WHO ARE THE EUROSCEPTICS ?

Eurosceptics are citizens or politicians who present themselves as ‘sceptical’ - critical - of the Union which they say takes powers away from their national government and poses a threat to their national sovereignty. There are supposedly two forms of euroscepticism - ‘hard’ and ‘soft’. ‘Hard’ or ‘withdrawalist’ euroscepticism is the opposition to membership or the existence of the EU. ‘Soft’ or ‘reformist’ euroscepticism supports the existence of the EU and membership to the Union, but opposes further integrationist EU policies and the idea of a federal Europe.

But euroscepticism can further be viewed as part of a spectrum, ranging from 'europhobia' - similar to xenophobia - to a healthy sceptical attitude, and questioning of accepted beliefs. As such, certain forms of scepticism exist across all political spheres. Xenophobia and europhobia are judged to be the most extreme expression of euroscepticism. 'Non-integrationism', 'eurorealism', 'populism', 'euroboredom' and criticism of the EU are deemed milder forms.

Based on European integration as a reference point three types of party-based Euroscepticism can be  identified.

1. ‘Rejecting’ Eurosceptic parties: These parties display among others similar positions on the issues of sovereignty transfer, European legislation, immigration, enlargement, and foreign policy. Most importantly, they are all against the principle of ceding national sovereignty to non-national institutions, and they are utterly against any European legislation or Treaty. They also blame the EU suggesting that it has been one of the sources of their domestic immigration and economic problems. In particular, these parties do not accept the principle that nations should cooperate at a higher European level. They advocate that policies must remain strictly national and they wish for their country’s withdrawal from the EU. It goes without saying that they also reject the practice and the future of integration. These parties clearly reject the principle that European member states should cooperate at a multilateral level. They solely support national self-determination seeking that any type of power shifts back to the nation state. Example: Flemish Interest (Belgium), National Front (France), Tricolour Flame (Italy), League of Polish Families (Poland), UK Independence Party (UK).

2.‘Conditional’ Eurosceptic parties: These parties  do not maintain that their countries should exit the EU. For these parties, the EU framework is clearly not the right platform for European multilateral cooperation but in contrast to the previous category they crucially accept the principle that the European peoples need and should cooperate. They refrain from supporting the practice and the future of integration. The conditional Eurosceptic parties display a rhetoric similar to the first category's arguing that the practice of the EU is destroying national sovereignty. However, the main important difference is that they all accept the principle that nation states should cooperate at a European multilateral level, and that there are particular policies that cannot be dealt with solely at the national level: Example: Austrian Freedom Party (Austria), Attack (Bulgaria), Danish People’s Party (Denmark), Mouvement de France (France), Popular Orthodox Rally (Greece), Northern League (Italy).

3. ‘Compromising’ Eurosceptic parties: These parties clearly accept both the principle and the practice of European integration. They also acknowledge that their country’s economic prosperity is largely a result of cooperation at the European level within the EU framework. Moreover, these parties suggest that the EU should be reformed within its existing structures and refrain from proposing an alternative framework for cooperation, such as the confederation argued by some of the conditional Eurosceptics. Nevertheless, they are not active proponents of further integration nor do they promote further national policies to be uploaded to the European level. Example: National Alliance (Italy), For Fatherland and Freedom (Latvia), Political Reform Party (Netherlands), Law and Justice (Poland).