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Eurosceptic Right-Wing Parties: Potential Or Harmless Threat for the European Union?

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Eurosceptic Right-Wing Parties: Potential Or Harmless Threat for the European Union? Eurosceptic Right-wing parties: potential or harmless threat for the European Union? Michele Potenza Supervisor: Univ. - Prof. Dr. Sonja Puntscher-Riekmann European Union Studies, Masterstudium Salzburg Centre of European Union Studies (SCEUS) Salzburg, 2020 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 6 CHAPTER ONE .......................................................................................................................................... 7 Theoretical Framework .......................................................................................................................... 7 I. Historical Institutionalism ........................................................................................................... 8 II. Second Order Election.............................................................................................................. 9 III. Euroscepticism ........................................................................................................................ 10 CHAPTER TWO ....................................................................................................................................... 13 Birth and evolution of the main four right-wing parties ................................................................... 13 I. Lega Nord (Northern League) ................................................................................................... 13 II. Front National (National Front) ........................................................................................... 14 III. Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice) ........................................................................... 16 IV. Fidesz (Alliance of Young Democrats) .................................................................................. 17 CHAPTER THREE .................................................................................................................................. 19 European Union institutions vs Populist Eurosceptic parties ........................................................... 19 I. The Italian Draft Budgetary Plan .............................................................................................. 19 II. Hungarian and Polish “rule of law backsliding” ................................................................. 26 III. French misuse of European Union funds ............................................................................. 40 CHAPTER FOUR ..................................................................................................................................... 43 2019 European Parliament election ..................................................................................................... 43 I. European Union Parliament: history and evolution ................................................................. 43 II. Evolution of European Parliamentary Groups ..................................................................... 49 III. European Parliamentary Election outcomes ......................................................................... 63 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................................... 72 REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................................... 76 LIST OF ABBREVIATION AfD Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) ALDE Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe AN Alleanza Nazionale (National Alliance) CDU Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands CEU Central European University CFSP Common Foreign and Security Policy CP Civic Platform CSU Christlich Soziale Union CT Constitutional Tribunal DC Democrazia Cristiana (Christian Democratic) EAPN European Alliance of People and Nations EC European Communities ECJ European Court of Justice ECR European Conservative and Reformists ECSC European Coal and Steel Community EDD Europe of Democracies and Diversities Group EDP European Democratic Party EDP Excessive Deficit Procedure EFA European Free Alliance EFDD European of Freedom and Direct Democracy Group EIP Excessive Imbalances Procedure ELDR European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party EM La République En Marche (the Republic on the move) EP European Parliament EPA European Parliamentary Assembly EPP European People’s Party EPP-ED Group of European People’s Party and European Democrats EU European Union Fidesz Fiatal Demokratàk Szovetsége FN Front National FPÖ Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Freedom Party of Austria) GDP Gross Domestic Product GUE European United Left IND/DEM Independence and Democracy Group JHA Justice and Home Affairs KRS Krajowa Rada Sądownictwa (National Council for the Judiciary of Poland) LN Lega Nord M5S Movimento 5 Stelle (5 Star’s Movement) MEP Member of European Parliament MS Member State MTO Medium-Term Budgetary Objective NGL Nordic Green Left OLAF Office européen de lutte antifraud (European Anti-Fraud Office) PBO Parliamentary Budget Office PCI Partito Comunista Italiano (Italian Communist Party) PD Partito Democratico (Democratic Party) PDS Partito Democratico della Sinistra (Left Democratic Party) PDS Partito Democratico di Sinistra (Democratic Party of the Left) PES Party of European Socialists PiS Prawo I Sprawiedliwość PSDI Partito Social Democratico Italino (Social Democratic Party) PSI Partito Sociale Italiano (Socialist Party) PVV Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom) QM Qualified Majority S&D Progressive Alliance of Socialist and Democrats SDP Significant Deviation Procedure SEA Single European Act SGP Stability and Growth Pact TEU Treaty of the European Union TFEU Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union UDF Union for French Democracy UDP Unión Progreso y Democracia (Union, Progress and Democracy) UEN Union for Europe Nation UEN Union for Europe Nation UKIP UK Independent Party UMP Union pour un mouvement Populaire VAT Value Added Tax INTRODUCTION The economic crisis in 2008 and the refugee crisis in 2015 hit European Member States hard. As a means of dealing with this, mainstream parties tried to build strong policies at national level. Unfortunately, they were not very successful. The national governments’ weak responses provoked not only a loss of trust towards politics in general but also increasing feeling of inadequate representation among European citizens. Several Member States experienced a resulting crisis of democracy. Conscious of the politically unstable situation, the Eurosceptic right-wing parties were able to exploit both crises to strengthen their political power and enlarge their constituency. Largely due to these favourable circumstances, they succeeded nationally in forming a strong and compact opposition against the old mainstream parties and in several cases even rose in power to form a government. Bringing as its object of study four main Eurosceptic Populist right-wing parties, the thesis aims to prove eventual freedom of action by these four political actors at both national and European levels between 2014 and 2019 and after the 2019 European Parliament election. The temporal division is directly reflected in the work. After explaining the term Euroscepticism and describing the evolution of four main right-wing parties, the first analysis will focus on the different clashes experienced between these parties and existing European Union institutions: Lega Nord and the battle over the Italian Draft Budgetary Plan, the implementation of “Rule of Law Framework” and Article 7 against Fidesz and PiS, the misuse of European funds by the French Front National. In the second part of the thesis, we will move our attention to the European parliamentary election in 2019 and the final electoral results gained by the aforementioned four right-wing parties. Since the authority and the relevance of the European Parliament is constantly evolving and increasing inside the European Union, it could be very relevant to analyse a possible increase of the Eurosceptic front within it. CHAPTER ONE Theoretical Framework The purpose of this thesis is to answer is to answer the important question: are Eurosceptic right- wing parties a real threat to the European Union? To answer this question, the research will seek to verify the existence of loopholes within the European Union or, in other words, political and legislative leeway that could be potentially exploited by the four main right-wing parties in question in order to undermine or reshape the Union according to their aspirations. The central subject matter of this thesis will be four Eurosceptic Populist right-wing parties: Lega Nord (Italy), Fidesz (Hungary), Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Poland) and Front National (France). “Historical Institutionalism” and “Second-order election” theories will be proposed, which in turn will help the research to reach the aforementioned goal. Moreover, both theories will be supported by qualitative researching methods which include articles from political journals and major newspapers; Commission, European Parliament and European Union Council’s opinion, reports, recommendations and press release; publications of prominent authors as well as judgment or orders from the Court of Justice of European Union. The thesis is divided into two parts (the period of time before and after the European parliamentary election of 2019) and each period
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