i.e. European Values.
All the co-occurring codes are relevant to the RRPs dimension. While
some of these codes were part of the sample selection procedure, many
164 C. RUZZA
Table 2
Migration 29
Co-occurrence between
Populism 18
the code ‘European
Xenophobia 18
Values’ and other codes Discrimination 17
Solidarity 16
Evoking the past 11
Extremism 10
Solution for Euroscepticism 9
Solution for populism 9
Criticism of discrimination against minorities 7
European project in trouble 7
Populism in Hungary 7
others were not and provide information on how the Commission

conceptualises reactions to RRPs. As said, this analysis shows that radical
right populism is first and foremost interpreted by the Commission as a
threat to the European project. However, a second observation is that,
by defining EU values in terms of these codes, particularly in terms
of migration-related concepts, the Commission restricts the scope of its
actions. It can consequently either call for conflicting measures—such as
encouraging both the human rights of migrants and their forced relo-
cation—or call for ‘humanitarian compassion’ as the foundation of EU
values, as in the excerpt below.
My strong devotion to the area of asylum is due to the fact that it boils
down to the very fundament of humanitarian compassion. And this is, and
should continue to be, at the core of the EU’s values. (Malmström)
As an instance of policies that can be implemented at member-state level

and that are in some ways contradictory, one can consider the following
excerpt. Just after the migration crisis, Avramopoulos stated:
We strongly condemn all forms and manifestations of intolerance, including

public incitement to racist or xenophobic violence or hatred. … The EU is
facing a crisis like no other before. Either we stand firm and find solutions
in line with our values, or we will see ourselves and our Europe change
beyond recognition, back to a past that no one wants to experience again.
(Avramopoulos, 2016)
Then, in the following paragraphs, he considers the ‘Cologne facts’ when

during the New Year celebrations migrants assaulted women and argues
that ‘We want to build a humane, but fair and strict migration and borders
policy’. The populist turn could have been countered more effectively if
from the start the RRPs threat had been defined more prominently in
terms of rule of law, or other aspects where a less controversial, more
political viable set of policies could be devised, rather than concerns about
xenophobia and other migration-related issues on which also centre-right
parties are often ambivalent.
The Commission’s Civil Service and Populism

While the political components of the Commission are more likely to
acknowledge their anti-populist views and may be institutionally encour-
aged to profess their concerns, the opinions of civil servants are less easily
recorded and less publicly documented. Civil servants are reluctant to
give interviews on such political sensitive topics as populism. At all levels
of the bureaucratic hierarchy, the Commission likes to use the refrain ‘we
do policy, not politics’, and this is particularly the case of civil servants
working in operational units. However, some indication is available from
the texts that they produce for internal consumption.
To this end, two Commission internal publications were identified and
content analysed. One was the newsletter Graspe, which is produced by
the Commission’s civil service for internal circulation (www.graspe.eu).
The group describes itself as follows:
The Reflection Group on the Future of European Public Service discusses

the European public service, its role, missions, modernisation and ques-
tioning. Officials want to participate in the discussion on reform and
development of the trades. We are reflecting on the place of international
trade unionism - the trade unions of the institutions and particularly of the
European Commission.
The second, related source is the Union for Unity (U4U)—a think tank
created by officials of the European institutions involved in Graspe since
the year 2000 and representatives of staff at the European institutions.
There are other newsletters that reflect the concerns of EU civil servants,
but these two publications are searchable by subject and provide a view
of opinions within the civil service over the years. The Union for Unity
166 C. RUZZA
newsletter consists of only a few pages published about every four months
and with a circulation restricted to EU institutions’ personnel.
A combined search of issues relevant to RRPs which included the
terms ‘populism’, ‘nationalism’, and ‘Euroscepticism’ yielded 70 results.
Thus, ‘populism’ and the related terms ‘nationalism’ and ‘Euroscepticism’
denote relatively frequent concerns of EU civil servants. All the instances
identified describe nationalism and Euroscepticism in scathing terms, thus
reproducing the public discourse of the Commission. In addition, the
two publications provide academic reading lists of works on populism
and reproduce reports on the causes and consequences of populism
(see, for instance, Lamy, 2018). The Graspe newsletter also reproduces
publications of Europhile think tanks, such as, for instance, the Euro-
pean Policy Centre (https://www.epc.eu/en). These might, for instance,
include reports on the likely future of EU institutions, paying particular
attention to the impact of populism (see, for instance, Staff-Reporter,
2019).
Articles on populism tend to be critical of how the European insti-
tutions have reacted to its spread. For instance, the July 2017 issue of
Graspe notes:
Faced with fractures caused by a loss of political capital and trust, the
responses of the European institutions and those of the Member States
have been, to say the least, little convincing. The result was a rise of
Euroscepticism: every time the European Union is perceived as unable to
solve crises the citizens appear very unwilling to give new powers, although
seemingly necessary, such as, for example, in the global struggle against
terrorism. The populist parties exploit such failures and feed the crisis of
democracy. (Staff-Reporter, 2017a)
A firmer approach in confronting RRPs is often advocated: for instance,

on issues such as the rule of law in Visegrad countries. Graspe occasionally
focuses on specific topical issues, as in issue 36 of 2019 on climate change
and the environment, and in this context, populism is connected to broad
political changes. Hence, populism is conceptualised as a general concern
that cuts across several issue areas which EU personnel think should be
more central to institutional action.
Conclusions
The Commission’s values and priorities analysed through its texts confirm
a bureaucratic and political body still very much committed to advancing
the European project and intent on categorising other political events,
such as the advent of right-wing populism, in those terms. Taken all
together, the analyses of populism reported in this chapter suggest
a Commission mainly concerned with a pragmatic problem-solving
approach to the issue. In this pragmatic approach, the Commission exam-
ines the negative implications for the European project and what can be
done to alleviate them. It consequently focuses on such issues that can be
framed as solutions for populism. It also focuses on topical issues related to
populism, such as the situation in Hungary and Poland.
While noting and supporting distinctive European interests is part of
the Commission’s rules of employment, its civil servants appear to do this
with ‘principled commitment’ (Georgakakis, 2017: 98). This is because
(i), as Georgakakis (2017) shows, they often came to their jobs with a
favourable interest in European integration and thus perceive populism
as a threat to their values, and (ii) because they embraced the role of
‘custodians of Europe’ with commitment and with a taken-for-granted
disposition that is best described with the Bourdeausian term habitus. As
part of this habitus, they value their cultural expertise, their transnational
dispositions and resources, and they are often even staunchly anti-state in
their attitudes (Georgakakis, 2017: 63). Valuing expertise, and not only
general cultural expertise but also specific technical knowledge, and being
anti-state are some of the features that make the Commission’s personnel
most suspicious of RRPs. The dismissal of expertise by populists is well
encapsulated by UK politician and rumoured populist Michael Gove’s
statement that “we have had enough of experts”. Rejection of expertise
is therefore a key feature of the populist worldview that clashes with one
of the defining features of the Commission’s civil servants. Similarly, their
opposition to the role of member states in the process of European policy-
making amounts to a reiteration of their institutional duty to transcend
state-level nationalism. A substantial citation from the Graspe newsletter
epitomises these sentiments.
Our understanding is that great forces are at work in the shadow of

populism and its European declinations, within and outside the various
breeding grounds where they blossom. For some decades, they feed on
168 C. RUZZA
populisms and at the same time as they feed them. These forces, often
organised as real castes, perceive themselves, consciously or unconsciously,
but rightfully, as the downgraded of tomorrow. They therefore strongly
resist almost everything, ready to do everything, including engaging in
the worst politics, like in other tragic moments of European history. They
have found their banner in discrediting the European project ad nauseam.
They find their best enemy in the populist parties. They have found the
best way of safeguarding their powers and their position rent in the divi-
sion of roles with them [the populists]. It is in the felted corridors of the
diplomatic quarters of the European member states that reside the hard
core of this anti-European reaction. Forged in the same mould, hardened
by communal rituals and participation to innumerable cocktail parties and
other receptions that shape their diplomatic activities, welded to the top of
their respective pyramid in the big funnel of European affairs constituted by
the General Affairs Council and the Council of Permanent Representatives
(Coreper) in Brussels. They are carriers of a widely shared vision of their
function and future role. This European army represents the most compact
force and, typically, the most powerful one in the operation of denigration
and sabotage of the European project. (Staff-Reporter, 2017b)
The above citation well encapsulates the state of long-term conflict that
the arrival of RRPs has engendered in Brussels and the militant approach
that beyond an image of passionless technical competence animates and
defines the European Commission. Nonetheless, at the same time, the
Commission is aware that RRPs have had, and presumably will have, diffi-
culty in significantly affecting EU policies. This has been reported in three
personal interviews conducted in 2019, and it has also been also noted
by Junker (Nielsen, 2021). The limited role of RRPs has also been docu-
mented in relation to the ‘cordon sanitaire’ that constrains their presence
in the EP (Brack, 2015).
The reason for this limited role despite the Commission’s alarm and
shared political discourse is that the danger of populism and the value-
driven reactions of the Commission have several dimensions, but these do
not result in a strong policy impact. Opposing populism is an attestation
of personal identity. It is an attestation of professional identity among
Commission workers. It is also a way to contribute to a myth-making
exercise on the nature and ‘historical mission’ of the EU. Several authors
have argued that the EU has often searched for political legitimacy by
defining itself in terms of shared mythologies which have changed over
time.
Among them is the myth of a distinctive commitment to the envi-

ronment, to a ‘social dimension’ but especially to human rights (Della
Sala, 2010; Smismans, 2010). The struggle against populism is the latest
version of this political programme. It is useful as a self-defining exer-
cise, but defining populism in terms too close to issues where the EU
has a limited legal basis, and to issues that can be dealt with at member-
state level, does not result in policy effectiveness. Thus, defining RRPs
as thematically connected to the migration crisis is not going to elicit a
strong and successful intervention by EU institutions (Schimmelfennig,
2018). As long as the ‘populist turn’ can be marginalised by EU institu-
tions, this is not a problem, but it could become one if the populist threat
escalates further.
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The Impact of Populism on European Civil
Society
Facing the Threat of Populism: How
the European Commission Can Reconnect
with Citizens
Assya Kavrakova
The Impact of Populism on the European

Rule of Law and Fundamental Values
The Roots of European Populism
Populism is a multi-faceted phenomenon with diverse roots and
manifestations depending on geographical, historical, cultural and
socio-economic circumstances (Lessenski & Kavrakova, 2019; Mudde &
Kaltwasser, 2017). No single factor causes populism; rather, there is an
interplay of factors which feed on and reinforce each other. These factors
can be defined as ‘primary’—socio-economic and cultural—and ‘addi-
tional’. Factors of the latter kind are context-related and include the crisis
of representative democracy, the lack of innovation of traditional parties,
online disinformation and weak communication of the achievements of
the European project (Lessenski & Kavrakova, 2019).
Socio-economic and cultural factors (primary factors) are the strongest
contributors to the ‘anxieties’ and ‘fears’ of the population often invoked
by populists. They may come in different combinations depending on the
A. Kavrakova (B)
Avenue de la Toison d’Or 77, Saint-Gilles, Brussels, Belgium
e-mail: assya.kavrakova@ecas.org

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73411-4_8
176 A. KAVRAKOVA
characteristics of different social groups and/or on the concrete circum-

stances of different geographical regions. It is often the case that while
middle-income groups fear loss of status, the strongest factor for lower-
income groups is the fear of loss of jobs and income. Even within the
same country, different factors can take precedence in its different regions
and among different segments of the population (Lessenski & Kavrakova,
2019). Citizens in non-metropolitan and rural areas which are structurally
weak1 are particularly vulnerable to populist narratives. This is evident
from their voting choices at both national and European elections, and it
is due to several reasons.
Economic and social infrastructure decline in these regions pre-
determines ‘citizens’ agendas’ which are quite different from the national
and the European ones because they reflect the everyday problems and
challenges encountered by those living there—precarious working condi-
tions, worries about money, lack of employment opportunities, etc. The
lack of adequate response by the political establishment to the prob-
lems encountered by citizens leaves the latter with a strong sense of
abandonment, unfairness and disadvantage. This results in negative atti-
tudes towards ‘others’, especially migrants, whom people in these regions
devalue as a reaction to their own experiences of devaluation (Hillje,
2018).
The collapse of structures for social dialogue and debate at local level
impacts negatively on social bonds in local communities. This, in combi-
nation with the inaction of the traditional parties in reaching out to rural
areas and socio-economically disadvantaged regions, reinforces the feel-
ings of abandonment and disconnect among citizens which are exploited
by populists.2 Additional, complementary factors which pave the way
for populist narratives are the crises of representative democracy and
the lack of political innovation by the mainstream parties, resulting in
diminished trust in them and a search for ‘miraculous’ solutions by the
disappointed voters for their real problems, which the populists offer
1 Conditions in 28 (of a total of 361) districts in Germany are ‘very strongly’ or

‘severely’ below average, according to a response from the German Government to a
parliamentary question on this topic tabled by the Green parliamentary group in February
2017 (Hillje, 2018: 4).
2 For more information: Hillje, J. (2018) undertook 500 interviews in France and
Germany in socio-economically disadvantaged regions where high proportions of right-
wing populist voters live by listening to people who are otherwise only ever spoken
about.
FACING THE THREAT OF POPULISM: HOW THE EUROPEAN … 177
abundantly (Lessenski & Kavrakova, 2019; Roberts, 2015). Promises to

involve citizens more directly in the decision-making process—by means
of referenda, for example—seem to resonate particularly well with those
who are frustrated with democracy as currently practised because they feel
not represented or heard.
Moreover, current societal challenges, such as online disinformation are
useful for populists, who are skilful in exploiting all the attributes and defi-
ciencies of the social media and online platforms in their communication
strategies, including manipulations (Gerbaudo, 2018). The rapid cycle of
news, polarization and encapsulation through echo chambers works to
their advantage. In the words of a European expert with experience in
media, there are two specific problems: “The first aspect, which is specific
to the online environment, is the amplification (through algorithms, etc.)
which gives a lot more visibility to these fake news…The second factor behind
disinformation is a recent challenge of ‘l’esprit des Lumières’, of the notion
of scientific progress, of reason” (Lessenski & Kavrakova, 2019: 149).
A key finding of a recent academic research study3 on populism is
that there is no single online populist strategy. The frequency, tone and
topic of social media (Facebook in particular) usage by populist actors
differs from country to country, actor to actor, and over time (Bennett
et al., 2020). National contexts and specific features (elections, campaign
traditions, social media usage) are again the factors influencing these
strategies.
Although in general the populist narratives on Facebook define citi-
zens as victims, there is a difference between the right-wing and the
left-wing populist discourses. The former emphasize the victimization
resulting from corruption, immigration and outside control from Brus-
sels; the latter portray the people as the victims of corrupt elites and
financial interests (Bennett et al., 2020). Although national elites are
more frequently mentioned than supranational elites, Euroscepticism and
3 DEMOS (Democratic Efficacy and the Varieties of Populism in Europe) is a project

funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 822590. It is carried out by 15 partner institutions in Europe
and involves 10 disciplines. DEMOS investigates the phenomenon of populism through
the lenses of democratic efficacy. The concept combines attitudinal features (political effi-
cacy), political skills, knowledge, and democratic opportunity structures. The concept is
understood as a condition of political engagement needed to address the challenges of
populism.
178 A. KAVRAKOVA
anti-European sentiment feature strongly in populism (Bennett et al.,

2020; Ruzza, 2009). Lack of knowledge and understanding among citi-
zens of the European Union’s added value at local level creates a positive
context for the Eurosceptic narratives promoted by populists. The close
links between Euroscepticism and populism are due to two main factors.
First, populists find in the European Union a convenient enemy that they
can blame with impunity. While populists are skilful communicators and
command multiple communication channels, the predominant opinion is
that the European Union has a poor communication strategy. Interviews
conducted with citizens in Austria, France, Italy and Poland revealed that
there is a very low level of understanding and knowledge about the func-
tioning and the contribution of the European Union, even in France and
Italy, which are founding Member States. Secondly, at a deeper level, the
EU represents values which the populists oppose because it is an example
of everyday practice in liberal democracy and transnational cooperation
(Lessenski & Kavrakova, 2019).
How Does Populism Impact on the European Union?

Regardless of the diversity of its determining factors, specificities and
strategies, the overall populist narrative is detrimental to the European
project. On the one hand, it exploits and further invokes Euroscepticism;
on the other, it represents a serious threat to the European rule of law and
fundamental values as stipulated in Article 2 of the Treaty on European
Union.4
European institutions and actors are most often presented as the supra-
national elites whose actions and goals run counter to those of the
putative ‘people’ (Bennett et al., 2020). This is sometimes reinforced by
the fact that national politicians often claim that any success in implemen-
tation of their strategies is their own achievement, unlike failures, which
are usually a result of what ‘Brussels’ has decided and imposed.
The strong anti-European sentiment of various populist right-wing
actors resulted in the establishment of the Europe of Nations and
Freedom group in the European Parliament in 2015 with 36 seats. This
was replaced after the European elections in 2019 by the Identity and
Democracy (ID) group of 73 members.
4 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/treaty/teu_2012/art_2/oj.
Populism, moreover, can be a serious threat to democracy and

pluralism. The European Union is founded on the values of respect for
human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect
for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minori-
ties.5 Moreover, the EU is bound by its Charter of Fundamental Rights,
which is the mandatory source of primary law for both the European
Union and the Member States.6
Populist narratives always portray populist actors as the true representa-
tives of ‘the people’, discrediting the elites and the current establishment
of representative democracy guaranteed by separation of powers and
institutional checks and balances (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017).
In populist narratives, the concept of democratic legitimacy prevails
over the principle of the rule of law (Castellà & Simonelli, 2019:
5). Because populists view representative democracy as the rule of the
majority, they disregard other basic features, such as pluralism and respect
for the rights of minorities. Once they reach power, populist parties
tend to destroy the basic features of constitutional democracy and blur
the separation of powers by undermining the independence of the judi-
ciary, transferring substantial law-making power to the government and
abolishing limits to presidential mandates (Castellà & Simonelli, 2019).
While majoritarian preferences may legitimize populist policy reforms,
they are particularly harmful for unpopular minorities, such as citizens
with low incomes, Roma people, migrants and LGBTQ communities,
which can easily become the scapegoats and the losers of policy changes
because they are excluded from the decision-making process and their
voices remain unheard. This process induces the decline of participatory
democracy, decreases the quality of policy-making, and inevitably fosters
social and political polarization (Bartha et al., 2020: 78–79).
Once in power, populists deliberately diminish the space for public
debate by taking control of the media and harassing civil society organi-
zations. This results in the so-called shrinking civic space7 which is part of
the wider trend of autocratization occurring at global and national level.
5 Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU).

6 It came into effect with adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon on 1 December 2009,
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:12012P/TXT.
7 CIVICUS defines ‘civic space’ as the bedrock of any open and democratic society,
where citizens and civil society organisations are able to organize, participate and commu-
nicate without hindrance. This can only happen when a state abides by its duty to protect
180 A. KAVRAKOVA
Attacks on the civic space, the democratic space for political contestation,
and the rule of law are different strategies pursuing the same objective:
to gradually silence dissent and concentrate power in the hands of a few
(Henckes & Godfrey, 2020).
The case of Hungary is a clear example in this regard: the country
has been downgraded by the latest Freedom House Nations in Transit
report from one of the three democratic frontrunners in 2005 to a
non-democratic country in 2020 as a result of the gradual erosion of
democracy and centralization of power by Viktor Orbán which led, in
March 2020, to the adoption of an emergency law that allows the govern-
ment to rule by decree indefinitely. While initially justified with the fight
against the COVID-19 pandemic and repealed by the Hungarian Parlia-
ment in June 2020, this legislative measure raised serious concerns. In
April, the European Parliament approved a statement that said Hungary’s
measures were ‘incompatible with European values’,8 and the European
Commission vice-president Vĕra Jourová expressed ‘increased concerns
over the rule of law’ (Wanat & Eder, 2020).
Moreover, according to some analysts, despite repeal of the law the
government is still more powerful than before the coronavirus crisis
because this ‘creates a legal basis for the use of newer extraordinary
and unlimited government powers’ (Novak, 2020). Among the region’s
waning democracies, according to Nations in Transit 2020, Poland
continues to stand out for the systematic, targeted and aggressive nature
of the government’s attacks on judicial independence and will join
hybrid regimes and autocracies if it continues on this course (Csaky,
2020). Finally, populists do not support solidarity; rather, they polarize
politics and society through the use of an ‘us versus them’ rhetoric
(Wodak, 2015).
Stronger polarization works in favour of populist political parties
because it increases their support. This is why they are not only responsive
to existing cleavages among citizens but are also shaping them through
the use of Manichean discourses (Bartha et al., 2020: 10). Discrediting
‘the out-groups’ was the most common strategy employed by the populist
discourse both in the last European elections and during non-election
its citizens and respects and facilitates their fundamental rights to associate, assemble
peacefully, and freely express their views and opinions.
8 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20200512IPR78917/hun
gary-s-emergency-measures-meps-ask-eu-to-impose-sanctions-and-stop-payments.
periods. Populist actors discredit, denounce, criticize or stigmatize ‘the

others’ using negative traits, mistakes, unlawful or immoral behaviour
(Bennett et al., 2020: 40).9
Online disinformation helps the populist agenda in this respect. Social
media allow populists to strengthen their credentials as being outside
the system while criticizing mainstream media as driven by alleged polit-
ical correctness and, thus, hiding important information. Moreover, the
architecture of social media allows more direct and unmediated commu-
nication and avoidance of the professional media gatekeepers, enabling
more antagonistic, negative or ‘uncivil’ discourse including wordplay,
sarcasm, criticism, labelling, slurs, personal insults and group insults
(Engesser et al., 2017; Bennett et al., 2020).
Thus, as confirmed by academic research, populism constitutes a threat
to both representative and constitutional dimensions of contemporary
democracies. Populism is a threat to the European public sphere per se
because it often tries to undermine democracy, rule of law and pluralism.
Strengthening the European Public Sphere

as a Response to the Populist Challenge
The agonistic pluralistic approach to the public sphere distinguishes
between the notions of a ‘public space’ and a ‘public sphere’, where the
former is a constituent element of the latter and includes society-initiated
and state-initiated publics and the new spaces of communication, inter-
action and collective action that they create (Sicakkan, 2016). Sicakkan
defines the European public sphere as ‘a web of 1) existing histor-
ical and new publics, public spaces and discourses of political order 2)
networks and social and political actors and most importantly 3) a tran-
scendent public space (the Eurosphere) of transgressing public and the
new European-scale political cleavages and agons that they generate in
interaction with other publics and public spaces of Europe’ (Sicakkan,
9 Bennett et al. (2020: 40) defines ‘the others’ as: (a) geographical others already in
the country (asylum seekers, immigrants), (b) geographical others outside the country
(foreigners), (c) geographical others outside the country who are (potentially or in fact)
approaching the country (refugees, immigrants), (d) political/ideological, (e) legal (crimi-
nals, paedophiles), (f) cultural/ethnic (other cultural values or patterns), (g) religious, (h)
gender, (i) economic: the poor (losers, the unemployed) (j) economic: the rich (wealthy
people, the winners) or (k) any other specific out-group.
182 A. KAVRAKOVA
2016: 24). According to Sicakkan, it is the Eurosphere (intentionally

build by the European elites in order to facilitate the establishment of a
European public sphere) with the historically existing other public spaces
at different levels, which makes the European Public sphere possible and
acts as its driving force.
It can be argued that strengthening the European public sphere may
effectively narrow the space conquered by populists if it involves strength-
ening at least three of its dimensions. Firstly, it is imperative to safeguard
the rule of law to uphold democracy and pluralism, without which
there can be no public sphere. Secondly, there is a need for a demo-
cratic innovation of the Eurosphere that allows for citizens’ collaborative
engagement manner and meets their expectations of more direct involve-
ment in decision-making between elections. Finally, it is essential to
support and sustain public spaces and their actors and encourage informed
interactions between publics at different levels to foster debate and the
implementation of policies tailored to local needs.
Safeguarding the Rule of Law

According to the agonistic pluralism perspective of the public sphere,
conflicts are an ordinary part of politics as long as they involve encoun-
ters between adversaries and not enemies. The danger of institutional
dissolution lies in the extent to which parties perceive one another as
enemies which need to be eliminated (Sicakkan, 2016). In order to ensure
a ‘safe space’ for pluralistic conflicts and contestations which contribute
to the further building of the agonistic European Public sphere, the
rule of law must be safeguarded throughout the EU as the basis for
democracy and the prevention of autocracy. However, the instruments
for safeguarding the rule of law in the hands of the Eurosphere are
limited. Unlike the effectiveness of the accession criteria of the European
Union on reforms of the negotiating countries (the so-called Copenhagen
criteria10 ), which include the rule of law, the membership leverage on the
Member States is limited once they have acceded to the EU. In the polit-
ical domain, EU safeguards against extremism in politics are achieved by
10 The Treaty on European Union sets out the conditions (Article 49) and principles
(Article 6[1]) with which any country wishing to become an EU member must conform.
The political criteria include stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of
law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities.
exercising peer pressure (such as monitoring developments in the rule

of law, issuing recommendations) and supervising implementation of the
European legislation in the Member States (Kavrakova, 2009).
It is only in recent years that the EU has sought to devise and agree
upon some more specific measures designed to remedy political short-
comings, such as financial sanctions and invocation of Article 7, none of
which has yet been fully implemented. The Eurosphere ‘Guardian of the
Treaties’11 is the European Commission. It monitors whether EU laws
are applied correctly and on time and takes steps if a Member State fails
to do so. These measures may include formal infringement proceedings
against the country in question, referral of the matter to the Court of
Justice, and a second referral if the issue is not settled before or after
the court decision, with a request for financial penalties. The infringe-
ment proceedings are used when there is a concrete violation of an EU
law. For example, in April 2020, the European Commission launched an
infringement procedure against Poland for ‘Violation of EU Law by the
legislative changes affecting the judiciary’.12
The Treaty of Amsterdam13 has envisaged a much more severe sanc-
tioning mechanism—the so-called ‘nuclear’ option of article 7 TEU—
designed to remedy ‘serious and persistent breach’ of European funda-
mental rights, freedoms and values, including democracy and the rule
of law. This mechanism is designed in two stages: a ‘preventive phase’14
empowering one-third of Member States, the European Parliament and
the Commission to initiate a procedure whereby the Council can deter-
mine by a four-fifths majority the existence of a ‘clear risk of a serious
breach’ in a Member State of the EU values proclaimed in Article 2
TEU.15 Before deciding if this is indeed the case, there should be a
hearing of the Member State concerned, to which recommendations can
11 https://ec.europa.eu/info/about-european-commission/what-european-commis
sion-does/law_en.
12 https://ec.europa.eu/atwork/applying-eu-law/infringements-proceedings/infringem
ent_decisions/?lang_code=en.
13 https://europa.eu/european-union/sites/europaeu/files/docs/body/treaty_of_ams
terdam_en.pdf.
14 Article 7, par.1 TEU.
15 The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democ-
racy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons
belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in
184 A. KAVRAKOVA
be addressed. The European Commission has activated this prevention

measure against Poland, while the European Parliament has initiated one
against Hungary.
The second stage,16 which may result in depriving the Member State
concerned of voting rights in the EU decision-making process, can be
triggered by the European Commission or by one-third of Member
States, after the Member State in question has been invited to submit its
observations. It is the European Council that finally determines the exis-
tence of the breach by unanimity, after obtaining Parliament’s consent,
which makes many experts sceptical about whether implementing this
second phase will ever be feasible. The Council decides the suspension
of voting rights by qualified majority. Additional soft measures at the
disposal of the European Commission include the EU Framework to
strengthen the Rule of Law, the Rule of Law Review Cycle and the annual
reports on application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. These last
are examined and debated by the Council, which adopts conclusions in
their regard, and by Parliament, in the framework of its annual report on
fundamental rights in the EU.
The EU Framework to strengthen the Rule of Law was launched by
the European Commission in 2014 with the aim of ensuring effective
and coherent protection of the rule of law. It comprises three stages:
Commission assessment (structured dialogue between the Commission
and the Member State), followed if necessary by a Rule of Law Opinion;
a Commission Rule of Law recommendation; and follow-up by the
Member State to the recommendation. This framework was recently
applied for the first time to Poland. In July 2019, the European Commis-
sion launched a Rule of Law Review Cycle17 comprising an annual Rule
of Law Report monitoring the situation in the Member States in relation
to the rule of law, and which forms the basis of interinstitutional dialogue.
The report covers judicial protection by independent courts, separation of
powers and enforcement of EU law, but also corruption, media pluralism
and elections.
which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between

women and men prevail.
16 Articles 7.2 and 7.3 TEU.
17 (COM[2019] 0343).
The effectiveness of the soft measures, however, depends entirely on

the follow-up actions taken. The experience of Bulgaria and Romania
with the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) in reforming
the judiciary, fighting organized crime and corruption since the acces-
sion of the two countries to the European Union in 2007, has proven
that this monitoring mechanism has very limited impact in regard to its
intended purpose and is largely ineffective. The main reason is that the
problem-solving in this case is of a political not technical nature. Keeping
the measure within the technical domain does not work if the problem is
political, and it should be addressed by political means (Kavrakova, 2009).
A measure much more potentially effective because of its feasibility
to inflict costs on decision-makers is the one recently proposed by the
European Commission Regulation on the protection of the Union budget
in the case of generalized deficiencies as regards the rule of law in the
Member States, and which links EU funds to respect for the rule of law.
If adopted, this instrument will enable pressure to be put on Member
States violating the rule of law and fundamental rights. Considering the
substantial financial leverage of the European Union on the governments
of Poland—the biggest net beneficiary of the EU budget (e12 billion
net in 2018)—and Hungary ranked just behind Poland (e5 billion net in
2018, more than 4 per cent of its GDP), this mechanism has the potential
to provide effective political leverage in safeguarding the rule of law and
European values in these two countries.
However, the aforementioned measure should be balanced with
increased direct European funding to support civil society and other
democratic actors in the countries in question, the purpose being to
prevent the sanctioning of non-democratic governments at the expense
of the citizens and civil society and to support the civic and public
spaces. Such direct support is important because shrinking civic space
is often accompanied by decreased actual funding and restrictive legis-
lation on funding for civil society organizations (CSOs). These latter are
subject to restrictions in accessing public and private funding on a national
level as national programmes are being cut, and financial and administra-
tive burdens are put in place, including limitations on access to foreign
funding.
Civil society organizations in non-metropolitan areas in Poland, for
example, are in a financially precarious position because such organiza-
tions are largely dependent on local authorities for funding and report
the negative effects of a populist government. CSOs are active socially,
186 A. KAVRAKOVA
but financial problems make it difficult for them to carry out their statu-
tory activities, which address socio-economic difficulties in the regions.
Concerning the populist anti-immigration narrative, services for migrants
are particularly difficult to implement (Lessenski & Kavrakova, 2019:
119).
The case of Poland is particularly interesting because its citizens are
largely pro-European and the country’s European membership is seen as
a bulwark against populism, for it enjoys high support despite a gener-
ally Eurosceptic, populist government. While the European Union is the
main target for populists—vilified as a source of evil for the people, threat-
ening cultural and ethnic homogeneity, instilling foreign (i.e. liberal)
values, etc.—the very high public support for EU membership in Poland
(80%) constrains populist attacks against the European Union because
populists do not want to clash with the majority of the public (Lessenski
& Kavrakova, 2019).
Fostering Political and Democratic Innovation of the Eurosphere

One of the successful narratives of populists, which resonates well with
citizens—possibly because of the crisis of representative democracy—is
the promise of direct democracy. While citizens consider it an opportu-
nity to be heard by politicians, experts and civil society activists are nearly
unanimous in their criticism of direct democracy in its current forms,
warning of serious drawbacks, especially regarding referenda (Lessenski
& Kavrakova, 2019).
With a new deliberative-collaborative model of democracy emerging
worldwide, however, there are new methods of citizen engagement that
can be implemented as complementary to the current model of represen-
tative democracy in order to strengthen it and to respond to the demands
of citizens for more co-creation of solutions in the decision-making
process at all levels.
The potential of digital democracy, although still under-researched, is
significant in this regard, with positive examples at local and national level
demonstrating that it can provide added value to democratic engagement.
An assessment conducted by the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS)
of 27 national case studies on co-deciding with citizens using ICT from
around the globe (European Citizen Action Service, 2016) suggests that
crowdsourcing tools, especially as a component of democratic innovation,
can enhance participation by involving citizens and civil society beyond
the typical stakeholders, including young people. It can also ensure a

learning process for both citizens and decision-makers through a real-time
exchange of views and opinions on the content and process of policies and
policy-making. Fresh and innovative ideas for shaping policy based on the
‘wisdom of the crowd’ can emerge, introducing ‘hidden’ expertise into
the debate. Finally, it increases the legitimacy of policy-making, which is
an ever-increasing necessity in the EU (ECAS, 2016).
Crowdsourcing legislation with citizens, participatory budgeting, and
citizens’ assemblies of randomly selected citizens are only some examples
of democratic innovation, which, if embraced by EU decision-makers, can
reduce the gap between themselves and citizens and narrow the space
for populism. While the methodologies are clear and have already been
tested at local and national level,18 there are some important conditions
which should be in place in order to ensure success. First, decision-makers
should use digital tools to interact with young people where they are natu-
rally—in the digital space—instead of waiting for young people to engage
in politics as currently practised. Second, digital democracy methods
should be applied as complementary to traditional ones because there
is no evidence that they alone can ensure representativeness. Moreover,
to explore the full potential of ICT in enhancing democracy, democratic
innovations should go hand in hand with sound policies to ensure privacy,
tackle the digital divide, promote new media and digital media literacy
and combine online and offline activities. This is important in order to
ensure inclusiveness of both the younger generations, who spend a lot of
time online and are not interested in traditional forms of political partic-
ipation, and the older generations. Both may, when misinformed, make
poor choices with a detrimental impact on the outcome of elections.
In order to transform ad hoc practices of democratic innovation into
a structured and sustainable decision-making process, it is essential that
decision-makers apply them on a regular basis, ensure a sound outreach
and communication to citizens in order to secure their informed partici-
pation, and commit to a follow-up process of what and how the citizens’
input will be taken on board when making the decisions. Moreover, there
is a need to develop and consistently apply a universally applicable assess-
ment methodology of democratic innovation initiatives and practices,
18 Examples: Ireland’s Citizen Assembly—https://www.citizensassembly.ie/en/ and

France’s Citizens’ Convention on Climate—https://www.conventioncitoyennepourleclima
t.fr/.
188 A. KAVRAKOVA
including the digital democracy ones, in order to ensure a solid learning

curve based on analysis and evaluation of case studies, data and feedback
mechanisms. The outcomes and the lessons learnt from the assessment
should inform improved digital democracy and democratic innovation
policies over time.
The following examples of successful collaborative decision-making
with citizens on different subjects and at different levels can be applied
at the EU level in order to complement representative democracy with
collaborative elements of participatory democracy.
Paris Participatory Budgeting

Participatory Budgeting is a decision-making process whereby citi-
zens deliberate and negotiate over the distribution of public resources
(Wampler, 2007). Paris has implemented a citywide participatory
budgeting system on all types of policy issues since 2014. It started as
a small pilot project, with the city of Paris proposing fifteen projects
that could be funded with up to about 20 million euros and letting
citizens vote on the projects in which to invest, via the ballot box or
online. Within two years, participation increased from 40,000 voters in
2014 to 92,809 in 2016 (Cabannes, 2017), representing 5 per cent of
the total urban population. Today, Paris Budget Participatif is an official
platform that lets Parisians decide how to spend 5 per cent of the invest-
ment budget from 2014 to 2020, amounting to around 500 million euros
(Lironi, 2018).
Permanent Sortition Assembly in Belgium

Sortition is a sampling technique used to select a group of participants
equally divided by gender and proportionally representative of age demo-
graphics, geographic location and education level.19 In March 2019,
the Parliament of the German-speaking Belgian community (Ostbelgien,
77,000 inhabitants) unanimously decided to establish a Permanent Sorti-
tion Assembly in Belgium. A permanent ‘Citizens’ Council’ (Bürgerrat )
composed of 24 randomly selected citizens serving for 18 months will
have the task of selecting topics and setting the agenda, each year, for
several ‘Citizens’ Assemblies’ (Bürgerversammlungen). These assemblies
(maximum 3 per year) will be composed by means of sortition and age,
19 More information is available at https://participedia.net/method/5507.

gender and education quotas. The council will decide their size and the
duration of their work. The assemblies will present recommendations to
the German-speaking Parliament, which will discuss them (if they reach
a 4/5 majority support in the citizens’ assembly) and will take a justified
decision whether or not to follow them. The Belgium Permanent Sorti-
tion Assembly has the ambition to serve as a laboratory for the rest of
Europe and is supported by international experts.
Crowdsourcing the Constitution of Iceland with Citizens

Crowdsourcing is ‘an online, distributed, problem-solving and produc-
tion model that leverages the collective intelligence of online communities
to serve specific organisational goals’ (Brabham, 2013: 1). One of
the most interesting examples of crowdsourcing legislation is the one
concerning the Icelandic Constitution (Lironi, 2020). In 2008–2010,
Iceland was suffering a severe financial depression with an impact on
its political and economic establishment. The government decided to
embrace an inclusive approach in rewriting the Icelandic constitution
in order to regain trust and legitimacy from citizens (Bruno, 2015:
17). In 2010–2012, the Parliament and the Prime Minister of Iceland
invited citizens to join a crowdsourcing process to co-create Iceland’s new
constitution (Landemore, 2015) so that it more closely matched their
values and beliefs. The process moved through several phases. It started
with randomly selected citizens discussing the Constitutional values and
concluded with twenty-five citizens, who drafted the Constitution. All
the contributions were crowdsourced nation-wide and a non-binding
referendum took place in October 2012, with 49% voter turnout. The
proposal was approved by two-thirds of the voters, but the Constitutional
reform never took place because it ultimately stalled in the Parliament
because of internal Icelandic party politics (Gylfason, 2013).
More than six years later, the Icelandic government decided to resume
the effort to reform the constitution using wide public engagement, but
this time ensuring that there was sufficient support from all Icelandic
political parties. In the period of seven years (by the end of 2025), party
leaders will hold regular meetings in the Parliament to discuss the progress
of the constitutional revision, together with the Prime Minister. The
public engagement process is being led by a combination of experts in
the field of participatory democracy including academia and civil society,
and it will be based on the outcomes of the following three main methods
and steps:
190 A. KAVRAKOVA
1. an opinion poll conducted to determine the core values of the

Icelandic people and map the public’s view on the topics covered
by the revision of the constitution
2. a ‘Better Iceland’ (betraisland.is) crowdsourcing forum organized to
ensure online deliberation and facilitate constructive suggestions on
amendments, arguments and votes for or against proposals
3. deliberative Polls administered face-to-face. These have already
taken place on 9 and 10 November 2019, being supervised by the
University of Iceland in cooperation with Professor James Fishkin,
originator of the concept of Deliberative Polling and the Stanford
Centre for Deliberative Democracy. The results were analysed and
presented to the media.
Whenever the party leaders produce a constitutional reform text, this will
be published on the government’s online public consultation forum to
receive feedback from the public through further engagement methods.
Participatory Democracy Mechanisms at EU Level—The Way Forward

Although Art. 11 (1) TEU provides a legislative framework for citi-
zens’ involvement in the decision-making process, existing forums for
citizen participation in the EU have proven ineffective in remedying the
democratic deficit for several reasons (Lironi, 2016). While the Euro-
pean Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) is a unique supranational agenda-setting
instrument of participatory democracy, which has gained popularity in
recent years, it is not for ‘everyday’ use. It requires significant resources
and mobilization, and its impact on the EU legislation remains limited.
The online EU public consultations of the European Commission are
highly technical and mainly used by organized interests. They are not
user-friendly and accessible to the public, and there is a general lack of
awareness among citizens that this tool exists as a form of e-participation.
Moreover, minimum standards of consultations are binding only for the
European Commission in the policy-making process.
Several other e-participation and sortition projects have been started
on an individual ad hoc basis by some EU institutions or politicians.
However, although welcome, they lack harmonization and institutional
support across the EU. For example, the European Commission has
been co-funding e-participation projects, and some Directorates-General
(DGs) have been working on their own platforms, while Members of

the European Parliament are using digital tools to reach out to their
constituents more often (Lironi, 2016).
The crises of representative democracy currently afflicting the EU
calls for more innovative forms of citizen engagement in order to re-
gain citizens’ trust in the European project and reconnect with them.
The legislative framework at EU level (article 11 TEU) provides a basis
for strengthening the principle of representative democracy by comple-
menting the existing participatory toolbox with methods for engaging
citizens who are not represented and want to contribute directly in a
deliberative-collaborative manner. This is all the more important because
the European Union has not yet been able to create basic media
institutions of the general European public sphere. There is a lack of pan-
European media channels available to European citizens, and the current
COVID-19 crises have re-emphasized the ultimate importance for the EU
to digitalize its direct links with citizens further.
Crowdsourcing legislation can provide an effective platform for citi-
zens wanting to participate and engage in the EU legislative process.
The European Commission can establish a channel parallel to the online
consultations for organized interests, and specifically designed to tap into
the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ and engage citizens by crowdsourcing their
ideas and input. The European Commission can initiate participatory
budgeting at EU level to engage citizens in deciding how to spend a
percentage of the EU budget and introduce sortition as a mechanism for
citizen engagement in certain policy areas.
The long-awaited Conference on the Future of Europe, which will
take place in 2021, represents a great opportunity for testing the combi-
nation of different innovative online and offline methods for debating
thematic and structural issues, the results of which should be assessed and
sustained. One of the structural reforms, along with enhancing the demo-
cratic toolbox at EU level, is the introduction of transnational voting
lists for the European Parliament in order to stimulate both politicians
and citizens to act as Europeans. At present, the European elections are
still second-order elections. National elections held in the same period
take precedence, and politicians act nationally rather than as Europeans
(Bennett et al., 2020: 61). This is partly due to the refusal of the tradi-
tional European parties to embrace democratic innovation in terms of
reforming the system by introducing transnational lists, despite constant
192 A. KAVRAKOVA
calls for it from civil society and some politicians, and attempts to create
transnational movements (e.g. DiEM25).
Sustaining Public Spaces by Supporting Civic Actors, Civic Education

and Encouraging Interactions
According to Cheneval and Nicolaidis (2016), the common European
public space is not meant to bring about a unique European people,
but rather to serve as the setting that provides each political arena
with resources to address questions important for the respective publics,
and encourage democratic national conversations informed by inter-
connecting democracies. Sicakkan (2016) promotes the multiplicity of
public spaces in a public sphere and the possibility of a fragmented and
segmented public sphere. Overall, there is consensus that the European
public sphere has a strong bearing on the development of a European
identity as a space of debate where collective identities are constructed,
and political communities are created (Hennen, 2020). Strengthening the
European public sphere, therefore, involves strengthening both the Euro-
sphere and the European public sphere’s public spaces with their actors
and the interactions among them.
As an integral part of the European public sphere, the local spaces of
debate and discussion and the civic space at all levels are essential for
limiting the space for populism (Lessenski & Kavrakova, 2019). Those
are exactly the spaces where place-sensitive policies (Iammarino et al.,
2018) can be discussed as the best option for confronting the economic
decline, weak human resources and low employment opportunities which
are at the root of ‘the geography of EU discontent’ and the best method
to both stem and reverse the rise of anti-establishment voting which is
threatening not only European integration but also economic, social and
political stability itself (Dijkstra et al., 2018). While sustaining these spaces
is mainly in the hands of their publics, the European Union and the Euro-
pean Commission can support them by supporting the civic space and its
actors—civil society organizations and networks—by fostering formal and
informal civic education and by facilitating multi-stakeholder interactions
and exchange.
The phenomenon of shrinking civic space is deeply embedded in a
wider trend of regressing democratic space and authoritarian resurgence
and must be responded to accordingly. Although in some circumstances
it would be wise to frame the response as focused solely on civil space,
it would be difficult to succeed in the response without considering the

wider political sphere of broader contestation (Henckes & Godfrey, 2020:
43). Pan-European networks, whether created in a top-down manner—
by the European Union and with its support—or independently, also as a
reaction to the former, are the backbone of the European Public Sphere
because they keep the already-existing collective actors and their public
spaces linked (Sicakkan, 2016).
The European Commission should empower civil society organizations
at the European level but also in the regions to deliver their mission and
play their role of ‘speaking on behalf of those who are underrepresented
and advocating for the marginalised, and to educate and create a kind of
genuine bond between different communities’ (Lessenski & Kavrakova,
2019: 157) by ensuring independent funding from populist governments
and players. The digital public spaces created bottom-up outside the
digital communication infrastructure of the Eurosphere, and which link
EU citizens and publics transnationally, are an important part of the Euro-
pean public sphere and should be supported as well. The Commission can
foster and fund the exchange of good practices and encourage political
and democratic innovation at national, regional and local levels.
The need to invest in formal and informal civic education includes
education on active citizenship, democracy, the EU and national compe-
tencies, populism, online disinformation, EU fundamental rights and
values and, especially, respect for minorities and their role in an inclusive
democratic society which has been undermined by populists. Developing
in-depth knowledge on the specificities of the populist phenomenon and
a blueprint (strategic framework) for tackling populism is, therefore, a
necessary basis for devising tailor-made strategies that work at local level
(Lessenski & Kavrakova, 2019).
This is specifically important given that despite global convergence,
post-communist democratization and EU integration pressure, inhabi-
tants of Europe embody a heterogeneous populace with diverse values
and political attitudes. In North-Western Europe, democratic mentali-
ties are prevalent (Denmark and Norway—90% of the population), while
almost two-thirds (62.2%) of Europeans seem to lean towards scep-
tically non-democratic or anti-democratic mentalities, especially in the
post-communist countries, the post-Soviet countries and in South-Eastern
Europe (Klicperova-Baker & Kostal, 2016).
194 A. KAVRAKOVA
Finally, the European Commission should boost internationalization

and Europeanization through exchanges—horizontal, vertical and multi-
stakeholder—involving actors of different public spaces at all levels in
order to support the international spread of democratic culture as the
basis of the European public sphere. While isolation works in populists’
favour because it exploits fears of the unknown and of those who are
different, internationalization and Europeanization broaden horizons and
foster the acceptance of ‘others’ through personal experience (Lessenski
& Kavrakova, 2019).
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Civil Society as Anti-Populism? Countering
the Populist Threat and Campaigning
for Change in the Discourse of EU-Level
CSOs
Paolo Cossarini
Introduction
Populism, it has been argued, emerges on the terrain of modern civil
society, and yet it ultimately entails an existential risk for civil soci-
ety’s fundamentals (Arato & Cohen, 2018). Undeniably, populist politics
appeal to the people in order to warn about the limits of ever-growing
elitist systems and to condemn different types of material and political
inequalities. However, populism’s essentialist stance often betrays a deep
tension with some key principles upon which civil society and liberal
democracy are founded.
This tension is undoubtedly linked to the definition that one gives to
populism and thus to democracy. On the one hand, many have empha-
sised the necessary link between populism and democracy—they are
“fellow travellers” (Arditi, 2004)—and also stressed populism’s demo-
cratic nature: populism as the “authentic voice of democracy” (Lasch,
1996: 105), or the “the ideology of democracy” (Canovan, 2002),
P. Cossarini (B)

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73411-4_9
198 P. COSSARINI
it being potentially the core of democratic politics, and a source for

the renewal of democratic institutions (Canovan, 1999; Laclau, 2005).
On the other hand, populism has been seen as the opposite of liberal
pluralism (Mudde, 2004) and as intrinsically anti-democratic (Müller,
2017), on the grounds that behind all populist manifestations there lies
the belief that current liberal institutions and procedural mechanisms are
useless and no longer responsive to citizens’ demands.
This chapter starts from this contradictory relationship among
populism, democracy, and civil society, and it assesses the role of civil
society organisations (CSOs) at the EU level as a counter-force to a
specific form of populist politics, namely its radical right manifestations
which in recent years have been on the rise in Europe. Over the past
few decades, EU-level CSOs have emerged as key actors in fighting
discriminations, and their work involves tasks such as mapping violent
and discriminatory acts, re-framing public discourse on different types of
discriminations, and lobbying at the European level. However, the pres-
sure recently applied by the populist radical right (PRR) on CSOs and
actors across Europe is representative of the threats to which civil society
is subject. Attacks on sea rescue NGOs in the Mediterranean, refusals to
accept refugees fleeing war zones, and bans on organisations working for
LGBT rights are just a few examples (e.g. Berti, 2020).
As one might expect, the tension between PRR forces and civil society
is driven by multiple factors that essentially relate to ideological variables.
First and foremost, EU-based CSOs defend and promote a set of inclu-
sive, cosmopolitan, liberal, and social-democratic values that the PRR
largely reject. Indeed, because CSOs are seen as promoting a progressive
vision of the social reality, and as connected to left-leaning movements,
they are often the target of the exclusionary narrative of PRR groups,
which instead express a conservative backlash (e.g. Alexander et al., 2020;
Norris & Inglehart, 2016; Ruzza & Sanchez Salgado, 2020). Moreover,
CSOs operating within the orbit of the EU institutions are seen as part
of the supranational system led by remote elites which ultimately repre-
sent the opposition to the ‘ordinary people’, whom populism is supposed
to represent. In this vein, CSOs are often criticised also for being inter-
mediary bodies that alter the direct link between rulers and ruled (e.g.
Urbinati, 2015).
In this context, this chapter focuses on the role of several EU-level
CSOs working in the main fields of discrimination, i.e. gender, race, reli-
gion, and migration. Drawing on a document and frame analysis, the
CIVIL SOCIETY AS ANTI-POPULISM? COUNTERING … 199
chapter investigates the extent to which the narrative of those CSOs is

alternative to the exclusionary discourse implemented by populist radical
right forces. Although the recent literature has stressed the increasing
importance of a nationalist and socially conservative strand of civil society
that promotes an exclusionary narrative and is thus often framed as
‘uncivil’ society (e.g. Keane, 1999; Rosenblum et al., 2002; Ruzza,
2009), this chapter argues as follows: (a) CSOs are fully aware of the
populist turn: all the civil society groups examined have incorporated reac-
tions to the ‘populist turn’ into their discourse; (b) they frame populism
as a threat to liberal-democratic values; (c) they build a counter-discourse
based on the defence of human rights, rule of law, and pluralism. More-
over, it emerges in the chapter that (d) CSOs tend to emphasise the risks
associated with the rise of populism that are most relevant to the values
and strategic aspects of each organisation. Overall, although the long-
established—often naive—narrative that CSOs are groups promoting only
inclusionary policies is to be avoided, the chapter stresses that the EU-
level CSOs put forward a shared ideational agenda which emphasises
the key role of intermediary bodies for the European project and more
broadly for liberal democracy.
The chapter is structured as follows. First, it describes a theoretical
framework which serves as the basis for conceptualisation of the link
between populism and civil society. In this regard, the chapter sees the
contrast between PRR forces and civil society as a movement/counter-
movement dynamic. Second, the dataset and the methodological stand-
point are presented. Third, the last two sections develop the analysis,
which evidences how civil society frames populism and how it narratively
constructs an opposition to it.
Populism and Civil Society: Contextual

and Analytical Clarifications
In this chapter, the term ‘civil society’ is used to refer to the broad
network of organisations that operate neither as part of government nor
as private market organisations (Theocharis, 2011). EU-level CSOs are
organised in a network-based structure, and they normally take the form
of umbrella organisations consisting of various national groups. Histor-
ically, CSOs have played a crucial role in the consolidation of Western
democracies (Tilly, 1978), and they have been seen as key actors in
200 P. COSSARINI
promoting the EU’s legitimacy. CSOs have a direct role in dissemi-

nating the EU’s fundamental rights regime (Thiel, 2017), being active
in human rights promotion, the anti-discrimination fight, and democratic
support—the principles that shape the ideational underpinnings of the
European project. Importantly, these values coincide with the areas where
the diverse kinds of CSOs operate, so that the EU and CSOs form a
principle-based coalition that seeks to promote liberal and cosmopolitan
ideals within both national and supranational policies. In accordance with
this perspective, civil society has been recognised by the EU institutions
as a major driver of democratic development:
The most prosperous functioning democracies are those where civil society
can thrive, where every group can have its voice heard and where civil
society can freely monitor government activities. An active and vibrant civil
society acts as a bridge between people and their authorities.1
However, the values of CSOs and EU institutions diverge from those

disseminated by the populist radical right (PRR). In fact, these ‘Euro-
pean’ values and their promoters have been targeted by populist actors
particularly hostile to the cosmopolitan and inclusionary vision of EU
institutions and the majority of CSOs. By contrast, PRR groups promote
a mix of populism, nativism, identity politics, a Manichean worldview,
and an authoritarian stance, as Mudde (2010) rightly stressed. This
is accompanied by economic protectionism, and the securitisation of
migration issues, that is, a “closed-border” and “law-and-order” rhetoric
(Mudde, 2010; Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017; Rydgren, 2005; Wodak
et al., 2013; Cossarini, 2018). Recent cases of PRR parties in Northern
Europe undoubtedly add nuances to this categorisation: rather than being
directly opposed to pluralism and liberalism as such, these parties recon-
figure traditional liberal values in their own populist terms. They often
invoke liberal defences of free speech, secularism, and individual freedom.
For instance, they portray groups such as homosexuals as part of ‘the
people’ versus allegedly dangerous ‘others’ (often Muslims). In doing so
they “display a more ‘civic’ and liberal democratic face” (Pels, 2011: 27)
compared with older PRR parties.
1 European Commission, Speech. Johannes Hahn, Commissioner for European Neigh-

bourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations: Address at the Civil Society Forum on
Southern Neighbourhood, 28 May 2015.
Nevertheless, the PRR’s overall narrative stands in opposition to both

elitism and pluralism by claiming that there should be no interme-
diary space between the allegedly ‘virtuous’ people and the ‘corrupt’
elites. Besides obvious differences between left- and right-wing forms
of populism, at its core populism comprises the claim that ‘the people’
constitute the legitimate sovereign from which all justifications of political
actions derive, and a conceptualisation of the social realm as split into two
opposite social blocs. This triggers an anti-elitism feeling against those in
power and an anti-pluralism (see, for instance, Müller, 2017). The conse-
quence of populist anti-pluralism is that the political leaders are the only
legitimate representatives of ‘the people’, while those organisations and
intermediary bodies designed to check political power in liberal democ-
racies—be they the judiciary, the media, or NGOs—are delegitimised.
Hence, in populist narratives, the concept of democratic legitimacy often
prevails over the principle of the rule of law.
Anti-elitism and anti-pluralism are at the core of the collision between
CSOs and populist politics, since the latter creates a hostile climate
towards all associations that act as intermediaries. Indeed, in recent years,
populist parties have radically reshaped the political landscape across
Europe, and at the EU level. Their success in the 2014 and 2019 Euro-
pean elections—though not majoritarian—has altered the composition of
the EU institutions and has also impacted on organised civil society. To
undermine the legitimacy and the efficacy of CSOs, many PRR leaders
have used the professionalisation of NGOs and their reliance on foreign
funding in order to portray CSOs as part of the elite. Moreover, the
frequent attacks against foreign-funded NGOs fall directly within the
narrative of CSOs as elitist organisations working against the people’s
interests and national sovereignty (Rodríguez-Garavito & Gomez, 2018:
19). Interestingly, Rodríguez-Garavito and Gomez stress the main types
of action that populists employ to curb the work of CSOs. They combine
obstructing foreign funding, placing burdens on the operational capabil-
ities of CSOs, controlling the work of independent media, and sullying
CSO campaigns.
In this vein, a study conducted by the European Economic and Social
Committee (Lessebski et al., 2019) confirmed that CSOs cite the lack
of financial and human resources as the most important obstacles that
they face in populist times. Along the same lines, this chapter delves into
the impact of populism on the EU institutions and civil society organisa-
tions, and the way in which these institutions and group react. Drawing
202 P. COSSARINI
on a large database of documents (see also Pejovic & Cossarini, 2020;

Ruzza, 2020), first explored in what follows is how CSOs frame populism
and then the extent to which they call for action to counter the exclu-
sionary discourse popularised within mainstream politics by PRR parties
and movements.
Data and Methodology

This chapter draws on a thematic and frame analysis of the texts produced
by well-known EU-based CSOs. This type of analysis involves mapping
the content and identifying the salience of certain themes and patterns of
meaning within qualitative data (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Frame analysis,
moreover, makes it possible to grasp the way in which discursive acts and
specific narratives are constructed (Caiani et al., 2012; Snow, 2013). The
chapter therefore describes a content and frame analysis of the CSOs texts
intended to identify the CSOs’ discursive interpretations of populism: that
is, the way in which those CSOs frame the populist challenge and how
they respond to it.
The dataset analysed consisted of various types of document produced
by several EU-level CSOs. This database comprised 460 documents
published between January 2013 and December 2019 and collected from
the major civil associations that focus on the main areas of discrimination
on which the EU focuses: that is, gender, race, religion, sexual orienta-
tion, and related issues such as rule of law and immigration. Thanks to
this wide time span, it was possible to identify variations in the salience of
certain themes and frames over time, as well as to track the evolution of
the CSOs’ discourse.
All texts were retrieved from the official webpages of civil society
organisations. As regards types of document, they were annual reports,
press releases, open letters to the EU institutions, statements, speeches,
and policy notes on concrete measures to be implemented (by either the
EU or Member States). The data selection in this chapter was made to
sample a relevant set of data epitomising the discourse of EU-level CSOs.
Since civil society organisations publish diverse types of documents, some
keywords were used to filter them and identify the most relevant ones.
These are: populism, discrimination, hate speech, xenophobia, Euroscepti-
cism, migration, Brexit, European democracy, and European values. In
addition to these, some more topics were used to select and map the civil
society’s discourse, in particular those topics related to different types of
discrimination, such as human rights violations, LGBT, race and racism,

gender and sexual discrimination, and religion-related issues. These topics
and keywords were taken to guarantee the pertinence of the documents
to the analysis, while allowing for the manageability of the dataset. More-
over, when the documents were longer, fewer were selected for that
specific year in order to maintain balance in the sample of documents.
The CSOs covered by the research were the following: European
Association for the Defence of Human Rights (AEDH); The Euro-
pean Women’s Lobby (EWL); International Lesbian and Gay Association
(ILGA); The European Grassroots Antiracist Movement (EGAM); The
European Network Against Racism (ENAR); A Jewish Contribution
to an Inclusive Europe (CEJI); European Roma Grassroots Organ-
isations Network (ERGO); The European Roma Information Office
(ERIO); European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC); Forum of European
Muslim Youth and Student (FEMYSO); European Humanist Federa-
tion (EHF); Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS EUROPE); European Council
on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE); Civil Society Europe (CSE); European
NGO Confederation for Relief and Development (CONCORD); Open
Society Foundation (OSF). Besides these, a few ‘conservative’ NGOs
were also considered. They were, Agenda Europe, European Christian
Political Movement (ECPM), Federation of Catholic Family Associa-
tions in Europe (FAFCE), and the Observatory on Intolerance and
Discrimination against Christians in Europe (OIDACE).
The content and frame analysis was computer-assisted. The coding was
carried out using Atlas.ti and was mostly inductive, since the texts of the
CSOs underwent a thorough reading that made it possible to identify
empirically the most relevant concerns of the CSOs as well as the recur-
rent frames associated with populism. The frame analysis is also illustrated
with excerpts from the documents in the subsequent sections.
Framing the Threat

What do CSOs talk about? How do CSOs frame populism? These ques-
tions are significant because by addressing them one can gain an idea of
what is at stake according to the wide range of civil society organisations
that operate at the European level. The database thematic analysis yielded
insights on the main topics and concerns for the EU-level CSOs.
Figure 1 shows the first ten topics that concern the EU-level CSOs. It
also displays the variation over time of these themes. As one might expect,
204
P. COSSARINI
Fig. 1 Main themes in the texts of the CSOs, 2013–2019 (Source Created by the author)
the main topics of CSOs relate to the diverse kinds of social and polit-
ical issues that each organisation works on, and especially to the various
types of discrimination and human rights violations that they address. The
notions of ‘discrimination’ and ‘human rights’ are indeed the ones most
common and recurrent throughout the timeframe considered. ‘Migra-
tion’ and ‘racism’ emerge as topics of increasing importance, with a peak
in 2016 and 2018, respectively. They are most probably linked to the
so-called refugee crisis and its political and social consequences. Interest-
ingly, the concepts of ‘violence’ and ‘women’ are also among the terms
that most frequently appear in the texts of the EU-level CSOs. This is
indubitably linked to the core concern of most of the CSOs with all types
of rights violations, on the one hand, and with gender-related issues on
the other hand. Moreover, also to be noted is that CSOs are somewhat
self-referential because they regularly talk about themselves in their texts.
What is important for the purpose of this study is that ‘populism’, at
least as a concept, is not frequently present in the texts of the CSOs. The
thematic analysis revealed that the term ‘populism’ was not as salient as
other terms in the documents analysed—and therefore in the narrative
of civil society as a whole. It was less used than other concepts, such
as racism, hate speech, discrimination, far-right politics, which, although
connected to the former, are not the same. Populism was not among the
top ten themes. It actually appeared along with ‘nationalism’ 98 times in
the 460 documents considered, and it came after many other topics, such
as ‘environment’, ‘Roma’, ‘Islamophobia’, and ‘sexual discriminations’.
It must therefore be acknowledged that CSOs have been aware of the
rise of populism and at the same time have incorporated the ambiguous
grammar of populist politics into their discourse:
Although populism is difficult to define, it shows several recurrent features:

it promotes direct democracy, claims a direct link between the govern-
ment and the people and rejects the established political system; it offers
immediate and demagogical solutions to people’s day to day problems;
it spreads simplistic and antagonistic images such as the sovereign nation,
the “sane” people vs. the “corrupted” and “technocratic” elites; it idealises
the nation and its perceived traditions, fuelling the criticism of any supra-
national political system; it holds an anti-globalisation discourse aimed at
protecting vulnerable people from the consequences of the competitive
capitalist market. (European Humanist Federation, October 2013)
206 P. COSSARINI
In this vein, closer inspection of the texts of the CSOs during the 2013–
2019 period reveals that populism was normally associated with, and often
followed by, a series of political terms that belong to the right-wing, when
not far-right, type of politics. ‘Racism’, ‘hate speech and crime’, ‘far-right
politics’, and ‘nationalism’ are the most common concepts that emerge
when the CSOs talk about populist parties or movements, either in power
or in opposition. The analysis also confirms that this association was recur-
rent during all the years analysed, with a peak located between 2017 and
2018. This confirms what was noted in the study conducted by the Euro-
pean Economic and Social Committee (Lessebski et al., 2019), which
rightly pointed out that CSOs do not distinguish populism—understood
in terms of the juxtaposition of ‘the people’ against ‘the elite’—as a sepa-
rate issue to tackle; rather, they seek to tackle other related phenomena
such as xenophobia, racism, or hate speech.
Moreover, a thorough analysis of these texts reveals that the most
common frame associated with populism is the idea of a threat (current
or imminent) raised by particular political parties and movements. (Front
National, Fidesz, Northern League, are those most frequently cited in the
documents.)
[...] hate speech and divisive rhetoric inextricably pervade and threaten
all aspects of our lives, most notably in the context of populism and
extremism. (ILGA-Europe, 11 February 2019)
This threat is especially connected to a specific narrative which features an

anti-immigration, anti-civil society, anti-EU, and anti-rule of law stance;
and most of the time it is linked to given countries, such as Hungary,
Poland, and Italy. In other words, populism does not stand alone in
the discourse of CSOs; rather, it comes in a compound of associated
concepts that shape its naturally elusive meaning. When the CSOs talk
about populism, they clearly mean right-wing populism, and they frame it
as a threat against which civil society must build a counter-force. Further-
more, with an unintended reference to what has been called “populist
hype” (Glynos & Mondon, 2019), CSOs seem to be aware of the risk
that giving PRR a disproportionate attention might carry.
[…] Let’s not sanitize these parties and their leaders by calling them “pop-
ulists” […] As well as disproportionate media attention, these parties have
a disproportionate influence on mainstream parties – and this is where the

real danger lies. (ECRE, 24 March 2017)
On inspecting the co-occurrences between the aforementioned terms

in Fig. 2 and the idea of a ‘threat’ to the EU’s values, it emerged that
‘human rights’ and ‘rule of law’ were the terms that most frequently co-
occurred in the discourse of the CSOs considered. Hence, civil society
is essentially concerned about the impact of right-wing populism on
(i) the implementation and defence of essential human rights and (ii)
respect for the basic rule of law across Europe. While this might seem
a redundant remark, it nevertheless reaffirms the type of threat repre-
sented by the more ambiguous concept of ‘populism’. Civil society, in
this regard, appears to be particularly concerned about these two essen-
tial liberal values. Moreover, in the texts analysed there appeared to be
Fig. 2 Conceptualisation of threats linked to populism in the texts of CSOs

2013–2019 (Source Created by the author)
208 P. COSSARINI
some specific subjects of discriminations which can be mainly linked to

ethno-racial, religious, and sexual/gender issues (e.g. migrants, Muslims,
Jews, Christians, women, LGBT people, etc.) (Fig. 3).
Unsurprisingly, the dataset out in the above graph parallels the main
themes treated in the CSOs’ texts as shown in Fig. 1. These discriminated-
against subjects, furthermore, point to another central aspect in the PRR
narrative, namely the construct of ‘the people’. It is commonly affirmed
that populists claim that ‘the people’ are the only people (Müller, 2017:
27). The implication of this claim is that only those considered to belong
to ‘the people’ deserve full recognition as rights holders. Evidently, this
assertion clashes with the universalistic conception of human rights stan-
dards for which all people, regardless of their gender, origin, sexuality,
religion, etc., are rights holders.
Moreover, the CSOs’ texts confirm that PRR forces have a prob-
lematic relationship with liberal values. Recent scholarship, in fact, has
stressed that PRR groups tend to selectively pick-and-choose the most
appropriate and useful parts of liberalism and transform them for their
Women
Gr=94
Sexual exploitation
Gr=78
Roma
Gr=144
Religious Issue
Gr=100
Race
Gr=409
Migration
Gr=422
Islamophobia
Gr=152
Gender
Gr=289
Antisemit*
Gr=36
Fig. 3 Conceptualisation of categories and subjects threatened by populism in

the texts of CSOs, 2013–2019 (Source Created by the author)
own illiberal purposes (Carothers & Brechenmacher, 2014; Levitsky &

Way, 2010; Mounk, 2018). Apart from a few Northern exceptions, the
unenthusiastic attitude towards individual and collective freedoms indi-
cates that the commitment of these forces to some key components of
liberalism is weak. As the above figure shows, this is particularly clear
as regards race, origin, and religion (i.e. race, migration, religion-related
issues in the figure), as well as when gender equality and LGBT rights
are discussed. Most often, the defence of these subjects and groups only
serves to demonise alleged Others, notably those who do not belong
within the radical right vision of society.
Likewise, over the years CSOs have especially stressed violations
of the rule of law within the EU. Already in 2013, The European
Humanist Federation warned about “radical populist movements” and
their “harmful consequences for the rule of law and democracy” (Euro-
pean Humanist Federation, The European Union and the Challenge of
Extremism and Populism, 2013: 5).
The restrictions of civic space in many countries are linked to an anti-

democratic development globally that questions the universality of human
rights. At the root of this are attempts by rulers to concentrate power
and evade accountability to people. The democratic space is put at risk
also in European countries (as demonstrated in CIVICUS Report) due
to similar non-democratic, populist and nationalist trends. (Concord, 13
March 2018)
In November 2018, a series of NGOs, among which CONCORD

Europe, European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN), European Movement
International, European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), European
Women’s Lobby, and European Network Against Racism, signed a Call
for action, “Democracy under attack”, in which they stated:
Our democracies are under attack. The rise of hate, divisive, and socially
and environmentally destructive political forces– including in many EU
countries – are putting our democracies at risk. They are undermining
democratic institutions and the rule of law by fomenting inequality
and discrimination and by seeking to muzzle independent media, non-
governmental organisations, trade unions, the judiciary, women, and
marginalised groups, including ethnic and religious minorities, LGBTI
people and people with disabilities. Democracy should mean working in
210 P. COSSARINI
the best interests of all, and not of some at the expense of others with less
power. (Call for action, “Democracy under attack”)
In this context, CSOs are primarily framed, in its own texts, as an essential
player in fighting discrimination, implementing human rights, protecting
the rule of law, and ultimately as a pillar of democracy in the European
political landscape.
Countering the Populist Threat:

CSOs Calling for Action
Although the statements and press releases are characterised by a large
amount of self-referential rhetoric, CSOs emerge as a force countering
the threat of populism-nationalism or, more broadly, the diverse forms
of discrimination following the rise of PRR groups. CSOs, their calls for
action, and the policy measures that they advocate are generally framed
as a response to this threat. They are framed as a force that contributes to
solidarity building through different types of actions. These actions range
from various forms of campaigning—e.g. denouncing dangers for the rule
of law, protecting the rights of minority groups, and ultimately strength-
ening itself, i.e. supporting a vibrant civil society—through policy-making,
to legal advocacy.
“Populism is here to stay” affirmed the NGO European Humanist
Federation in October 2013, also stressing the urgent need to strengthen
the EU mechanisms to counter the rise of far-right parties across Europe.
Pointing to the need for action, this organisation also highlighted a
general concern among CSOs about the efficiency of the EU in fighting
PRR forces.
This is all the more concerning than the EU has been more and more
perceived as inefficient to solve EU citizens’ daily problems, whereas
populist parties have been proposing short term and easy demagogical
solutions […] So far, the responses of the EU towards the rise and deep-
rootedness of populist ideas have been rather limited, partly because of the
limits of existing EU mechanisms and partly because of a lack of political
will from Member States. (European Humanist Federation, The European
Union and the Challenge of Extremism and Populism, October 2013)
Indeed, the European Economic and Social Committee’s study on the

impact of populism (Lessebski et al., 2019) pointed out that a lack
of European support, and specifically a lack of financial and human
resources, were the most important difficulties of CSOs in dealing with
the radical right populist surge (Lessebski et al., 2019) (Fig. 4).
A content analysis of the CSOs’ texts between 2013 and 2019
confirmed that the EU, despite being the primary recipient and inter-
locutor of all organisations, was perceived as lacking in various respects.
Specifically, the threat raised by far-right politics was one of the greatest
dangers, and actions to face it were among the greatest deficiencies. Inter-
estingly, migration and racism do not score as high as they do in the
graphs measuring the salience and relevance of themes and threats. This
suggests that CSOs consider the EU’s response to the issues related to
these two aspects as more adequate and effective.
Fig. 4 Co-occurrences ‘EU deficiencies’ in the texts of CSOs, 2013–2019

(Source Created by the author)
212 P. COSSARINI
Furthermore, as one might expect, the activities of CSOs that can

help combat rising PRR forces are mainly those that promote EU values,
civic education and engagement, direct democracy, support to minori-
ties, refugees, and migrants, and those that tackle online disinformation.
This is confirmed by the analysis of CSO documents, which shows that
civil society organisations have a direct impact on three specific, and
connected, aspects of EU politics: (1) human rights and rule of law;
(2) anti-discrimination; (3) ‘solidarity, and community building’—in the
sense of creating a bond of unity around a common goal. All this is
also reflected by the numerous joint calls made by different networks
of NGOs. Since the early 2010s, CSOs have been aware of the “[…]
urgent need for the EU to defend itself as a community of values, based
on democracy, protection of the minorities and the rule of Law with a
global, strong and coordinated action” (European Humanist Federation,
October 2013).
In this context, in the documents analysed, CSOs emerged as key
actors in disseminating the EU fundamental rights regime. They can be
crucial in this regard because they can perform a necessary monitoring
role, help put human rights into practice, and identify the disjuncture
between institutional discourses and practices.
EU action is overdue. We the undersigned call on the European Union

and European governments to respond to this threat and to: 1) Uphold
the rule of law. The EU has a duty to ensure governments uphold the
rule of law, as European citizens suffer the consequences of restrictions
on freedom of speech and of assembly, constraints on media and academic
freedom, election interference, the normalisation of hate speech and hate
crimes, and political and corporate corruption. These last years have shown
how the EU and national governments have been unable to turn words
into action on the ground. 2) Apply zero tolerance for hate speech and
cyber-violence. 3) Defend the right for people to campaign for the public
interest. Human rights defenders, trade unionists, environmental activists
and non-governmental organisations are on the frontline of battles to
defend the public interest in many EU countries. (Open Call for action,
“Democracy under attack, November 2018)
Antiracist organisations, for instance, are part of a broad group of anti-

discrimination organisations. In the issue area of anti-racism, the main
actors are CSOs focusing on citizenship, migration, xenophobia, and
ethnic discrimination, and working on the ground of Article 13 (now

Article 19 of TFEU). CSOs call for action:
With xenophobic populism on the rise across Europe and the globe, this
is an appeal for leadership to uphold the rights and values that have been
founding principles of the European Union for 60 years. Together, we need
to prevent legitimate concerns about migration management from being
hijacked and used to derail the European project. Only a Europe that really
stands by its values can be a strong and credible leader in a world shaken by
increasing populism and so-called alternative facts. European history is full
of people who were forced to flee their homes due to war and persecution.
(168 NGOs’ Open Letter to Head of States and Government, 9 March 2017)
In this context, specific calls have stressed different types of situation,

from the so-called refugee crisis to racism and discrimination in given
countries where the rule of law is under threat. EU-level CSO calls for “a
stronger commitment and action of the European Union, Member States,
institutions and civil society to fight racism, discrimination, far-right and
xenophobic movements”2 are in line with the role that the EU institu-
tions assume for CSOs. The role of civil society as a dispenser of ideas
and narratives, for instance, has long been stressed in the Commission’s
discourse (Pejovic & Cossarini, 2020). In the ‘refugee crisis’ context, the
Commission has underlined the CSOs’ role in ‘debunking the myths’
about smuggling and irregular migration. CSOs are recognised as an
important factor influencing public opinion amid the ‘war’ between those
political and societal forces in favour of ‘open-door’ policies and those
hostile to the reception of asylum seekers. As Commissioner Jourová
rightly warned, the worry and dismay of all social categories should not
be dismissed:
We need to take the concerns and fears of European citizens seriously. We

must engage with those who feel frustrated or neglected by mainstream
politics, who feel left behind in an age of globalisation and digitalisation,
for whom some of the populist slogans sound promising. In this context
2 CSOs’ Joint Press Release, January 2015.

214 P. COSSARINI
we also must make clear that fundamental rights are not a ‘niche concern’
only for minorities.3
In parallel with that acknowledgement, CSOs recognise the role of all EU

institutions, also urging their greater involvement in national and local
issues. ILGA-Europe, for instance, voices the concerns of LGBT people,
stressing the violations of their rights especially in Eastern and Southern
countries: “We urgently call on candidates for the European Parliament to
step up against the current threatening wave of populism and extremism,
and make a commitment to protecting, supporting and empowering the
citizens they represent, and their fundamental rights” (ILGA-Europe, 12
February 2019). Similarly, the European Association for the Defence of
Human Rights has long focused on the situation in Hungary:
We urge you to show your support to civil society, press freedom, academic
freedom, the independence of the judiciary, the rule of law and funda-
mental rights. The changes introduced by Hungary’s government are not
a matter of national discretionary power: the European Union has to take a
strong stance, as the UN and Council of Europe did. (AEDH—Call on the
LIBE Committee members to adopt a strong resolution on the situation
in Hungary)
Hungary, in this context, has become one of the main targets of all those
CSOs working on rule of law and promotion of human rights. A joint
statement in support of Hungary’s civil society and discriminated minority
groups provides insight into the willingness of CSOs to create a pan-
European narrative able to counter the PRR’s nationalist and exclusionary
discourse:
Together, we will work to create a Europe that truly respects human

dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and human rights,
including the rights of persons belonging to minorities in a society in which
pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality
between women and men prevail. (Joint Statement, Civil Society Europe,
16 May 2017)
3 European Commission, Speech by Commissioner Jourová, 10 years of the EU Funda-

mental Rights Agency: A Call to Action in Defence of Fundamental Rights, Democracy,
and the Rule of Law, 28 February 2017.
Moreover, the content and frame analysis of CSO documents has shown
that the concept of solidarity is one of the central ideas linked to the
different crises that Europe has undergone in recent decades—refugees
and asylum seekers; euro crisis; rise of PRR; and nationalism-populism.
‘Solidarity’ as a code occurs over 450 times in a simple word count and is
directly linked to similar codes—such as human rights, rule of law, envi-
ronment, and social justice—that, all together, are useful for grasping the
idea of community-building.
In the current political landscape, CSOs urge an additional effort to
furnish solidarity by both the EU and the Member States. Likewise,
CSOs’ texts show that the willingness to express more solidarity, especially
with immigrants and refugees, has become a new political dividing line
that in recent years has split the EU between those Member States more
in favour of and those hostile to this specific idea of a solidarity-based
Europe.
Conclusion
By considering the EU-level CSOs’ discourse and by means of content
and frame analysis, this chapter has shown that CSOs are aware of the
populist climate across Europe and within the EU institutions. At the
same time, the civil society discourse shows that the majority of organi-
sations frame this ‘populist turn’ as a threat to the values at the core of
liberal democracy and the EU project. Importantly, the types of threat
that the EU-level CSOs stress are largely coincident with the risks gener-
ated by the rise of PRR forces, as the recent literature on radical- and
far-right politics has demonstrated (e.g. Mudde, 2010). This chapter has
examined the role of civil society in facing PRR forces and pointed out
that CSOs do not frame populism as a separate issue to tackle; rather, their
targets are related discriminatory phenomena such as xenophobia, racism,
or hate speech. Populism therefore appears in CSOs’ texts as a synonym
for the threat raised by specific radical right forces. This has important
analytical consequences.
Undoubtedly, the idea of CSOs as groups exclusively defending inclu-
sionary policies must be debunked, since so-called uncivil society organ-
isations have been emerging across Europe and at the EU level. These
organisations display a distinctive anti-universalistic and anti-cosmopolitan
ethos that has grown over the years, often in parallel with the rise
of PRR forces and their exclusionary narrative. Despite the emerging
216 P. COSSARINI
‘uncivil’ society, and the much-needed critique of a simple character-

isation of CSOs as endorsing only progressive ideals, the chapter has
stressed that the left-leaning civil society is still strong and willing to fight
discriminatory politics.
While aware that a vibrant civil society is not in itself a guarantee of
a good democratic life, the moralised paradigm that CSOs of this type
put forward, associated with tolerant and cosmopolitan views, still acts
as a prominent critical voice against the PRR’s rise. Furthermore, this
critique should be associated with the values and organisational principles
of each organisation, although the progressive-leaning EU-based CSOs
share a common programme that defends the central role of civil society
in the European project. Likewise, the chapter has also linked the EU-
level CSOs with an alternative discourse that is part and parcel of their
campaign for change, which is based on human rights, respect of the
rule of law, and a form of solidarity-driven pluralism—in direct opposi-
tion to the nationalist, exclusionary, and socially conservative conception
promoted by PRR groups.
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The Interaction Among Populism, Civil
Society Organisations and European
Institutions
Pierluigi Brombo
Introduction
Populism has a strong impact on civil society organisations (CSOs),
alongside other factors with which it combines, such as economic crisis,
new economic and environmental paradigms, demographic and societal
changes, and digitalisation. This chapter will examine how the populist
assumption that nothing must stand between “the people” and the lead-
ership means that all intermediary bodies, as CSOs are by definition, must
be curbed and limited to a non-political role.
The impact of populism on European CSOs is more significant at
national level than at EU level. Indeed, as we shall see in the second part
of this chapter, this impact operates through public authorities that are led
or influenced by populist forces and through a public discourse and public
sphere dominated or strongly shaped by them. These situations occur
The book only reflects my views and in no way the ones of the institution I
belong to.
P. Brombo (B)
European Economic and Social Committee, Bruxelles, Belgium
e-mail: pierluigi.brombo@eesc.europa.eu

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73411-4_10
220 P. BROMBO
much more frequently in some member states than in the EU institutions,

the large majority of which are still dominated by non-populist forces
embracing the values of CSOs. The same applies to the public sphere,
which in the EU is largely influenced by progressive parties and ideolo-
gies opposed to populism. Moreover, CSOs are an active and vocal part
of what is called the “Brussels bubble”, which they feed with ideas while
constituting a precious transmission belt between the EU institutions and
EU citizens. This chapter will therefore focus more on the national level
where the negative impact of populism on CSOs is stronger. But it will
also examine, in the third part of the chapter, how the relations between
CSOs and EU institutions have evolved in response to a populist upsurge.
This chapter explores the interactions between populism and CSOs
in European states along several dimensions: firstly, the influence of the
public authorities, notably those including populist forces, on CSOs;
secondly, how populism influences public discourse against CSOs; thirdly,
the challenges that the lack of a safe space poses for CSOs. All the EU
institutions seem to be moving in the same direction, exploring new
avenues of direct and deliberative democracy rather than participatory
democracy through CSOs, and choosing to fund them more on a project
basis than structurally, thus undermining their autonomy and stability.
However, CSOs still play a crucial role as channels of communication
between individuals and public authorities. They also play a key political
role in gathering and voicing people’s needs, demands and positions, and
in fighting populism, of which they are not simply the victims.
Elements of the Economic and Societal Context

When considering the impact of populism on civil society organisations
(CSOs), it should be noted that this impact does not occur in a closed
environment where populism is the only factor to affect civil society. Civil
society exists and operates in a context which also comprises other factors
helping to shape its characteristics and development. Before exploring the
influence of populism on civil society, it therefore seems appropriate to
examine these other factors that combine, mix and interact with populism
to shape organised civil society.
These factors can be grouped into four broad categories, namely:
the economic crisis that hit Europe in 2008, with effects which have
lasted for several years even after the end of the crisis itself; an ideo-
logical and societal context which has seen both the rise of new models
THE INTERACTION AMONG POPULISM … 221
critical of deterministic views geared to continuous economic growth,

and an emerging environmental awareness; the demographic and societal
changes affecting societies; and digitalisation, which increasingly infil-
trates people’s lives and social relations, as well as affecting their political
behaviour and, ultimately, radically transforming the whole of society.
Economic Crisis
The effects of the economic crisis have had a significant impact on
civil society, as indicated by Youngs (2019: 21), who writes that “[t]he
post-2009 economic crisis in Europe gave rise to a wide range of
community-based self-help activism, while dissatisfaction with EU insti-
tutional opaqueness has inspired an increasing number of “citizens”
lobbyists’ to engage on specific problems that blight European politics”.
By examining this point in greater detail, we can specify the various ways
in which the effects of this crisis have been felt.
Firstly, in practical terms, the crisis has led to a decrease in the resources
made available to organisations by the public authorities. Although it is
not homogeneous, this problem is nevertheless found in the vast majority
of European countries (FRA, 2018: 29). This decrease is all the more
problematic because, according to data from the Fundamental Rights
Agency (FRA, 2018: 30), CSOs depend to a great extent on public funds.
This point will be explored further when considering how the decrease in
public funds for CSOs is particularly evident in cases where governments
are led by or composed of populist parties.
A second factor which has an impact on CSOs is the general decrease
in public funding allocated by public authorities to social policies, the
sector in which CSOs are most active. This explains and further empha-
sises the first point, because this decrease leads to a reduction in funding
for social activities carried out by CSOs. Besides having an impact on the
amount of funding received by CSOs, the cutback in funding for social
policies also affects such organisations via another route. It exacerbates
the social effects of the economic crisis, aggravating social hardship and
social inequalities, thus increasing the need for social action by CSOs. This
means that CSOs are compelled to focus more on their activities as service
providers, to the detriment of their advocacy activities. We shall consider
this point in greater detail, along with its repercussions on CSOs’ polit-
ical and democratic activities, in later sections. However, it can already be
222 P. BROMBO
concluded that the decrease in funding allocated to social policies has an

impact on CSOs in both quantitative and qualitative terms.
Cultural and Political Context

As regards the rise of new societal and political views and models, the
influence on CSOs is indirect, but no less significant as a result. Such
views and models provide operating context for CSOs, affecting, for
example, their political leverage and increasing their outreach, recruit-
ment of volunteers, and ability to raise private funds. There are two main
new models, both of which are linked to the concept of sustainable devel-
opment. The first is concerned with the economy and development, while
the second focuses more on environmental protection.
With regard to the former, new economic and societal models are
becoming established and gaining traction not only in scientific circles
but also among the public. They are inspired by an awareness that a
productivist, consumerist, liberal model based on the illusion of contin-
uous economic growth cannot be sustained in the long term and cannot
lead society and economy to general well-being. The crisis in 2008 and
the ensuing slow recovery have given rise to alternative “post-growth”1
models of economic development, or to “degrowth”2 models, which take
an even more radical approach. Such approaches stand as an alternative to
an economic model based on and geared to economic growth. Instead,
they aim for a less quantitative type of development based on objectives of
personal well-being, egalitarianism and environmental sustainability. The
growing sense that, after the COVID-19 crisis, it will be necessary to
return to a less consumerist and productivist life is very much on the
same lines, making these reflections even more interesting.
The second model is linked to a new ecological and environmental
awareness, and it interlinks with the first one because now emerging are
1 According to the Post Growth Institute, “‘Post-growth’ is a worldview that sees

society operating better without the demand of constant economic growth. It proposes
that widespread economic justice, social well-being and ecological regeneration are only
possible when money inherently circulates through our economy”.
2 According to the Degrowth and Research (2020) website, “Sustainable degrowth
is a downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and
enhances ecological conditions and equity on the planet. It calls for a future where
societies live within their ecological means, with open, localized economies and resources
more equally distributed through new forms of democratic institutions”.
new circular economy and shared economy models driven by respect for
the environment. These involve a veritable paradigm shift, to the point
that the objective is no longer growth, which requires the use of environ-
mental resources, but rather environmental protection, which shapes and
drives the economy and development. This approach has been reflected
in civil society, giving rise to new movements, such as Fridays for Future,
which, while not currently considered a part of organised civil society, may
eventually become established. Yet they clearly have already an impact on
the EU political agenda, which now sets the Green Deal as its mainstream
priority.3 While it is the task of political scientists to study and measure the
causal nexus between the two, one can already note that EU institutions
take this movement very seriously. In a short time, its leader, the Swedish
activist Greta Thunberg, has been invited to address the European Envi-
ronment Council (of Ministers) and (twice) the Environment Committee
of the European Parliament; she has met the previous and the current
president of the European Commission on several occasions; and she has
been invited to the European Economic and Social Committee plenary
session.
Demographic and Societal Context

With regard to the demographic and societal changes affecting societies,
various aspects of them have an impact on CSOs. Firstly, the ageing of
the population has a direct impact on the organisations, and it is reflected
in the rise in the average age of their members and, in particular, of
their managers. Moreover, as already discussed in relation to the increase
in marginalisation and social inequalities, this creates and fuels greater
care needs to which CSOs, as social services providers, respond, espe-
cially when the state or the market do not intend to deal with them.
Similarly, the increasing immigrant population, in terms of both flow and
percentage of the population, calls for growing action by CSOs to help
with social inclusion. New, more flexible, temporary and, unfortunately,
more unstable forms of work also make it more difficult for average citi-
zens to organise their free time and therefore be able to offer a structured
and ongoing commitment to volunteering for CSOs.
3 https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en.
224 P. BROMBO
Digitalisation
The effects of digitalisation take various forms, and they are closely linked
to the relationship between populism and civil society organisations, given
that populist activities make extensive use of social media and information
technologies. “Populist parties and movements have proven particularly
deft at developing strategies to capture new audiences through social
media, putting in place permanent, targeted campaigns—often based on
fear and polarisation, because these are the emotions that are most likely
to attract attention and keep individuals online—in order to maintain and
continuously grow their voter base. As a result, social media is helping to
amplify the voice of fringe groups, with less than 0.1% of users across
Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Poland generating around 10% of
content related to politics and the European elections around January
2019”.
Moreover, digitalisation and social media change citizens’ behaviour
and their political expectations. Having got used to rapid (instant) action
such as likes, followers and spontaneous comments, they have become
accustomed to and expect direct and immediate outcomes when they
show support for or criticise a situation (EESC, 2017: 19). This need
for a quick and simple response is the perfect substrate for the devel-
opment of populism, since its main weapons are its own responsiveness
and the ability to churn out ready-made answers. A second aspect that
populism exploits is echo chambers, through which social media and
search engines provide the users with information, sites and advertising
relating to their interests, as shown by their browsing habits. This ends
up confirming the users’ own views and opinions by showing them a
reference community, or “filter bubble” as it is called, which increas-
ingly resembles them (Pariser, 2011). It creates a polarisation in which
there seems to be increasingly less room for different opinions and more
nuanced and moderate positions. Another aspect of digitalisation which
has an impact on CSOs is the fact that “digital technologies are creating
a new type of social fabric and a fertile ground for the spread of a wide
variety of “non-establishment” stakeholders and networks” (EPSC, 2019:
20). New forms of expression and citizen participation are emerging: for
instance, digital campaigns, fundraising, online petitions, online consulta-
tions and genuine tools for online participatory democracy. As an example
of the growing importance of these tools, to be mentioned here is the
“Grand Débat” (Great Debate) organised by the French president of
the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, to consult and debate with citizens

on their expectations and demands regarding the future of the country.
Despite the use of citizens’ assemblies and complaints books, the main
tool was by far the online consultation, which reached two million contri-
butions. The Internet and social media also make it possible to organise
protests or movements without the need, as was the case in the past, for
permanent and structured bodies (Youngs, 2019: 83ff). Examples of this
are the Arab Springs, the protests in Hong Kong, the young people of
Fridays for Future, the Yellow Vests in France or the Sardines movement
in Italy. The question remains of how these movements are able to have
a real and structural impact on politics (Youngs, 2019: 52–79), but this
issue falls outside the scope of this chapter. Besides the technical oppor-
tunities offered by IT, there is also another feature of these movements,
and it concerns our above point on ad hoc activism and the reduction
of commitment to long-term projects. According to some (e.g. Youngs,
2019: 9), the rise of these new forms of civil activism requires the term
“civil society” to be re-thought, with a view to the “old civil society”
being replaced by a new civil activism. We shall see later that this claim
seems excessive. One final aspect to be stressed, due to its widespread
use by populist movements, is the spread of fake news. This occurs both
because of IT tools and social media and because of a tendency by large
sections of the population to use them as a single source of informa-
tion and, in particular, to believe them uncritically (Pew Research Center,
2018).
Impact of Populism on Civil Society Organisations

Before beginning our discussion of how populism influences and impacts
on organised civil society, it seems appropriate to define populism, or
rather to select a definition to which we will refer from the many that exist
in the academic community. We will use the definition by Cas Mudde
(2004), according to which populism is “an ideology that considers
society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic
groups, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite”, and which argues
that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will)
of the people”. In this respect, it is worth noting that Jean Monnet, one
of the founding fathers of the European project, believed that civil society
organisations were the “elites of Europe”, a term to which he gave a posi-
tive connotation. He understood them to be living economic and social
forces which should be given an institutional voice by establishing the
226 P. BROMBO
Economic and Social Committee4 (Varsori, 2000: 52). This assembly, set
up by the 1957 Rome Treaty, is composed of 326 members, drawn from
economic and social interest groups in Europe, who represent civil society
organisations’ voice in the EU decision and policy-making process. Their
task is to issue opinions on matters of European interest, thus advising
the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament.
In the following subsections, we shall therefore examine the inter-
actions between populism and European civil society organisations and
in particular how the former impacts on the latter. This impact takes
various forms, and it comes about through different channels, which
will be presented under three headings: through the public authorities—
in particular Member States’ governments and the EU institutions—
through public discourse and through the public space.
Impact of Populism Through Public Authorities

Populism’s impact on civil society organisations is effected by the public
authorities in various ways. Before examining these in detail, to be stressed
is that while this impact is naturally greater in states ruled by govern-
ments led or supported by populist parties, it is also perceptible in others.
This is because mainstream parties, especially those located on the centre-
right of the political spectrum, tend to follow more populist policies
so as not to lose votes to their right. As highlighted by Bertelsman
Stiftung’s Sustainable Governance indicators (EPSC, 2019: 2), this results
in the deterioration of democracy in Europe. Mainstream parties and the
governments that they support are influenced by populism through its
impact on public discourse and in the political arena, as well as through
its capacity to set the political debate’s agenda (EPSC, 2019: 6). As we
shall see in later sections, the same applies to some extent to the EU insti-
tutions which, though largely anti-populist, are inevitably affected by the
growing influence of populism in society and in national political systems.
We can identify three channels through which populism has an impact
on civil society organisations via public authorities: regulatory environ-
ment, funding and financing, and participation in the decision-making
process. This analysis will be largely based on the Fundamental Rights
Agency (FRA) paper on Challenges facing civil society organisations
4 Currently the European Economic and Social Committee. See https://www.eesc.eur

opa.eu/en/about.
working on human rights in the EU (FRA, 2017). Although the paper

focuses on organisations dealing with human rights, the data and infor-
mation that it provides can easily be applied to all CSOs. It is worth
noting that the situation has not evolved positively in the past few years:
according to the FRA (2018: 3), “more than half of the civil society
organisations which responded [to the consultation carried out by the
FRA] consider that overall in the past three years the situation for civil
society in their country has deteriorated or strongly deteriorated”. It is
quite clear, and confirmed by several sources,5 that this is due to the rise
of populism and the birth of populist governments.
Regulatory Environment
This subsection depicts the legal hurdles encountered by CSOs as well as
their failure to comply with their members’ rights. These hurdles can take
three forms:
Freedom of association. CSOs must deal with registration proce-
dures which are becoming increasingly complicated and expensive, thus
discouraging or making it difficult for them to apply. For example, in
Hungary, the new Civil Code introduced by Orban’s government requires
registered CSOs to have their founding documents amended through a
lengthy and resource-intensive process (FRA, 2017: 22). Another hurdle
relates to the limits and checks imposed on CSOs in their “political”
and advocacy activities (FRA, 2017: 21–22). Again, rules on the prohi-
bition or dissolution of CSOs are applied widely on the pretext of
implementing anti-terrorism laws and particularly anti-money laundering
legislation (FRA, 2017: 23, 26). A final hurdle relates to restrictions on
entry into the country imposed on CSOs, particularly those working in
the field of human rights.
Freedom of opinion, expression and information. The main hurdle
here is defamation legislation. According to the Office for Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights of the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), “in a number of OSCE participating
States, defamation laws are reportedly used to silence, and sometimes even
5 See the country reports of the missions carried out by the Group on Fundamental
Rights and the Rule of Law of the European Economic and Social Committee (2019a)
as concerns Poland, Hungary and Austria, confirmed also by (More-Hollerweger et al.,
2019, p. 7) as concerns Austria and Hungary.
228 P. BROMBO
imprison human rights defenders” (FRA, 2017: 24). This is notably the
case of Austria and Hungary.
Freedom of peaceful assembly. Unjustified restrictions are imposed on
CSOs’ right of assembly on the basis of the content of the message
that they support, as in the case of Poland and the Netherlands. Blanket
restrictions and bans on assembly are also often imposed, as in Romania
and the Czech Republic. In general, it appears that the policing of assem-
blies is becoming increasingly strict in populist states but also, to a lesser
extent, in other states which seem to be influenced by the general anti-
CSO trend (FRA, 2017: 24–25). Thus, in France for example, as found
by a mission organised by the EESC group on Fundamental Rights and
the Rule of Law (FRRL), “the entry into force of the law on ‘the main-
tenance and reinforcement of public order during demonstrations’ in
April 2019 has led to a deterioration in the otherwise solid legal protec-
tion of the right to demonstrate in France. […] CSOs criticised the
fact that the right to demonstrate was being curtailed through a large
number of disproportionate and unjustified arrests, and through the use
of excessive force by security forces. CSOs also mentioned the abuse of
custody (garde à vue) as a means of neutralising activists—notably envi-
ronmental activists—and preventing them from taking part in protests.
They lamented that complaints brought against the police had not led to
consequences” (EESC, 2019a: 21).
Funds and Finance

This is a very important factor for the existence of CSOs, and it is crucial
in determining their room for manoeuvre because they depend very
largely on government funding (FRA, 2017: 30–31). “Public funds often
enable CSOs to contribute to the public good in terms of service delivery,
especially in the field of social services” (More-Hollerweger et al., 2019:
9). In Central and Eastern Europe in particular, it can be noted that
“Public funding sources (e.g. EU funds, government funds) have a funda-
mental role in the funding of CSOs in all countries, implying that no civil
society can thrive based on private funding and/or foundations alone”
(More-Hollerweger et al., 2019: 10).
Although there is a lack of comprehensive data for all EU Member
States, a reduction in public funding has been registered in many of them,
such as Romania, Hungary, Croatia and Bulgaria (More-Hollerweger
et al., 2019: 11). According to the mission report of the FRRL’s EESC
group, this has also been the case in Austria and France. As regards the
latter, although clearly not led by populist parties, France seems to have
issues with CSO freedom because they are seen as part of the “vieux
monde” that should be swept away by the “nouveau monde” personalised
by the president of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, and his “vertical
relationship”6 with citizens. By this he means the state’s direct relation-
ship with its citizens without any intermediary body between them, thus
taking an approach very similar to the populist credo. Hence, in France,
“in a context of scarce resources, public and private financing available for
CSOs has decreased. Associations are particularly badly affected by this
situation. According to the representatives met during the mission, they
are seen only as easy budgetary adjustment variables, while their civic,
democratic, social and economic functions are forgotten or even chal-
lenged” (EESC, 2019a: 21). Here it is evident that the factor of populism
interacts with the economic crisis and the slow recovery that has followed.
Again, as noted earlier, analysis of what happened with the 2008–2009
crisis may be particularly relevant to the present economic crisis triggered
by the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides the quantity, what also counts to
a great extent in CSO funding is the distribution of funds to organisa-
tions close to governments, notably those led or supported by populist
parties. This has been reported in Hungary, Poland, Croatia (FRA, 2017:
30) and Bulgaria (More-Hollerweger et al., 2019: 8) and has led to
the paradox of the creation by the government of so-called GONGOs:
government-organised non-governmental organisations (EESC, 2017b:
27). “These CSOs colonize the civil society and attempt to mimic its
purpose and actions, which creates an environment consisting mostly of
government-supportive CSOs and limits the diversity in civil society. This
is principally the case in Romania, Serbia, Croatia and Hungary” (More-
Hollerweger et al., 2019: 12). It seems useful to present Hungary as
a case study as, although “loyalty to political sides and parties is not
a Hungarian specialty, yet nowhere else has the emerging civil society
and the media been captured by the political parties to such a degree
as in Hungary” (Pap & Śledzińska-Simon, 2019: 78). The mechanism
through which it operates sees “State funding to NGOs and other
civil society groups […] distributed through the National Cooperation
Fund (NEA), whose nine-member council is dominated by govern-
ment and parliamentary appointees” (UN Refugee Agency, 2017). In
6 See his interview in “La Nouvelle Revue Française” (https://www.lanrf.fr/), May

2018, where he says “assumer totalement la ‘verticalité’ du pouvoir”.
230 P. BROMBO
particular, “One of the central figures of the system is the president

of the National Cooperation Fund, and founder of and one of the
spokespersons for Civil Alliance Forum (CÖF) at the same time. CÖF
practically operates as an outsourced division of the ruling party Fidesz,
and lacks a transparent financial background. Since 2010, CÖF has organ-
ised a number of pro-government protests, the so-called Peace Marches
(Békemenet), and communication campaigns consisting of billboards, TV
and newspaper ads to discredit opposition parties and politicians during
election campaigns. In addition to this, CÖF constantly proposes legis-
lation restricting CSOs dealing with human rights. Important members
of the network of pseudo-civil society organisations are advocacy-type
GONGOs, whose activities and topics of choice resemble NGOs involved
in fighting corruption and protecting human rights, however, they are
obviously tied to the cabinet. These organisations are created to counter-
balance government-critical voices; their aim is to defend the steps taken
by the government with their seemingly professional and independent
comments, substantiate Fidesz’s claims, and react to statements critical of
the government” (EU-Russia Civil Society Forum, 2017: 106).
CSOs’ dependence on public funding is even more crucial in countries
such as Hungary and Slovakia where severe limitations on foreign funding
(FRA, 2017: 35) deprive CSOs of an alternative source of funds. More-
over, administrative requirements for applying for funds and reporting on
their use are becoming increasingly burdensome and often unbearable for
small organisations. Another clear trend emerging throughout Europe is
the shift in allocation of public funding from advocacy to service provision
(health, education, social affairs) (FRA, 2017: 32). This tendency seems
to fit with the above-mentioned approach of populism that conceives a
direct link between the state and citizens with no intermediary bodies
to mediate or balance it. In this approach, it is obvious that civil society
organisations are discouraged from playing any political role and must
limit themselves to providing social services. This shift in the alloca-
tion of funds to CSOs only as service providers has an obvious impact
on their capacity to play a participatory democratic role as well as on
their watchdog and litigation capacity. Funds tend also to be provided to
an increasing extent for operations rather than for structural expenses,
thus making CSOs more vulnerable and dependent on the evaluation
by authorities of each operation. In the UK, “[m]ore than 80% of the
government funding received by charities is now in the form of contracts
for delivering services rather than grants to support their work, compared
to 49% in 2000/2001” (EESC, 2017b: 30). This makes CSOs more

vulnerable, increasing their dependency on, and consequently decreasing
their autonomy from, governments. Moreover, CSOs end up competing
for funds with the business sector, which is often better equipped and
more professional. As a result, CSOs are struggling to survive and fulfil
their purpose (EESC, 2017b: 27).
Participation in the Decision-Making Process

Participation in the decision-making process is a crucial way in which
CSOs can participate in democracy and facilitate civic involvement. Since
populism claims to represent people directly with no need for intermedi-
ation, it is not surprising that this role is being brought under pressure.
As a consequence, access to public affairs is hindered by lack of informa-
tion and transparency on policy and legal initiatives, making it difficult
for CSOs to know how to perform their role in a participatory democ-
racy. This appears to be especially true in Bulgaria and Romania (EESC,
2019a: 10). The situation is also critical in Austria, where “Regarding the
consultation of CSOs in drafting legislation, CSOs said that their contri-
butions were now being largely ignored, which had not previously been
the case. CSO representatives did not feel that the consultation process
could be regarded as a real partnership and said that they were not being
taken seriously as experts” (EESC, 2019a: 24). There also seems to be
a lack of clear rules and procedures, producing a grey area in which it
is difficult for CSOs to know if, when and how they can intervene in
the decision-making process (FRA, 2017: 43–36; 2018: 9–10). More-
over, despite some good practices, such as in Estonia, most of the EU
states lack the determination and capacity to really involve civil society
organisations in the decision-making process (FRA, 2017: 40).
The situation is well illustrated by the graph below, which shows the
evolution of the civil society participation index7 in those countries led
by populist parties. It depicts the decrease from the time, indicated with
7 Drawn up by the V-Dem Institute, University of Göteborg, this index is composed

of the following elements: “Are major CSOs routinely consulted by policymakers; how
large is the involvement of people in CSOs; are women prevented from participating; and
is legislative candidate nomination within party organization highly decentralized or made
through party primaries?”.
232 P. BROMBO
Fig. 1 Civil society participation index (Source Highcharts.com/V-Dem)
a blue spot on the curve, at which populist parties joined the govern-
ment, thus highlighting a temporal nexus between the two aspects. This
nexus is not surprising in the light of the approach of populism aimed
at establishing a direct link between the leader and “the people” with
no intermediation. We see, in fact, that those countries that are led by
populist forces, and especially those that do not seem fully in line with
democratic values, tend to curb the political and democratic role of CSOs
and the open participation of citizens in the decision- and policy-making
process (Fig. 1).
Impact of Populism Through Public Discourse

The impact of populism on CSOs through public discourse may operate
both indirectly, when populist parties, movements and governments seri-
ously criticise and undermine the values underpinning the action and the
very existence of CSOs, and directly through negative public discourse

and smear campaigns targeting civil society organisations.
Public Discourse and Values

In order better to define how the values inherent in the existence and
action of CSOs are being brought under pressure in an environment
dominated or influenced by populism, the features and values of populism
need to be identified. According to Inglehart and Norris (2016), the
three main features of populism are anti-establishmentarianism, authori-
tarianism and nativism. These characteristics favour majority democracy
as the expression of “the people”, which should not be limited by
any checks and balances or the rule of law. Therefore, the totally free
expression of what “the people” have decided implies that minorities
should in the best-case scenario be neglected and not considered worth
defending or empowering, and in the worst-case scenario be the target of
attacks. Moreover, “populism favours mono-culturalism over multicultur-
alism, national self-interest over cooperation and development aid, closed
borders over the free flow of peoples, ideas, labour and capital, and tradi-
tionalism over progressive and liberal social values” (EESC, 2017b: 23).
These values obviously contradict the values unpinning CSOs, such as
solidarity, tolerance, inclusion, democracy and belief in and respect for
the rule of law and fundamental rights. To be stressed is that that they
also clash with those values that, besides being at the core of CSOs,
are also the founding principles of the EU: overcoming national inter-
ests, sovereignty and multilateralism. The spread in European societies of
values fundamentally opposed to those of CSOs obviously affects their
credibility and legitimacy and “is considered a major impediment to the
work of the organisations. This not only includes limited funding, but also
preventing people from volunteering” (EESC, 2017b: 139). As noted
by the European Political Strategy Centre, “The philosophy of ‘majori-
tarianism’ that drives populism can lead to a backtracking on rights and
protections of minority groups, undermining checks and balances. Finally,
their systematic use of propaganda—in some cases combined with owner-
ship of printed and audiovisual media—helps to spread a uniform way of
thinking and talking in public” (EPSC, 2019: 6). As a consequence of this
cultural and political environment that increasingly favours these values,
CSOs are being brought under pressure, as analysed in the following
subsection.
234 P. BROMBO
Public Discourse: A Direct Impact

Before analysing how negative public discourse negatively influences
CSOs, to be stressed is that it does not represent the views of the majority
(Vandor et al., 2017: 49). However, it exists, seems to be growing, and
has a major impact on CSOs, particularly when it is expressed by parties
that are in the government or by members of the government itself: “hate
speech, criminalization of CSOs and their work and fake news are threats
impeding the space of CSOs, especially in the field of human rights,
the support of migrants and the watchdog and advocacy organizations”
(More-Hollerweger et al., 2019: 13).
The credibility of CSOs is being questioned more and more frequently
by the public authorities, and in some countries, civil society organisations
are even subject to state harassment. Such discourse is often relayed by
media close to populist parties and “Seeking to reach the largest possible
audience, journalists deal mainly with the most scandalous and the most
successful stories” (Vandor et al., 2017: 64). This generates a loss of cred-
ibility and trust in CSOs which are presented at best as organisational
mastodons caring more for themselves than for the mission of taking care
of people, and at worst as behaving scandalously. Thus, “Some CSOs
have been called ‘Soros knights’ in the media, which subjects them to
constant stigmatization and has had a negative effect on their daily func-
tioning. Citizens have grown suspicious of them, resulting, on the one
hand, in an increasingly negative public perception of the activities of all
NGOs, and, on the other hand, preventing them from getting funding
from municipalities” (EESC, 2019a: 17). As highlighted by EPSC (2019:
18), CSOs and activists “are more often targeted by cyber violence and
online hate speech, as well as wider ‘silencing strategies’ meant to push
them out of the public sphere”. In countries ruled by populist parties and
especially in the so-called illiberal democracies, the government tends to
exert a form of influence or control, directly or indirectly, on the media.
This seems to be notably the case in Hungary, where an “uneven media
landscape helped the incumbent political elite in creating a situation
where the governing Fidesz party enjoys an unchallengeable dominance
in the media, which robustly amplifies political messaging on behalf of
the Government and the Fidesz party, parallel to hindering opposition
forces media campaigns” (Political Capital, 2020: 29). This control on
the media has a direct impact on CSOs as the “authorities use their influ-
ence in the media to discredit CSOs and their attempts to raise sensitive
topics in the public sphere. CSOs and academics are often labelled as
enemies in pro-government media, which has a negative influence on the
general image the public has of them. A list of organisations that were said
to be financed by George Soros was published in a pro-government daily
newspaper” (EESC, 2019a: 19). A similar situation has been reported in
Poland, where “there had been campaigns to discredit CSOs in the media,
such as accusations of financial impropriety against some organisations”
(EESC, 2019a: 13). In Romania, “This pressure on CSOs took the form
of stigmatisation and creating obstacles to their access to funding. […].
Some organisations reported that threats had been made against them”
(EESC, 2019a: 10). As underlined in (FRA, 2017: 49), “Such attacks
may create an atmosphere that provokes verbal or physical attacks against
human rights defenders and encourages their harassment and persecu-
tion, thereby putting their security at risk. A hostile public discourse often
creates the impression that human rights defenders are ‘legitimate targets’
for harassment and intimidation”.
Two features of negative public discourse and smear campaigns need
to be underlined because they aggravate the situation. The first is
that members and even heads of governments are attacking CSOs.
Thus, “In a speech of 26 July 2014, the Hungarian Prime Minister,
Mr Victor Orbàn, referred to the NGOs [Non-governmental Organi-
sations] receiving EEA grants as ‘paid political activists who are trying
to help foreign interests’, and made other critical comments (using the
term ‘mercenaries’) with regard to such NGOs in another speech of
15 September 2015” (FRA, 2017: 50). The former Italian deputy prime
minister, Mr. Salvini, has often attacked NGOs saying that they coop-
erate with human trafficking smugglers to bring irregular immigrants
into Italy. In this environment, so critical of CSOs, even non-populist
governments end up by criticising them. Thus, the French president,
Mr. Macron, referring to those NGOs active in the Mediterranean Sea
to save immigrants, said that they end up supporting smugglers. Simi-
larly, “According to [CSOs] representatives met during the mission [of
the EESC group on FRRL], a process is underway in France of crimi-
nalising organisations whose sole purpose is to save human lives. Some
also mentioned smear campaigns against CSOs by private actors” (EESC,
2019a: 21). The second factor aggravating the situation is the fact, noted
by the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA, 2017: 50), that these attacks
are often directed against individual members of CSOs, thus laying the
basis for physical attacks, threats and intimidation, as will be seen later in
236 P. BROMBO
the chapter. Indeed, as related by the EESC group on FRRL, “According

to participants [in the fact-finding mission], this general climate of stigma-
tisation increased the level of fear, for example a negative portrayal in the
media could lead the individual involved to receive an increased number
of death threats” (EESC, 2019a: 19).
Safe Space
As regards threats, intimidation and physical attacks, there is unfortu-
nately a lack of comprehensive data (FRA, 2017: 47), not least because
“only a quarter of the organisations that experienced such incidents
reported them to the authorities”. It is worrying that “Activists seem to
accept intimidation and even attacks on people and property as ‘part of
the job’” (FRA, 2017: 47). However, it is clear that there is a growing
amount of such attacks as detailed by the reports of the Fundamental
Rights Agency (FRA, 2017), which in turn refer to sources such as the
United Nations, the Council of Europe and EU umbrella organisations
such as Civic Space Watch. “Most CSOs reported mainly verbal and
online threats and attacks or being targeted by negative media campaigns
and digital security threats. However, as many as 15 organisations said
that their staff or volunteers had been physically attacked for reasons
linked to their work. Furthermore, 20 organisations reported damage to
their premises (such as vandalism, graffiti and broken windows)”. More-
over, it should be noted that these attacks “not only affect the directly
targeted individuals, but also intimidate other CSO members, which can
hamper the activities of the organisations in question” (FRA, 2017: 48).
As a consequence of this, the FRA reports that burnout, depression and
other mental health issues are registered and spreading widely among
CSO activists (FRA, 2017: 48–49).
EU Institutions and Organised Civil Society

Although the EU institutions are opposed to populist forces, they never-
theless have to come to terms with the growth of populism in many
Member States. This happens for political reasons because the EU is influ-
enced by the general political atmosphere, and for institutional reasons
because the European Parliament, but above all the European Council
and the Council of Ministers, have seen an increasing number of populists
among their members in recent years.8 This inevitably impacts on the EU

institutions’ behaviour towards civil society organisations, especially when,
in an attempt to speak to citizens and thus prevent populists from monop-
olising this direct dialogue, they tend to bypass intermediary bodies and
organisations such as CSOs. This section will examine the approach taken
by the EU institutions towards civil society organisations. It will do so
in connection with other aspects analysed in the first sections, such as
digitalisation and new societal paradigms.
The European Union institutions, particularly the European Commis-
sion, have often been accused of having a democratic deficit. While this
charge was initially limited to the academic world, it has become more
popular in politics and among the general public. It is linked with the
profound transformations brought about by digitalisation such as hyper-
connectivity, demand for immediate impact and feedback, demand for
more transparency and accountability, distrust in institutions and author-
ities, new forms of civic activism, and the rejection of any intermediation
in the expression of individual needs and demands (JRC, 2019: 16–22).
Faced with these challenges, the EU institutions, and in particular “the
Commission, ha[ve] also turned to ‘direct democracy’ in a further attempt
to reduce democratic deficit” (EESC, 2017b: 33), as well as to try to
speak and listen more directly to citizens, thus counteracting populism. In
this regard, to be noted is that the Commission is making increased use
of consultations, notably online (EESC, 2016). Increasing the number of
consultations was one of the main efforts made by the previous Commis-
sion to listen to people’s expectations with the Better Regulation package.
This required each Directorate-General to carry out consultations before
launching any legislative initiative. The new Commission, alongside the
Parliament and the Council of Ministers, has maintained this focus with
the Conference on the Future of Europe. This project, announced by Euro-
pean Commission president, Ms. Ursula von der Leyen, when presenting
her Political Guidelines, intends to give Europeans a greater say on what
the European Union does and how it works for them. The Conference
will be a complex process lasting several months and using a wide range
8 Even though these parties gained less ground than expected in the last European
Parliament elections, they nevertheless acquired more seats, especially if their seats are
combined with those of parties such as Fidesz, which are theoretically in the European
People’s Party but are definitely to be considered populist.
238 P. BROMBO
of existing and new tools to increase its outreach and strengthen ways
for people to shape future EU action. The launch of the Conference,
due to start on 9 May 2020 but delayed because of the outbreak of the
COVID-19 pandemic, is clearly an attempt to listen more directly to citi-
zens. Although the features of the Conference have not yet been finalised,
it is already apparent that civil society organisations will not have a specific
role in the bodies created to lead the Conference.
Even the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) seems to go in this direc-
tion. This procedure, established by the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, gives
citizens the right to directly participate in setting the legislative agenda
of the EU by proposing a legislative initiative in a specific field. Once a
policy proposal is supported by the verified signatures of one million EU
citizens, the European Commission is obliged to consider that proposal
and can decide or not to bring it forward in the legislative process. The
ECI “was introduced as a new approach to get Brussels closer to the
European people. As a channel for mass mobilization organized around
a specific legislative proposal, the ECI departs from previous procedures
that gave preference to formal and informal consultations or ‘dialogues’
with TSOs [third sector organisations] based in Brussels” (EESC, 2017b:
35).
Another aspect to be underlined concerns the approach taken by
the EU institutions to funding for CSOs, which seems to replicate the
above-mentioned national trend of funding CSOs for specific projects
rather than structurally (EESC, 2017a: 31). CSOs are consequently
becoming more vulnerable to contingencies and, for example, have expe-
rienced a severe financial crisis because of the interruption of EU funds
following the freezing of their activities during the COVID-19 outbreak.
As underlined by a CSO representative, “Our main problem is the lack
of core funding. […] With no core staff we are voluntary managers
for employees, which is challenging. […] Lack of such funding results
in a huge stress within the organization”. In order to deal with this
problem, the FRA asked the European Commission (and Member States)
to address this issue by “favouring multiannual and core funding over
shortterm projectbased funding, which would allow for a more sustain-
able basis for the work of CSOs as well as longterm planning” (FRA,
2017: 10).
Conclusions
The chapter has highlighted the many challenges imposed on CSOs by
populism in Europe. It has focused on the national level, where the impact
of populism on civil society organisations is stronger. Throughout the
chapter it has been stressed that this is the consequence of the tendency
of populist forces to see CSOs as an obstacle to the desired direct relation-
ship between “the people” and the leader. The chapter has examined the
channels through which populism exerts a negative impact on civil society
organisations. It operates through populist public authorities, notably
by posing administrative, legal and financial burdens, and through the
growing weight of populism in public discourse and in the public sphere,
which creates a negative atmosphere around and against CSOs. We have
seen how this tendency also influences, to a certain extent, EU institu-
tions notably by inducing them to favour a direct dialogue with citizens,
thus bypassing CSOs.
However, civil society organisations should not be seen only as possible
victims of populism; they can and should play a crucial part in the EU
political system in countering it. They constitute a channel for commu-
nication between citizens and the EU institutions, as proven by their
role in facilitating and improving tools for representative democracy: they
encouraged people to vote in the last EP elections and to take part in EU
consultations because, according to the Court of Auditors, they let people
know when an EU consultation has been launched. They have also been
instrumental in ECIs, supporting those that have proved successful.
CSOs can also play a crucial role in fighting populism by promoting
EU values as well as civic education and engagement, by working on
social issues, thus facilitating social cohesion and integration, by playing
a specific role in fighting digital populism through educational and
awareness-raising campaigns, by creating a positive European public sphere
and by providing bottom-up and widespread oversight and fact-checking
tools to combat fake news.
It can therefore be concluded that EU institutions should support
CSOs in their crucial political role both by supporting an open and inclu-
sive democracy and a vibrant active citizenship thanks to the intermediary
role of CSOs, and by curbing populism notably in its aspects contrary to
EU values: respect for human dignity and human rights, freedom, democ-
racy, equality and the rule of law. To this end, EU institutions should
240 P. BROMBO
not cede to populist forces the monopoly on proximity to citizens but

should engage with them in a dialogue with the following features: cred-
ibility, which requires that promises and speeches are followed by policies
and concrete acts impacting positively on people’s lives: bidirectionality
and not mere top-down communication; structural and stable integration
in the policy- and decision-making process. However, the crucial feature
of this dialogue relates to the central topic of this chapter: it should be
built on the relationship and the cooperation between EU institutions and
civil society organisations, and it should be based on common values and
be ready to counter any approach that undermines them. In this sense,
the populist wave that has hit Europe can be seen as an opportunity for
the EU institutions to better understand the importance of opening the
EU project to a more inclusive democracy. This should allow citizens
to express their will and participate in the policy- and decision-making
process not only by voting every five years to choose their representatives
in the European Parliament, which is representative democracy, but also
by participating in civil society organisations and through them in policy
framing and the preparation of decisions on the development and future
of the Union and its policies, which is participatory democracy.9
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Europeanize to Resist: Civil Society
vs. Populism
Luisa Chiodi
Introduction: Civil Society Under Pressure

In the past few years, the shrinkage of spaces for action by civil society1
has not spared the most advanced democracies and the member countries
of the European Union (Amnesty, 2019). In 2018 Civicus Monitor, the
alliance that tracks civic issues globally, identified 11 European member
states in which civic space had become ‘narrowed’ or ‘obstructed’
(Civicus, 2020). In particular, humanitarian organizations engaged in
search and rescue activities in the Mediterranean since 2016 were the
target of an extensive smear campaign insinuating that NGOs collude
with migrant traffickers, with important consequences for the public’s
perception of the credibility of all organizations engaged in coopera-
tion, solidarity, and promotion of human rights.2 Besides defamation,
1 I apply a standard definition of civil society as the sphere of non-coercive association

between the individual and the state that includes formally organized non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), social movements, and individual activists.
2 An overview can be found here: ‘4 mesi di attacchi alle ONG in 40 articoli’, Info-
cooperazione, 23-8-2017, https://www.info-cooperazione.it/2017/08/4-mesi-di-attacchi-
alle-ong-in-40-articoli/.
L. Chiodi (B)
OBCT/CCI, Trento, Italy
e-mail: chiodi@balcanicaucaso.org

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73411-4_11
244 L. CHIODI
in various EU countries civil society organizations (CSOs) have been

subject to repressive measures and various forms of intimidation including
complaints, sanctions, and even arrests of their members. This criminal-
ization of solidarity has affected in particular those organizations involved
in initiatives in favour of migrants and asylum seekers, and it has had a
chilling effect on all kinds of solidarity initiatives (Binder, 2019).
The anti-civil society turn followed the post-Cold War era, which was
dominated instead by the idea of the ‘power of the powerless’, to use a
well-known expression introduced by Vaclav Havel as one of the leaders of
the dissidence movement in Central Europe. That is, the civil society that
had been fundamental in the fight against communist regimes for almost
three decades was considered a crucial actor to consolidate democracy
(Cohen & Arato, 1994). Wide academic debates discussed the role of
civil society also in international politics, being stimulated to do so by
numerous cases of mobilization (Keane, 2003). For instance, during the
wars in the Balkans, while states played power politics and were unable
to intervene adequately to stop the conflict, civil society actors assumed
a pivotal role in the peace and reconciliation processes (Abram & Bona,
2016). Still in 2015, NGOs engaged in saving migrants stranded at sea
in the Mediterranean were generally described by mainstream media as
heroes taking collective responsibility for saving lives.3 Then, from 2016
onwards, the narratives were overturned and civil society organizations
started to receive strong criticism, when not explicit political attacks, while
solidarity initiatives were literally criminalized. The rise of populism in the
European public sphere had a role in this reversal that led to a decline
of public trust throughout Europe in NGOs, especially those working
with migrants (Boeri et al., 2018). In contrast, with the worsening of the
situation, the EU and private foundations alarmed by the situation began
to finance initiatives to contrast this shrinkage of civil spaces within EU
member states.4
This chapter seeks to contribute to the recently opened debate on
the consequences of the rise of populism for civil society organizations
3 When in 2016 Gianfranco Rosi won the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear prize
with his documentary film Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea), about the refugee crisis in the
Mediterranean, the situation was already changing.
4 Together with Central European countries, Italy has been included by major EU foun-
dations in the Civitates programme: https://civitates-eu.org/strong-and-resilient-civil-soc
iety/.
EUROPEANIZE TO RESIST: CIVIL SOCIETY VS. POPULISM 245
in Europe (e.g. Boeri et al., 2018; Horton, 2019; Siim et al., 2018).
It examines in particular Italian civil society, and its relationship with
the European political space, since it used to be considered one of the
most vibrant in Europe, but lately has been struggling to respond to
populist political elites successful in imposing their own agenda. More
specifically, the chapter explores whether there have been opportunities
at EU level that Italian CSOs have exploited to protect the democratic
spaces at home. Although there is a left-wing populism and there have
been left-wing populist attacks on civil society in Italy, the chapter focuses
predominantly on the struggle with right-wing political forces because
their rejection of transnational dynamics, be they migrant flows or the
Europeanization of political issues, has dominated the public sphere in
the past few years. The chapter first describes the impact of populism
on Italian civil society and discusses the spread of discrediting narra-
tives against NGOs. It then examines the complex national/European
dynamics that make the lives of civil society organizations particularly
complex. It concludes by citing evidence that the current crisis is making
the European political space emerge.
Discrediting Narratives and the New

Vulnerabilities in the Public Sphere
The rise in migration flows from 2015 onwards created the momentum
for populist forces to attack NGOs with their inflammatory narratives.
After migrants, CSOs were among the first targets of public disparage-
ment. Moving from the far-right positions of the Northern League, the
discredit had a contagion effect across the entire national political spec-
trum. It was the Five Star Movement (5SM)’s representative Luigi Di
Maio who coined the famous epithet of the ‘sea taxi’ to describe the role
of NGOs engaged in rescue at sea operations in the Mediterranean. While
the main 5SM founder Grillo referred to the ‘shadowy role of NGOs’ in
the field, backing right-wing allegations of human trafficking, the then
centre-left Minister of the Interior, Marco Minniti, corroborated suspi-
cions about NGOs by imposing adoption of a ‘code of conduct’ for their
operation (Barthélemy, 2018).
In fact, populist attacks on civil society in Italy had started years before,
already during the war in Iraq in 2004, with the wave of harsh criticism
launched against a few NGO volunteers victims of kidnappings in war
zones, but at that time populist forces were not mainstream. Described as
246 L. CHIODI
irresponsible youths that cost high sums of ransom money to the national
community, NGO workers became the target of narratives against civil
society engaged in international politics that gradually grew in intensity
and impact (Mantellini, 2015). But the strong public criticisms or explicit
political attacks became mainstream after 2016 in connection with the
immigration upsurge. Then, with the mounting success of populist polit-
ical forces, not even the Italian scholar, Giulio Regeni, who was tortured
and killed for conducting research work in Egypt, was spared reproaches,
allusions, and accusations in a major national public debate (Del Pero,
2019).
Paradoxically, with their disparaging narratives, populist political
leaders popularized the term ‘non-governmental organization’ and its
acronym in Italy, where it had hitherto not been frequently used in the
national public sphere, where the terms ‘association’ and ‘civil society
organization’ were most often applied.5 What is noticeable is that the
narratives used to discredit civil society workers and volunteers in Italy
followed the same pattern as elsewhere in Europe: NGOs were presented
as a privileged elite, criticized for being self-appointed rather than elected;
naive as well as out of touch from ordinary citizens’ lives, sometimes even
taking advantage of their position against the general interest (Brechen-
macher, 2019; Divjak & Forbici, 2017). Even examination of a very
localized case in Italy shows the astonishing similarities among the narra-
tives used to attack CSOs: when in 2018 in Trento the new populist local
government, led by Salvini’s League, decided to drastically curtail the
copious budget devoted to local associations working in the field of inter-
national cooperation, it did so by criticizing the self-referentiality of their
work, the naivety of their aims, and their vested interests (Vignola, 2020).
The accusation of colluding with human traffickers was repeatedly
shown to be false, but indignation at non-governmental organizations
rescuing migrants still survives (Edelman Trust Barometer, 2019). As else-
where in Europe, the first consequence was a decline of public trust in
civil society accompanied by a cutback of resources that further wors-
ened the situation (Poledrini, 2018). What the notorious trials of Cédric
Herrou (Henry, 2020) in France and of Carola Rackete (Ziniti, 2020)
5 Here I use the term ‘populist forces’ to refer to those actors that claim to represent
or speak for the ‘people’, seen as a virtuous and homogeneous actor opposed to the
corrupted élites. They include not only far-right groups but also all those actors that argue
along these general lines, cutting across left-right divisions (Bonikowski et al., 2018).
in Italy, which ended with acquittal on all charges, show is that it was
not only a question of reputation. The risk of having to face trials or pay
heavy fines had a further negative effect, that of discouraging the spread
of spontaneous solidarity initiatives that were visible throughout Europe
in response to the so-called refugee crisis (Graf Strachwitz, 2019).
Italy’s traditionally vibrant civil society (Berruti, 2008) has been
struggling to respond to populist political elites, especially because the
media amplify their messages and influence public opinion accordingly
(EU-Logos, 2019). Populists are interesting for the mainstream media
even when in opposition because their radical positions and sensational
slogans easily circulate, while civil society organizations generally have
the problem of being under-reported in the media. The electoral victory
of the two main populist political forces, the 5SM and Lega, in 2018
induced the mainstream media to give them even greater space and to
amplify their influence further. When some media did criticize the populist
messages, they ended up being accused of colluding with a privileged
elite detached from reality (Vignola, 2020). Since the media are experi-
encing a profound crisis in Italy, as elsewhere throughout the world, due
to the digital transformation and the collapse of their business model,
they are particularly vulnerable to criticism and often ready to abandon
their watchdog role (Blassnig et al., 2019).
Populists tend not to describe themselves as part of the elite, and they
claim to be the only legitimate representatives of the people. Organized
groups structuring the social realm are generally seen as obstacles rather
than assets: they are presented as unnecessary since the leader can have
a direct dialogue with the electorate (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017). Now
more than ever, social networks evidence the possibility of disinterme-
diated public and direct communication (Bobba, 2019; Engesser et al.,
2017). However, social networks can easily be misused to encourage
online hate speech or to generate so-called storms, attacking single indi-
viduals or organizations with a variety of possible accusations (OBCT,
2018).
CSOs have been attacked via social networks in many ways, but a
typical conspiracy theory used to delegitimize their work with wide reso-
nance in Italy, as well, has been the accusation of being agents of foreign
interests by receiving funds from donors, and in particular from the foun-
dation sponsored by George Soros. Another device used to silence the
critical voices of CSOs has been the use of Strategic Lawsuits Against
Public Participation (SLAPP). These are suits for defamation that may
248 L. CHIODI
incur expensive fines, when not the risk of criminal charges. SLAPPS
are not a prerogative of populist politics, because they are often used
by economic forces with the requisite financial means to threaten CSOs
or journalists. But also political groups clamp down on critical speech by
intimidating activists with the threat of draining their resources (due to
the cost and time involved) and in turn reducing their political engage-
ment (Greenpeace, 2020; Pierobon & Rosà, 2019). The Italian context
reminds us that civil society is always much less powerful than the state
or the political elites in power. Over-expectations concerning the role of
civil society in a democracy may be seen as part of the post-1989 enthu-
siasm that ended up hiding the fragility of the ‘powerless’ or the dramatic
imbalance in power between the two. As argued by Evans (1996: 1122),
the state can positively engage with civil society, but limits to state-society
relations are mostly to be attributed to governments rather than societies.
Difficulties in the CSOs’

Trickle-Down and Scale up
Among the consequences for civil society of the rise of populism has
been the worsening of the capacity to overcome traditional problems in
collective action on a European scale. This aspect emerges clearly when
considering a field where European CSOs traditionally played a significant
role: that of protection against discrimination.
The EU legal provisions in regard to anti-discrimination were the
result of European civil society mobilization from the 1990s onwards.
However, since the legal protection that had emerged from various
bottom-up mobilizations was uneven, there was a need for further reform
to ensure a EU-wide minimum level of protection against discrimination
on any grounds (race; gender; religion; age; disability) and in various
fields (employment, training, social protection, health care, etc.) (Xenidis,
2017). Even though the European Parliament (EP) in 2008 approved
a so-called horizontal directive on equal treatment intended to reorga-
nize the field, the Council of the EU did not adopt it. Despite the
constant efforts to have the reform approved, for over 10 years it has
been blocked in the absence of unanimity among member states (Iglyo,
2018). Initially, the member states that opposed the directive on equal
treatment expressed concerns in regard to subsidiarity, given the practical
and economic impact of the new provision, and its encroachment on areas
of national competence like education, etc. (Paradis, 2008).
However, with the rise of right-wing populist parties in the European

space, opposition to a comprehensive reform has grown exponentially. In
her speech to the EP plenary session in 2014, ALDE member Sophie in’t
Veld, who had been shadow rapporteur for the directive, harshly criti-
cized the political stalemate, openly denouncing the technical obstacles
as false justifications: ‘Let us recognize, since 2008 the political climate has
changed and a lot of parties that are in government today are under a
lot of pressure of rising populist parties that are racist, xenophobic, misogy-
nistic, antisemitic, homophobic, anti-gipsy, islamophobic’ (PersBrusselD66,
2014).
Clearly the rise of parties in the European space was reflected in
European politics, but the political dispute on the ‘horizontal directive’
occurred in Brussels in the confrontation between International NGOs
and EU institutions; it had limited impact at the national or transna-
tional levels. Brussels-based civil society organizations, which invariably
encounter major difficulties in influencing dynamics at member-state
level, could not mobilize national organizations and public spheres in
support of this much-needed reform. The civil society organizations in
Brussels have a hard time in ‘trickling down’ (transmitting and communi-
cating) their instances to the national organizations and creating political
dynamics where EU citizens live and, in this case, suffer uneven protection
against various forms of discrimination.
The problem of trickling down from Brussels to national contexts
mirrors the opposite difficulty of scaling up for local NGOs at EU level
or mobilizing transnationally with European networks from the local
level. Thanks to the existing anti-discrimination directive, Italy equipped
itself with an equality body—the so-called Ufficio Nazionale Antidis-
criminazioni Razziali (UNAR, National Office against Racial Discrimi-
nation)—but transposition of the directive into the national legal system
was inadequate. In particular, the UNAR, contrary to the EU indica-
tions for the establishment of national equality bodies, turned out to be
subordinate to political power. All international reports on the implemen-
tation of international agreements concerning anti-discrimination stressed
the UNAR’s lack of independence. These included reports resulting from
the monitoring of the implementation of the Framework Convention by
the Consultative Committee of the Council of Europe (UNAR, 2012).
Although Italian NGOs working in the field are aware of the prob-
lems of the national equality body, in terms of lack of independence
and resources, they often do not know that UNAR was established to
250 L. CHIODI
implement a EU directive; nor are they generally aware of European

monitoring reports (Vivona, 2019).
What is worse in this case is that the UNAR became involved in media
scandals that delegitimized it for a public opinion which did not even
know about its existence. Before the vulnerable groups in the country
were made aware of the support on which they could have relied, the
UNAR acquired notoriety as public body that funds deceptive cultural
associations which host gay sex parties (Santarpia, 2017). The attacks
against the UNAR constitute another example of the populist turn in
Italy. Moreover, what the example of the UNAR shows is that Italian civil
society missed the opportunity to use what could be called the ‘Helsinki
mechanism’, that is to say, the practice of transnational monitoring that
originated from the Helsinki process in the Eastern bloc and that is the
best legacy of the communist regimes. At that time, the dissident move-
ments in Central Europe took advantage of the reports that monitored
implementation of the CSCE’s (Conference for Security and Coopera-
tion in Europe) agenda to push for the advancement of human rights
at home, relying on the international visibility of those reports (Snyder,
2011).
Following the dissidents’ example of using transnational spaces to
advance democracy at home, today in a much-improved context, Euro-
pean CSOs could use the monitoring reports by UN, OSCE, CoE,
and EU institutions and agencies to open public debates and push for
democracy and human rights at home. However, during training sessions
conducted by the Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT) for
two years with hundreds of Italian activists engaged in the field of anti-
discrimination, what emerged was that hardly any of them were familiar
with the EU decision-making process, with any kind of international
monitoring; nor were they aware of the EU directives that could support
their work.6 The Italian CSO activists proved unaware of the IOs crit-
ical reports on the lack of independence of the UNAR and therefore
could not rely on them to press for a more autonomous equality body or
more funds to protect citizens against discrimination. It is therefore not
surprising that when the European Commission organized a consultation
on how to strengthen the role and the function of equality bodies and fill
6 For more details on the training sessions conducted by OBCT and where the findings
originate, see: Il Parlamento dei Diritti, https://www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Progetti/
Il-parlamento-dei-diritti.
the gap in standards across the EU, only one Italian civil society organi-
zation participated, even though most national stakeholders were aware
of the country’s problematic situation (European Commission, 2018).
Without adequate tools to deal with the anti-civil society turn, Italian
CSOs have not yet been able to take advantage of the European political
space to scale up their cause. As signalled by the launch of a few initiatives
to raise awareness about how the EU decision-making process works, and
thus influence it for the general interest, this is an issue for civil societies
in several member states and not only in Italy.7 It is not easy to achieve
effective coordination between civil society initiatives at local and national
level while reaching a transnational dimension, thereby maintaining terri-
torial roots while establishing coordination at European level. This was
also evident when Italian civil society mobilized against the criminaliza-
tion of solidarity by organizing a march in Milan in 2017. The organizers
could consider linking up at European level only after working to coor-
dinate the initiative at national level (Chiodi, 2017). It was indeed a step
forward compared to the past as it was an attempt to transnationalize the
response to the attacks, but it had limited success.
The European-wide campaign was launched in 2018 to present a
European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) asking the Commission to stop EU
member states punishing life-saving volunteers was not successful: the
campaign obtained only 45,000 signatures against the requisite threshold
of 1 million (WeMove.eu, 2018). Indeed, the criminalization of civil
society organizations entailed immediate legal consequences at national
level, while the ECI addressed the EU level. Yet, it is an issue at national
level due to the failures at EU level to implement the common asylum
policy and to address the migratory waves. Overall, it is clear that the
complex functioning of the local, national, and European levels of gover-
nance makes the lives of CSOs difficult in ordinary circumstances and
even more so at times of crisis such as when they are subject to harsh
populist attacks.
7 See for instance The Good Lobby, a non-profit start-up popularizing participatory
democracy among European citizens https://thegoodlobby.eu/about/ or the European
Fundraising Association, which has recently published a handbook (EFA, 2020) with a
similar purpose.
252 L. CHIODI
Legal Activism or Transnational Constitutionalism

While the Helsinki method is underexploited in the European public
sphere, this does not mean that it is completely absent; indeed, it has
sometimes been successful in advancing civil causes. For instance, when
responding to populist attacks against ratification of the CoE’s Istanbul
Convention, the Italian feminist movement used the Helsinki mechanism
with success. Describing the work carried out in the last few years to
present the shadow report to GREVIO—the independent expert body
responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Council of Europe
Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and
Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention)—the lawyers involved stressed
the importance of the experience and its relative novelty for Italian civil
society.8 Media coverage of these cases was generally limited and—what
is more—national, regional, and local authorities were not really aware
of how to deal with international conventions, nor were judicial bodies.
This problem emerged in the shadow reports for the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW),
which highlighted that there were no judicial proceedings in which the
international law had been invoked (Piattaforma Lavori in Corsa, 2017).
While public opinion is little informed about these initiatives, their
limited circulation also entails that pressure from populist parties often
strikes back before public opinion gets to know and take advantage of
the Helsinki mechanism. Just as with the UNAR, it was via disinforma-
tion campaigns that the Istanbul international convention became the
object of public discussions (EUvsDisinfo, 2020). And it was when the
Italian Minister of Interior Matteo Salvini attacked the Office of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and its monitoring
mission, threatening budget cuts to the UN, that the Helsinki mechanism
gained visibility in Italy (Hale, 2018). Even worse, according to Amnesty
International, the European Commission refrained from launching an
infringement procedure against Italy for discrimination against Roma
people in 2017 to avoid a Eurosceptic backlash in the following parlia-
mentary elections (Amnesty Italia, 2017). Indeed, there are other cases
8 During the seminar organized in Trento in 2019 ‘La partecipazione della società
civile: presentazione del rapporto ombra predisposto per il GREVIO’, https://webmag
azine.unitn.it/evento/giurisprudenza/60725/l-attuazione-della-convenzione-di-istanbul-
in-italia-il-ruolo-della.
in which CSOs have proved not only resilient to populism but also fully
proactive in promoting their causes. While European NGOs have had to
face the use against them of legal instruments criminalizing solidarity, they
have also learned to resort to legal activism to advance their causes in the
field of migrant protection and fundamental rights.
Legal activism—a term that denotes all initiatives that rely on Euro-
pean legal provisions and European courts—has emerged as an important
means with which civil society can use the emancipatory potential of
the law in a democratic context. Strategic lawsuits have enabled LGBT
organizations to make progress in the field of civil unions in some EU
countries, Italy included. Similarly, civil society organizations active in
protecting asylum seekers’ rights have obtained some important results
by appealing to the European Court of Human Rights (Ferri, 2017). As
highlighted by Blokker (2018), when social actors engage with transna-
tional law to strengthen democratic guarantees at home by referring to
specific rights or principles, they contribute to the constitutionalization
of Europe, because they affirm the importance of European law and
European institutions, and of a transnational legal order which binds and
guarantees civil rights and produces a virtuous circle for the protection of
democratic institutions in the EU.
The scant knowledge of the European decision-making process and
the limited awareness of the space for political participation at EU level
that civil society could use to respond to populist challenges are gradu-
ally changing (Troncota & Loy, 2018). While populists argue in favour
of regaining sovereignty against EU integration, many CSOs move in the
opposite direction. Social and political changes produced, among other
factors, by migration generate new opportunities for resilience as well
as reaction. The example of the Dublin regulation reform is especially
revealing of the ‘learning by doing’ process of the EU political space expe-
rienced by Italian NGOs facing challenges. Since the Common European
Asylum System is a full-fledged EU policy field, in 2017–2018 Italian
civil society organizations, think-tanks, and academics with long experi-
ence of working with asylum seekers had clear ideas on what reforms were
needed, and were able to convincingly propound them.
Gianfranco Schiavone, president of the NGO Italian Consortium of
Solidarity (ICS) and vice-president of the Association for Juridical Studies
on Immigration (ASGI), contributed to the European Parliament reform
of the Dublin regulation (Bruni, 2018). He stressed his surprise at finding
that ‘the European Parliament in the end proved to be a living structure
254 L. CHIODI
that is able to interact with the outside’, with MEPs ready to listen to
the advice of NGOs active in the field of migration in order to draw up
the new common provisions in the field (Collettivo Checkmate, 2018).
What made the difference in 2017–2018 was the virtuous connection
established between Italian CSOs and the political representative, the
MEP Ellie Schlein, who was working as shadow rapporteur in the reform
process. In the end, the reform was blocked by the Council of the
EU, which voted against the text proposed by the European Parliament.
However, a positive step forward was made at the time, and one can
expect that Italian CSOs will build on important political experiences like
this one.
Another example is provided by transnational civil society mobiliza-
tions led by prominent migrant associations, such as, for instance, the
alliance between Croatian NGOs and Italian and other international
NGOs which work to provide support to asylum seekers on the Balkan
route. They urged the European Parliament to ensure that the European
Commission carried out investigations on the gross human rights viola-
tions committed by Croatian police at the Bosnian border (Vale, 2020).
While they harshly criticize the EU, they have contributed to its consti-
tutionalization by advocating shared responsibilities for asylum seekers at
the EU borders. Moreover, although they complain about the isolation
that they suffer as a result of the criminalization campaign, their struggle
has openly challenged the populist demands for pushbacks at any costs at
the European borders.
Ideological Divides
Civil society is clearly not a monolith; rather, it is constituted by orga-
nizations representing several interests and identities. This chapter has
highlighted how populist leaders have attacked CSOs, especially on migra-
tion issues, and how they prefer to address the electorate directly, stressing
the personal relation between the leader and the people. This idea of
disintermediation is first of all functional to combatting ideological adver-
saries. Populists support and create alliances with non-profit organizations
that mirror their views and help their cause. In Italy, the 5SM has
advocated for more direct democracy, questioning the functioning of
parliamentary representation, but it has been successful in organizing
local political committees that fuel its electoral campaigns, and it regularly
works with CSOs.
As for the right-wing populists, they too are often well organized at
grassroots level. But we can also find cases of civil society organizations
that are ideologically close to them, for instance in the field of ‘family
protection’ as emerged during the World Congress of Families (WCF)
organized in Verona in May 2019. Some claim that far-right organiza-
tions are alien to the idea of civil society. Graf Strachwitz (2019), for
instance, stresses that what can be considered civil society in a formal sense
often belongs to the dark side of civil society organizations in a norma-
tive sense. The Southern Poverty Law Center argues that the WCF is an
example of a ‘hate group’ (Hatewatch Staff, 2019), defined as one that
vilifies others ‘because of their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation
or gender identity – prejudices that strike at the heart of our democratic
values and fracture society along its most fragile fault lines’ (Southern
Poverty Law Centre, 2020).
However, there are ambivalent examples even among the far-
right populists that normally exclude vulnerable groups, minorities,
minority interests, or institutional guarantees to protect them (Mudde
& Kaltwasser, 2017). The first openly populist government in Italy was
based on a written agreement reached between the two main populist
Italian parties in 2018. It included, on request to the Lega, the far-
right wing component of the coalition, a new ministry for disability and
family issues in charge among other things of ‘protecting, supporting
and integrating citizens with disabilities’ (G.R., 2018). Clearly, the inten-
tion was to consider the interest of Italian nationals only. Nevertheless,
a notable feature of contemporary populist cultures—the notion that the
essentialized view of the nation and its interests are the core of policy-
making—evolved from past nationalist cultures that discriminated against
disabled people (Brubaker, 2020).
The Europeanized public sphere is a space of debate and contesta-
tion about a common future, where even radically different opinions are
exchanged and where civil society includes all those actors that accept
democratic institutions. European CSOs work in a regulated environ-
ment where they can exert more leverage than the national ones. They
can link with EU institutions and use the European governance system
to induce national institutions to respect fundamental rights and increase
their space to work for the common good. More than being ideologi-
cally against the idea of a civil society constituting an intermediary realm
between state and society, what some populists seem to reject is the possi-
bility of the Helsinki mechanism of additional external control. In the
256 L. CHIODI
name of sovereignty, populist forces often spurn the European constitu-

tional process and, hostile to multilateralism, they oppose the affirmation
of legal spaces beyond national borders. Yet, paradoxically, in the last few
years, populist organizations and political parties have shown a remarkable
capacity to network at international level. While arguing against multilat-
eralism and in favour of sovereignty, they have appeared able to mount
transnational initiatives with considerable impact on public opinion.
Europeanize to Resist
European civil society is often seen as the last recourse available to resolve
many of the political stalemates in third countries, as well as in the EU
space. Whenever a new strategy to keep democracy afloat or to relaunch
EU integration is sought, the idea of resorting to civil society resur-
faces. Civil society seems somehow to be the victim of its own post-1989
success, in terms of presence and capacity for intervention in the interna-
tional arena and in the public sphere. The post-1989 enthusiasm for civil
society and the idea of the power of the powerless ended up by obscuring
the limits of this state-society model, the dramatic imbalance in power
relations between the state or political society and civil society, at national
and European levels. If civil society is to acquire some kind of visibility or
even an actual cultural hegemony, it needs the support of political elites
or the momentum created by social movements. What government is in
power at any given time makes a substantial difference to civil society’s
chances of success or failure. Indeed, if CSOs could Europeanize their
action, taking full advantage of the Helsinki mechanism, they would have
more space for action and resilience to pressure from hostile politics at
home. The European Union offers the widest Helsinki mechanism avail-
able for national civil societies, from monitoring to true sanctioning with,
for instance, the infringement procedures.
However, it must be acknowledged, as this chapter has discussed, that
there are many obstacles to the creation of new transnational spaces for
civil society from the grassroots up to the European level. Such obstacles
consist of ambivalent dynamics with the media when populism emerges;
the relations between Brussels-based umbrella NGOs and nation-state
ones; the need for political interlocutors able to engage with them posi-
tively; and the degree of technical complexity of the EU decision-making
process. At the same time, there is a considerable risk that European
public opinion remains unaware of the wide potential of the Helsinki
mechanism. The latter has not yet been fully exploited, regardless of
the great expectations that followed the end of the Cold War, and its
crisis began before it became a fully fledged tool to advance civil society’s
instances and democracy at home. Indeed, the European public sphere is
growing, and debates are increasingly Europeanized. This is probably one
of the reasons why populists more vigorously combat the EU today, and
why some spaces of civic action at EU level are sought by friends and foes
of European civil society.
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Conclusions: Bursting the Brussels
Bubble—How the Impact of Populism Can Be
Exploited to Make the European Union Better
Carlo Berti, Carlo Ruzza, and Paolo Cossarini
Those who have a good knowledge of the environment surrounding

the European institutions (academics and practitioners alike) are certainly
familiar with the concept of “Brussels bubble”. The plethora of offices,
functionaries, politicians, lobbyists, and other figures that, working in
close contact with each other daily, keep the European Union alive seem
to be aware that they live in a separate world. The heart of this world is in
Brussels, surrounded by a metaphoric bubble which might be invisible to
the eye but is nonetheless well perceived by both those inside and outside
it.
Those who are inside the bubble are aware that, outside it, little is
known about the reality of the EU institutions, their rules, procedures,
C. Berti (B) · C. Ruzza

C. Ruzza
P. Cossarini

Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73411-4_12
264 C. BERTI ET AL.
practices, and competences. They are also aware that, in order really to
understand what happens across the EU, what the worries and needs of
such a diverse population are, an enormous effort is necessary. An effort
that is not always made.
On the other hand, outside the bubble, European citizens often do
not have a precise idea of the functioning of EU institutions1 ; there
is, moreover, a general belief that those inside the bubble (perceived as
elites, as well explained by Massetti in Chapter “The Populist-Eurosceptic
Mix: Conceptual Distinctions, Ideational Linkages and Internal Differ-
entiation”) are not fully aware of the needs of European citizens. This
impacts on citizens’ trust in the European Union, and some of the latest
figures demonstrate that it is a persisting problem. The Summer 2020
Eurobarometer, for instance, records a 43% average level of trust in the
EU, but a decrease in the number of countries where the majority of citi-
zens trust the EU (from 18 to 15), and an overall decline of trust in 17
countries (European Union, 2020).
The bubble has been described as “a transnational political field with
a particular elite habitus” (Busby, 2013: 204) often perceived from
the outside as a “depersonalised, self-sustaining institutional complex”
(Kauppi, 2011: 150). The existence of the Brussels bubble is due to
several factors, such as a lack of efficient communication between the
inside and the outside. This is made worse by the fact that citizens
and institutions often speak different languages: a genuine, supranational
European public sphere is missing, being substituted by parallel national
spheres that only occasionally discuss European issues (Berti & Loner,
2020; Kriesi & Grande, 2015; Nulty et al., 2016). As a consequence,
European elections are perceived as second order (Hix & Marsh, 2011),
increasing the sense of distance between nations and the EU. Politicians
themselves, moreover, contribute to the existence of the bubble by acting
and speaking inconsistently inside and outside the EU institutions, thus
generating the perception (as well highlighted by former President of the
European Parliament Martin Schulz) that they are “out of touch”.2
This cleavage between the inside and the outside of the bubble has
opened a space for new political forces. These forces are not necessarily a
1 https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2019/05/17/what-do-europeans-know-about-
the-eu-before-they-go-to-the-polls/. Accessed on 4 December 2020.
2 https://www.politico.eu/article/martin-schulz-politicians-out-of-touch-in-brussels-
bubble/. Accessed on 1 December 2020.
CONCLUSIONS: BURSTING THE BRUSSELS BUBBLE … 265
threat to the EU and, as argued by Stavrakakis (2014), should not all be

categorized as populist. However, among these forces are Eurosceptic and
nationalist ones, which in many cases have successfully situated themselves
in the space that separates the European elites and European citizens. By
reclaiming national sovereignty, and exploiting the widespread perception
of distance between citizens and EU institutions, these populist forces
have managed to maximize polarization.
However, by doing so, they may have inadvertently helped to burst
the Brussels bubble. The well-known populist claim to be the vox populi
(Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017) has spread within the bubble, forcing the
European institutions to recognize the gap between them and European
citizens, and consequently to seek a way to reconnect with the people. As
Massetti showed in Chapter “The Populist-Eurosceptic Mix: Conceptual
Distinctions, Ideational Linkages and Internal Differentiation”, the elitist
character of the EU governance, which contributed to generating a broad
range of Eurosceptic populist forces across the continent, was bound to
be eventually directly challenged by these forces.
Chapters “The Discursive Construction of Issues in the European
Parliament: A Model of Reciprocal Influence Between Populists and
Non-populists Through Polarization and Fragmentation” and “The
Politicisation of the European Union and the Role of the European Parlia-
ment: Opportunities, Risks and Limitations” have shown that populism is
now a significant force within the European Parliament, both in numerical
terms and because of its capacity to influence debates and policy-making.
The EP bubble was the first to burst, with populists already gaining
strength in 2014, and reinforcing their presence after the 2019 elections.
This has generated a shift in the topics of debate (for instance towards
migration, religion, democracy, and the rule of law), and in the vari-
ability of positions among MEPs, parties, and groups. The political forces
within the EP have been induced either to re-negotiate their positions
by taking account of the ideas brought by populists or to strengthen
their opposition to populism, as shown for instance in Chapter “The
Discursive Construction of Issues in the European Parliament: A Model
of Reciprocal Influence Between Populists and Non-populists Through
Polarization and Fragmentation” for the case of migration. By furnishing
insights into the FEMM Committee, Warasin (Chapter “The Politicisa-
tion of the European Union and the Role of the European Parliament:
Opportunities, Risks and Limitations”) has shown how populists have
contributed to the politicization of the EP by exploiting destructive
266 C. BERTI ET AL.
dissensus to polarize the debate further. Increased politicization, espe-

cially in the case of the EP, can become an opportunity to explore new
dynamics and alliances, and to strengthen intragroup cohesion and inter-
group collaboration: from this perspective, the impact of populism can
have positive effects for the EP. The downside, however, is the risk that
populism may have a more disruptive effect, causing intragroup fractures
and increased intergroup disagreement. The direction taken by the EP
will probably become clear in the near future, and it could be different
depending on the issue at stake. As seen in this book, for instance, while
on gender equality the EP seems to have increased cohesion and collabo-
ration to counter populists, the situation is quite different in regard to two
other important topics—migrations and Hungary—where the EP acts in
a more fragmented way.
The growing strength of populist forces in the EP has obviously
captured the attention of the European Commission as well, despite its
capacity to maintain a stricter cordon sanitaire against populism. The
Commission’s bubble has not been directly infiltrated by populist forces;
rather, it has been slowly consumed from the outside. Somehow, as shown
by Ruzza in Chapter “The European Commission and Reactions to the
‘Populist Turn’ in Anti-Discrimination Policy”, the EC has had to react
to populism. It has done so mainly in two different ways. First, it has
addressed the issues raised by populism and by the civil society, in an
attempt to demonstrate real attention to citizens’ needs. This attitude, as
argued by Santaniello in Chapter “Populism and European Institutions: A
Historical Perspective”, has been a defining feature of the Von der Leyen
Commission from the outset. One of the priorities declared by the newly
appointed Commission was, in fact, that of “Promoting our European
way of life” by “protecting our citizens and our values”.3 These words
sound like an attempt to mirror populist themes, but at the same time
shift them to the European level: rather than a nationalist perspective on
citizenship and protection, the Commission appears to be trying to build
a more genuine European identity based predominantly on respect for the
rule of law, and a “New Pact on Migration and Asylum”. Added to the
call for a European Green Deal, and the more recent plans to address the
multifaceted challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this amounts
to an evident attempt to reconnect with EU citizens. While the eventual
3 https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/promoting-our-european-
way-life_en. Accessed on 4 December 2020.
success of this endeavour is by no means certain, it demonstrates the will

of the EC to respond to the challenges posed by populists.
Ruzza also shows the ambivalence that the Commission experiences
when opposing populism. On the one hand, populism is perceived as a
party-political issue, and the Commission seeks to avoid taking an openly
political stance. Populist parties are represented in the EP, and instead of
identifying and opposing them directly, the Commission prefers to refer
to populism in general terms. On the other hand, the refrain “we do
policy, not politics” clashes with an overarching attempt to defend and
protect the European Project, which is understood in strongly norma-
tive terms by many Commission actors. Thus, in the Commission’s texts,
references to “European values” abound when referring to populism.
Particularly in its internal communications, the Commission appears
scathing when considering the role of populist actors. However, the severe
judgement on populist actors can only be partly reproduced in its public
communications, for two sets of reasons. Firstly, populists’ signature poli-
cies tend to touch upon issues that also divide “conventional” politics,
such as attitudes towards migration policy, which differentiate the centre-
right and the centre-left. Similarly, there are conventional centre-right
actors that sponsor relatively illiberal policies on lifestyle issues in fields
such as sexualities and abortion rights, and the boundary between them
and illiberal populists is not always apparent (Ruzza, 2021). For these
reasons, the Commission is unlikely to take strong positions. Secondly,
several signature issues of populists are often scarcely communitarized,
and insisting on them would intrude in Member States’ domains. Issues
such as migration and border control fall within this category and are also
particularly controversial (Schimmelfennig, 2018). An expanding area of
conflict is instead the “rule of law” debate, which has set governments
with a populist component against the rest of the Union. On these issues,
the Commission (and the Parliament) has recently taken more decisive
positions but only after years of ambivalence.
Moreover, as previously noted, the Commission has recently taken a
more decisive approach in fighting populist-endorsed conspiracy theo-
ries and fake news. Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have publicly
shown an affinity between the populist mindset and conspiracy theo-
ries (Bergmann, 2018). Reactions have included several populist actors
embracing conspiracy theories in the health field, but also their gradual
loss of credibility and possibly diminishing appeal for a wide range of
electorates. This may result in a decrease or even a reversal of the appeal
268 C. BERTI ET AL.
of populist actors in the EU as well. At the same time, it has given the
Commission a chance to reclaim a role in public discourse, a chance to
utilize the pandemic crisis to enhance Europeanization processes, and a
chance to combat the neglect of expertise of which populist actors are
often accused and reassert an image of policy effectiveness as the engine
of European solidarity and driver of rationality and policy effectiveness.
Nonetheless, Commission actors’ strong normative commitment is
evident from their wholehearted sponsoring of anti-populist CSOs, such
as those engaged in human rights and anti-discrimination policy. The EC
has reacted by increasing its interaction with Brussels-based CSOs so as to
reconnect with the groups that they represent. In her chapter, Kavrakova
has highlighted the potential benefits of such a change of attitude of the
EC: the populist turn, she argues, should be exploited by the EC (and
the other EU institutions) to elaborate ways to reconnect with citizens.
CSOs, for their part, have not been passive witnesses of the populist
turn. Their role in the fight against populism and in defence of the EU
may at first sight have appeared marginal. This is by no means true: the
importance of CSOs in shaping the future of Europe and the relationship
among citizens, EU institutions, and populist forces has recently attracted
some scholarly attention (see for instance Ruzza & Sanchez-Salgado,
2020; Lindellee & Scaramuzzino, 2020). In Chapter “Civil Society as
Anti-Populism? Countering the Populist Threat and Campaigning for
Change in the Discourse of EU-Level CSOs”, Cossarini has conducted an
in-depth analysis of how CSOs can influence the public debate, at Euro-
pean level, on major issues such as gender, race, religion, and migration
by sustaining narratives that counter those of right-wing populists. CSOs
thus contribute, together with anti-populists in the EP and EC, to chal-
lenging the discriminatory and exclusionary rhetoric of far-right, populist
parties such as Fidesz, Law and Justice, or the League.
However, CSOs seem to struggle more at the national level, espe-
cially in countries (such as Italy, Poland, and Hungary) where right-wing
populists are particularly strong, and Euroscepticism is dominant. Both
Brombo and Chiodi have made us aware of this issue in their chapters.
Chiodi (Chapter “Europeanize to Resist: Civil Society vs. Populism”), in
particular, highlights the need for national-level CSOs to “europeanize”
so that they can increase their discursive and political power: a gap in the
knowledge of how EU institutions work is identified as a major problem
for organized civil society in several nations. The solution is, in fact, a
reinforcement of the relationship between the supranational (EU) and
the national levels which could empower local CSOs and, at the same
time, enable the EU to reconnect with its citizens at a more local level.
In Chapter “The Interaction Among Populism, Civil Society Organi-
sations and European Institutions”, however, Brombo stresses that the
EU should do more to help CSOs in their work and thereby support
participatory democracy at national level. As right-wing populism gener-
ates obstacles for national CSOs (in the form of administrative, legal,
and financial boundaries, but also discursively by publicly delegitimizing
them), the EU should avoid falling into the trap. Instead of bypassing
CSOs in an attempt to reconnect directly with citizens, the EU should
recognize organized civil society as a fundamental intermediary body that
can play a crucial role in fighting populism. EU governance should conse-
quently support (discursively, but also financially), defend, and cooperate
with national CSOs.
As a whole, the variety of perspectives collected in this book offers
a global picture of how European institutions and EU-level NGOs are
being influenced by the rise of populism and, at the same time, how they
are adjusting their functioning and their discourse to the new sociopolit-
ical milieu. Moreover, this book points to at least three critical dimensions
of populism and, hence, to three intertwined lines of development for the
field of populism studies in the EU context.
The first one parallels the longstanding academic debate about the
nature of populism. While populism is a multifaceted phenomenon with
diverse origins and manifestations, there are some common traits that
every definitions stresses. More importantly, it is unquestionable that
there is a certain degree of abuse of the term within the academic
world and in public debate. As shown by the interventions of both
scholars and practitioners in this volume, the problem is that populism
has acquired a pervasive nature. However, if populism is everywhere—
and everybody can be called populist—then it risks being nowhere in
particular, becoming a loaded word (Brubaker, 2017). Over the last years
there has been a “populist hype” (Glynos & Mondon, 2019)—which
not all have been aware of—that, while pushing the pervasiveness of
populism, has to some extent reinforced the idea that populism lacks
of a distinctive nature. The widespread use and abuse of the signi-
fier “populism” has indeed contributed to some common conceptual
conflations in the public debate. The burgeoning literature in this field
has in fact not prevented populism from being merged with a number
of analogous—albeit different—concepts, such as far- and radical-right,
270 C. BERTI ET AL.
nationalism, Euroscepticism, authoritarianism and alike (De Cleen et al.,

2018). The contributions in this book show how this type of reasoning
is still common and widespread, and at the same time they open up the
possibility to think beyond common simplifications.
This is directly connected to the second line this volume stresses,
namely the type of research that has to be conducted on populism. While
the scholarly debate on the nature of this phenomenon remains an essen-
tial task, this book highlights the need to widen the research field. In
order to examine the heterogeneous impact of populist politics a method-
ological pluralism has to go hand in hand with a broad perspective that
bridges different levels of study. Sociopolitical, historical, and normative
lens have to be applied to the analysis, and this has to deal with the various
levels of political governance. Taking the EU and its machinery as an
object of study means being aware of the various institutional, political,
socio-economic and sociocultural variables that play a role in the Euro-
pean milieu, and specifically in the surge and success of populist politics.
The contributions in this volume take into account these multiple vari-
ables, also exposing critical points in the interpretation of the EU and
its relationship with right-wing populism. Debunking the analogies with
similar concepts and phenomena—such as nationalism and radical right
politics—the wide perspective of this volume contributes to open up the
field of research.
This leads to the third line of development, that is, the normative value
of populism. Here too, this volume advocates for a broad perspective
that incorporates both scholars and practitioners into the analysis. The
normative perspective, as shown in this book, is as important as the soci-
ological, discursive, and empirical examinations, and critically contributes
to the evaluation of populism. The chapters of this volume reaffirm
to some extent the widespread belief in the scholarship that considers
populism—essentially in its right-wing manifestation—as antithetical to
liberalism, although they also add some nuances. Undoubtedly, the schol-
arship agrees on the fact that left-wing forms of populism tend to be more
inclusive, and therefore can be more seriously considered as incorporating
elements of liberalism. However, the EU has been object of criticism
from specific forms of populism, i.e. populist radical right (PRR) form of
politics, which has represented the national-populist conjuncture which
the EU has been facing over the last decades. These populist forces in
the European context have arisen from specific and differentiated polit-
ical, economic, and cultural circumstances. Drawing their support from
specific swathes of the population, they have been seen as a challenge

for mainstream politics. They advocate for major changes along different
ideological lines, also according to the different geographical milieu of
each of them. As such, the dominant scholarly approach largely contends
that populism is to be associated to a form of “illiberal democracy”
(Mudde, 2004: 561; Zakaria, 1997). Takis Pappas (2019), for instance,
argues that populism and liberalism diverge along three main lines: liber-
alism’s idea of consensus and moderation versus populism’s antagonistic
politics; the presence of multiple cleavages in liberalism versus the single
cleavage in populism, i.e. “the people” versus “the elite”; and the essential
role of constitutionalism and checks and balances in liberalism versus the
push for majoritarianism in populism. While some contend that populism
“is a profoundly illiberal and, in the end, directly undemocratic under-
standing of representative democracy” (Müller, 2014: 484), others say
that populism epitomizes the rise of democratic illiberalism, noting that
“populism is antiliberal but it is not antidemocratic” (Krastev, 2007: 60).
Notwithstanding, this book also demonstrates that right-wing,
Eurosceptic, and nationalist populism has not had only negative effects
on the EU; it has also created opportunities for positive actions. First
and foremost, it shows that any discussion of the consequences of
populism for liberal systems has to go through an in-depth analysis that
takes into account its multidimensional aspects. Moreover, bridging the
theory/practice divide reinforces the quality of the debate about the
nature and normative value of populism, and that carries important conse-
quences for the EU as well. While political confrontation at the EU level
has increased over the last years, as shown by the contributions in this
volume, the hostility as such has not necessarily to be seen as harmful.
Undoubtedly, while nativism and exclusionary ethnic nationalism remain
the core ideological compass of populist forces, confrontation risks to drift
into illiberal stances. However, the a priori demonization of populism risks
(a) to play into the hand of populism itself and (b) to be condemned to
scientific and political failure. The positive equilibrium in which populism
may potentially have a vitalizing effect on the EU politics depends on a
variety of variables, and as demonstrated by all authors in this book, it
depends on all actors involved. In European terms, populism may end up
bursting the Brussels’ Bubble.
Once the Bubble has burst, there is most likely no way back. Initially
left without defence, over the past years the EU has suffered the attacks of
increasingly strong populist forces, most often on the far-right spectrum
272 C. BERTI ET AL.
of politics. However, the initially disruptive impact of these forces has

caused a broad range of reactions which have led to the emergence of
new, potentially positive, dynamics. All those entities, movements, and
groups which are challenged by populism on a daily basis, both at national
and supranational level, have started a discussion of which this book is
a vivid example: EU institutions, national and supranational CSOs, and
even academics have met each other to try and find new approaches and
novel solutions to the populist challenge. The outcome of this discussion
will be decisive for the future success (perhaps even the survival) of the
EU.
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between populism, euroscepticism, and nationalism: The case of Italy. Società
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Brubaker, R. (2017). Why populism? Theory and Society, 46(5), 357–385.
Busby, A. (2013). ‘Bursting the Brussels bubble’: Using ethnography to explore
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Cossarini & F. Vallespín (Eds.), Populism and passions: Democratic legitimacy
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Kauppi, N. (2011). EU politics. In A. Favell & V. Guiraudon (Eds.), Sociology of
the European Union (pp. 150–171). Palgrave Macmillan.
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Democracy, 18(4), 56–63.
Kriesi, H., & Grande, E. (2015). The Europeanization of the national political
debate. In O. Cramme & S. Binzer Hobolt (Eds.), Democratic politics in a
European Union under stress. Oxford University Press.
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the Brussels bubble? Civil society leaders’ career trajectories. Politics and
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541–563.
Müller, J.-W. (2014). “The people must be extracted from within the people”:
Reflections on populism. Constellations, 21(4), 483–493.
Nulty P., Theocharis Y., Popa S. A., Parnet O., & Benoit K. (2016). Social
media and political communication in the 2014 elections to the European
Parliament. Electoral Studies, 44, 429–444.
Pappas, T. S. (2019). Populism and liberal democracy: A comparative and
theoretical analysis. Oxford University Press.
Ruzza, C. (2021). The institutionalisation of populist political discourse and
conservative uncivil society in the European Union: From the margins to
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Ruzza, C., & Sanchez Salgado, R. (2020). The populist turn in EU politics
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Society, 1–15.
Schimmelfennig, F. (2018). European integration (theory) in times of crisis:
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Stavrakakis, Y. (2014). The return of “the people”: Populism and anti-populism
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Index
A C
Adenauer, Konrad, 46 Charlie Hebdo, 129, 136
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Christianity, 122, 127, 131, 133, 134,
Europe (ALDE), 62, 80, 81, 83, 136–141
87, 108–110, 131, 249 Civil Society Europe (CSE), 203
Alternative for Germany (AfD), 3, 34, cordon sanitaire, 7, 62, 168, 266
60 Covid-19, 64, 147, 158–160, 180,
anti-semitism, 136, 138 191, 222, 229, 238, 266, 267
crisis
austerity, 34, 51, 58
crisis of democracy, 6
Austrian Freedom Party (FPO), 34, economic crisis, 3, 25, 219–221,
35, 52 229
financial crisis, 55, 107, 156, 158,
160, 238
refugee crisis, 32, 56, 58–60, 205,
B 213, 244, 247
Barroso, José Manuel, 156–158 cultural backlash, 5
Brexit, 12, 29, 58, 59, 61, 62, 73,
101, 151 D
Brothers of Italy, 71, 74 Danish People’s Party (DF), 34, 35
Brussels bubble, 220, 264, 265 De Gasperi, Alcide, 46
Buddhism, 123, 127 Delors, Jacques, 52
Bulgarian National Union Attack democracy
(NOA), 34 digital-, 186–188
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive 275
license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73411-4
276 INDEX
liberal-, 6, 36, 37, 135, 197, 199, European Roma Grassroots Organ-
201, 215 isations Network (ERGO),
media democracy, 187, 190 203
representative-, 175, 176, 179, 181, European Roma Information Office
186, 188, 191 (ERIO), 203
Democracy in Europe Movement European Roma Rights Centre
2025 (DiEM25), 34, 192 (ERRC), 203
Di Maio, Luigi, 245 European Women’s Lobby (EWL),
203, 209
Europe for Freedom and Direct
Democracy (EFDD), 62, 79, 86,
E 88, 89
elitism, 201 Europe of Democracies and Diversities
anti-, 8, 24, 33, 36, 80, 149, 156, (EDD), 51
201 Europe of Freedom and Democracy
En Marche, 61 (EFD), 56
EU Euro-pragmatism, 26
EU-minimalism, 27 Euroscepticism, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13,
EU-rejectionism, 27 21, 22, 25–29, 31–33, 35–37,
EU-revisionism, 27 48, 49, 51, 55, 73, 80, 97, 100,
Euro-enthusiasm, 26 156, 158, 161, 164, 166, 177,
European Association for the Defence 178, 268, 270
of Human Rights (AEDH), 203, Eurosphere, 181–183, 192, 193
214 Extremism, 5, 135, 136, 161, 164,
European Christian Political 182, 206, 210, 214
Movement (ECPM), 203
European Citizen Action Service F
(ECAS), 186 Farage, Nigel, 56
European Conservative and Reformist Federation of Catholic Family Asso-
group (ECR), 62, 138 ciations in Europe (FAFCE),
European Council on Refugees and 203
Exiles (ECRE), 203 femonationalism, 121, 140
European Grassroots Antiracist Fidesz, 59, 70–72, 74, 83, 87–89,
Movement (EGAM), 203 206, 230, 234, 237, 268
European Green Deal, 64, 266 Finns Party, 71, 87
European Humanist Federation Five Star Movement (5SM), 25, 245,
(EHF), 203, 210, 212 254
European Network Against Racism Fortuyn, Pim, 121, 150
(ENAR), 203, 209 Forum of European Muslim Youth
European Popular Party (EPP), 58, and Student (FEMYSO), 203
70–72, 74, 81, 83, 84, 87–89, fragmentation, 5, 13, 71, 72, 75,
98, 108–110, 112, 158 82–90, 110
INDEX 277
Fridays for Future, 223, 225 K

Front National/National Rally Keller, Ska, 82, 87, 89
(FN/RN), 34
Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA),
214, 221, 226, 235, 236 L
Laclau, Ernesto, 4, 5, 21, 23, 24, 198
La France Insoumise, 4
G Law and Justice (PiS), 34, 59, 71, 74,
Great Recession, 55, 56, 60 131, 268
Grillo, Beppe, 245 Le Pen, Jean-Marie, 150
Le Pen, Marine, 60, 61, 121
LGBT, 14, 198, 203, 208, 209, 214,
H 253
Haider, Jörg, 150 liberalism, 50, 54, 200, 208, 209,
hate speech, 72, 138, 153, 202, 205, 270, 271
206, 212, 215, 234, 247 Lisbon Strategy, 53
Hinduism, 123, 127
M
I Macron, Emanuel, 60–62, 102, 225,
Identity and Democracy (ID), 62, 178 229
ideology, 4, 23–25, 99, 134, 137, Malmström, Cecilia, 163
149, 150, 152, 157, 160, 225 Moscovici, Pierre, 163
illiberal, 10, 25, 34, 37, 54, 60, 64, Muslim, 56, 78, 79, 86, 121, 129,
209, 267, 271 131, 133–136, 138–140, 200,
illiberal democracy, 6, 59, 157, 234, 208
271
immigration, 36, 52, 55, 56, 73–75, N
77, 78, 85, 100, 140, 156, 177, nationalism, 3, 6, 29, 31–33, 35, 36,
202, 246 47, 49, 80, 121, 138, 149–152,
International Lesbian and Gay 154–156, 158, 160, 166, 167,
Association (ILGA), 203, 214 205, 206, 215, 270, 271
Islam, 79, 121–123, 126, 127, 131, Next Generation EU , 160
132, 135–140 Northern League (LN/Lega), 34, 60,
Islamophobia, 136, 205 150, 206, 245
J O
Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS Open Society Foundation (OSF), 203
EUROPE), 203 Orbán, Viktor, 3, 59, 74, 81, 87, 89,
Jobbik, 34 180
Jourová, Vĕra, 163, 180, 213, 214 Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso
Juncker, Jean-Claude, 58 Transeuropa (OBCT), 247, 250
278 INDEX
P S
Party for Freedom (PVV), 34, 78, 79 Salvini, Matteo, 61, 84, 85, 102, 123,
people 235, 246, 252
‘the people’, 4–6, 8, 23, 24, 31, 33, Schuman Declaration, 45, 46
34, 78, 83, 88, 120, 121, 131, Sinn Fein, 33
149, 156, 177, 179, 186, 197, society
200, 201, 205, 206, 208, 219, ‘uncivil’, 10, 199, 215, 216
232, 233, 239, 247, 254, 265, solidarity, 1, 59, 60, 64, 74, 75,
271 80–82, 95, 97, 100, 161, 164,
sacralization of, 120 180, 210, 212, 214–216, 233,
Podemos , 3, 25, 33 243, 244, 247, 251, 253, 268
sovereignty, 3, 31, 33, 34, 47, 49, 59,
polarization, 5, 12, 71, 72, 75, 77,
61, 95, 97, 233, 253, 256, 265
80–82, 88–90, 123, 177, 179,
people’s sovereignty, 24, 31, 61
180, 265
style, 5, 120, 152
populism
political–, 4, 149
degree of –, 6, 13, 27, 269
Swedish Democrats (SD), 3, 34, 56
populist narratives, 2, 201 Syriza, 3, 25, 33, 55
populist turn, 3, 98, 113, 151, 169,
199, 215, 268
religious populism, 121, 123 T
Prodi, Romano, 97, 155, 156 Tajani, Antonio, 98
Progressive Alliance of Socialist and Thunberg, Greta, 62, 223
Democrats (S&D), 62, 63, 80, Timmermans, Frans, 163
108–110, 112 Treaty of Amsterdam, 52, 183
Treaty of Maastricht, 49, 50, 52
Treaty of the Coal and Steel
Community (CECA), 46
True Finns party (PS), 34
R
Trump, Donald, 158
racism, 121, 203, 205, 206, 211–213,
Tsipras, Alexis, 55
215
genderization of–, 140
Recovery Fund, 65 U
refugee, 60, 81, 198, 212, 215 Ufficio Nazionale Antidiscriminazioni
refugee crisis, 3, 32, 56, 58–60, Razziali (UNAR), 249, 250, 252
213, 247 Union for the Nations of Europe
Religion, 9, 13, 14, 119–127, 129, (UEN), 51
131–134, 136–141, 162, 198, United Kingdom Independence Party
202, 203, 208, 209, 248, 255, (UKIP), 3, 34, 55, 56, 79
265, 268
religious minorities, 127, 129 V
Renew Europe, 61–63, 109 Visegrad Group, 59, 94
INDEX 279
Von der Leyen, Ursula, 63, 64, 89, X

111, 114, 158, 237, 266 xenophobia, 72, 80, 153, 157, 161,
164, 165, 202, 206, 212, 215
W
Weber, Manfred, 84, 89 Y
Wilders, Geert, 3, 121 Yellow Vests , 225

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN

EUROPEAN POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY

The Impact of Populism

More information about this series at

Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology

Cover image: © Bildagentur-online/O hde/Alamy Stock Photo

At the beginning of December 2019, as editors of this book, we organized

Trento, Italy Carlo Ruzza

The Impact of Populism on the European Union: ‘The

The European Union Facing the Populist Wave

The Impact of Populism on European Institutions

The European Parliament’s Treatment of Religion in Times

The Impact of Populism on European Civil Society

Carlo Berti holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from Auckland

Paolo Cossarini is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of

Carlo Ruzza is Professor of Political Sociology at the University of

The Discursive Construction of Migration and Democracy

The European Parliament’s Treatment of Religion in

Civil Society as Anti-Populism? Countering the Populist

The Interaction Among Populism, Civil Society

The Discursive Construction of Migration and Democracy

The European Parliament’s Treatment of Religion in

The European Commission and Reactions to the ‘Populist

Paolo Cossarini, Carlo Ruzza, and Carlo Berti

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

of a European Union itself. Moreover, the wave of electoral successes of

and empirically substantiated examination of the impact of populist poli-

Tracing the Roots of Populism and the EU

and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise in France, and the

theoretical and methodological standpoint adopted, the defining charac-

2005; Katsambekis, 2017), others emphasize the dangers for liberal

The EU Institutions Facing the Populist Challenge

though persistent, decline of the centre-left and centre-right parties—

by populist politics and Euroscepticism. Moreover, from various quarters,

Populist Forces and Civil Society

law-and-order policies and their conservative agenda on matters such as

how different sectors of EU-level civil society conceptualize and oppose

Bridging the Theory/practice

EU, and three sections corresponding to the three institutional spheres

certain degree of fragmentation within two non-homogeneous blocks.

Kavrakova advances some hypotheses about how EU institutions (should)

scant knowledge of the European decision-making process and limited

Nagy, V. (2017). How to silence the lambs? Constructing authoritarian gover-

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 21

Populism and Euroscepticism:

scholarship has been more concerned with discussing the conceptual

democratic ideology (and one of the core concepts of democratic theory):

low empirical consideration of other forms of populism in Europe has

1 Positions on this debate range from advocates of populism as incompatible with

as incorporating outright and unqualified opposition to the process of

A further attempt to categorise Euroscepticism was made by Sophia

European integration that is described by an inverted-U curve whereby

Linkage Nodes: The Ideational Sources

opposition has been clearly and formally expressed in popular referenda

The second major linkage between populism and Euroscepticism lies

2 Obviously, the ideational link between nationalism and Euroscepticism vanishes if we

as being jeopardised by a ‘foreign’ intrusion, then all three meanings of

Internal Differentiation: Left-Wing vs.

anti-elitism and criticism of European integration, often with the inter-

especially if these interferences take the form of neoliberal austerity poli-

nativist positions which often combine majority nationalism, assimila-

These three objectives should be seen as preliminary to a fruitful

Bellamy, R. (2010). Democracy without democracy? Can the EU’s democratic

De Cleen, B. (2017). Populism and nationalism. In C. R. Kaltwasser, P. Taggart,