Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to map the structure of preferences concerning the European Union held by parliamentarians of the member states. The opinions of national politicians are relevant as they influence the governments which participate in the institutions and the decision making processes of the Union. Do they evaluate the European integration process according to a single independence-integration dimension? Or do they acknowledge the existence of multiple lines of conflict? Is the structure of preferences stable? Finally, how are national parliamentarians grouped according to their preferences and what this can tell about the future of European Integration? This paper, based on a two waves survey of national parliamentarians belonging to 16 member states, analyses their views about the “governance system” and the “policy goals” of the EU. The findings of this paper shed some new light on several old questions. Firstly, while several studies assume that the preferences about European Integration can be ordered in a one-dimensional continuum that has the “status quo” and “complete integration” as the two opposite poles, this paper shows that the preferences of national parliamentarians have a multi-dimensional structure. Secondly it moves to analyse the four main clusters of national parliamentarians which these preferences generate. And thirdly it discusses how these clusters react to different problems and challenges the EU faces today.

Highlights

  • It has been frequently noted that “integration” is no longer to be seen as the only dependent variable to be studied by scholars interested in the EU

  • Given the multilevel and compound structure of the EU (Marks et Al. 1996; Fabbrini 2007; Cotta 2012) these views are important: the fundamental mechanisms of democratic accountability are still national and it is national governments that play a crucial role in defining the direction of the Union; what national elites think will probably guide the national governments positions in the top European institutions such as the Council of Ministers and the European Council

  • 9.When faced with more concrete choices about the role and weight of different European institutions national elites are generally conservative: a large majority continues to defend the role of national states, and only a minority is ready to accept a transformation of the Commission in the true government of the Union

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Summary

Introduction

It has been frequently noted that “integration” is no longer to be seen as the only (simple and uni-dimensional) dependent variable to be studied by scholars interested in the EU. 9.When faced with more concrete choices about the (relative) role and weight of different European institutions national elites are generally conservative: a large majority continues to defend the role of national states, and only a minority is ready to accept a transformation of the Commission in the true government of the Union They are more open to accept increased powers for the European Parliament. The Intune survey has shown the variety of views about Europe that are present among national elites: when asked to express their attitudes and positions towards Europe and supranational integration, they do not define themselves along a simple one-dimensional continuum (pro-Europe anti-Europe) but rather display variable combinations of positions depending on whether they are asked to express their views on aspects that concern the nature of the European polity, its institutional configuration, or different sets of policy goals. We will concentrate here our attention only upon politicians without considering here other elite groups for which data are available

We will first check to what extent preferences are stable over time
Attitudes toward Europe after the onset of the crisis
Exploring the dimensionality of attitudes toward Europe among national elites
In search of the structure of national elites’ attitudes toward the EU

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