European Union Issues Research Articles

EU issue voting in European member states: the return of the pro-EU voter

In the member states of the European Union (EU), there are increasing signs of waning EU support, particularly in the form of anti-EU sentiment and voting. Yet, the salient role of pro-EU voting has not been side-lined entirely. Using a combination of data from EES and CHES that estimates the positional distance between voters and parties on the EU, the results suggest that voters are significantly mobilised on support for the EU. This is congruent to recent evidence that has shown that voters have rewarded parties with more polarised stances on the EU and, contrary to Eurosceptic party mobilisation, those parties with a more extreme pro-EU stance. Here, the more vocal a Europhile party, the more likely that citizens will vote for that party given their positional closeness to the EU. The findings in this article suggest the (re-) emergence of an EU dimension with mobilising effects on parties and voters and serious consequences for the dynamics of party competition.

Mapping citizens, voters, and parties’ preferences on European solidarity across EU member states

ABSTRACT Since 2008, the European Union (EU) witnessed a growing tension between the social and economic dimensions of integration as a consequence of the ‘polycrisis’. The increasing politicisation of EU issues in national political arenas that led to the rise of Eurosceptic parties mostly revolved around the issue of European solidarity. Against this background, this study investigates the congruence between voters and incumbent members of national parliaments on the highly contentious aspects of EU solidarity. First, the article maps the extent to which national political elites share similar views on EU solidarity with their voters. Secondly, we assess members of parliaments (MPs)-voters’ congruence at the party level. Employing original data from an elite and a mass survey conducted in six EU countries between 2017 and 2018, we find that both voters and MPs expressed a high level of support for policies strengthening European solidarity in the Eurozone periphery. Instead, voters in Northern and Eastern EU member states shared more positive preferences than their national representatives. Furthermore, the party-voter distance was higher for radical-right Eurosceptic MPs, especially in Northern Europe, than for other parties.

Silent responsiveness: How public opinion affects party discourse on wedge issues

AbstractHow does public opinion affect political discourse on issues that parties struggle to deal with? Although scholars tend to analyse party–voter linkages in terms of policy positions, parties can respond to public opinion by changing both the positions and the salience of their policy agenda. Based on original time‐series data of party discourse and voter preferences in France, Italy and the United Kingdom (1992–2016), this paper analyses how mainstream parties have changed their political discourse on European integration in response to an increasingly Eurosceptic public. Results show that mainstream parties have adapted their positions to changes in public opinion and have at the same time deemphasized European Union issues in their discourse as the public grew Eurosceptic. Parties did not talk more about Europe even when they followed the tides of public opinion. These findings challenge our current understanding of party responsiveness, have implications for theories of party competition, and contribute to debates on the legitimacy of the European project.

Dialogue between the Slovenian Highest Courts and the Court of Justice of the European Union

The relationship between European Union (EU) law and national Slovenian law progressed across three different stages starting from the beginning of this century to date, as discussed by EU and Slovenian legal theorists. The first one, just before Slovenia’s entry into the EU, considered the EU an international organisation and EU law a type of public international law. It was dismissed even before Slovenia joined the EU, with an amendment to the Constitution, and was succeeded by the second, supranationalist, view that required maximum restraint by national courts while dealing with EU issues. Finally, about a decade ago, the third pluralist view of EU law vis-à-vis national law emerged, calling the particularly highest national courts to enter a more critical dialogue with the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Although Slovenian theorists have been actively discussing the relationship between EU and national law before and immediately after Slovenia joined the EU, it seems that practising lawyers and judges needed time to adapt to the new law. Finally, in 2009, the first reference for a preliminary ruling was made by Slovenian courts. Soon after, the Slovenian Supreme Court made its first preliminary ruling reference and, in nearly 20 years since, proved itself to be the most frequent interlocutor with the CJEU from Slovenia. It regularly cites CJEU cases in its case laws, and demands that lower courts follow them wherever appropriate. From the highest national courts in Slovenia, the Constitutional Court joined the dialogue with the CJEU last. It has made four preliminary ruling references to the CJEU and demonstrated restraint vis-à-vis reviewing legal issues touching upon EU law. The legal culture (including public opinion) in Slovenia has predominantly been pro-EU. This applies to the internal legal culture, namely lawyers who support liberal democratic values such as the rule of law, human rights, and democracy. As long as the EU remains dedicated to these values, in such an environment, the highest Slovenian courts are not expected to show a bolder attitude vis-à-vis CJEU case law

‘Party position, electoral incentives, and attention to European Union issues in the 2019 European Parliament election’

Under what conditions do Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) give attention to EU issues in European Parliament (EP) election campaigns? This study examines how party positioning on European integration and individual electoral incentives affected MEPs’ attention to EU issues in the 2019 EP election campaign. Based on data collected from Twitter, the findings show that pro-EU parties and individual vote-seeking incentives increased attention to EU issues. More specifically, they show that MEPs from pro-EU mainstream parties had incentives to debate about EU issues, especially when they competed for votes. The findings help to unfold the interplay between party-level and legislator-level factors and its effects on attention to EU issues and aim to contribute to research on EU issue salience and EP election campaigns.

Media Communication in the European Union: How do Media Cover EU? A Comparison Analysis of Germany, Croatia, Belgium and Greece

This paper examines the extent to which media and journalists cover European Union issues, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Are the media undermining the EU by the way they report it? How has journalism responded to the transformation of politics resulting from European integration? In order to answer to these research questions, we carried out a survey across four European countries – Germany, Croatia, Belgium, and Greece – searching for elements of convergence and divergence in the coverage of European news. Subsequently, we attempted a comparison of the amount of news produced by the European Union with the corresponding quantity of news produced in the chosen countries. The results show that there is a gap between the news that is produced by the European Union, compared to what is broadcasted at a national level, but also that there is a great difference between how each country chooses to cover issues of European interest.

A New Social Conflict on Globalisation-Related Issues in Germany? A Longitudinal Perspective

We draw on cleavage theory to assess the emergence of a social conflict concerning globalisation-related issues among the German population between 1989 and 2019. We argue that issue salience and opinion polarisation are key conditions for a successful and sustainable political mobilisation of citizens and thus for the emergence of a social conflict. In line with globalisation cleavage theory, we hypothesised that issue salience as well as overall and between-group opinion polarisation on globalisation-related issues have increased over time. Our study considers four globalisation-related issues: immigration, the European Union (EU), economic liberalism, and the environment. While the salience of the EU and economic liberalism issues remained low during the observed period, we found a recent increase in salience for the issues of immigration (since 2015) and the environment (since 2018). Furthermore, our results point to rather stable attitudes on globalisation-related issues among the German population: We did not find any consistent evidence of an increase in overall or between-group polarisation over time. In conclusion, the idea of an emerging conflict around globalisation-related issues among the German population finds very little empirical support.

(De‐)politicization Discourse Strategies: The Case of Trade

AbstractExamining (de‐)politicization as an actor‐driven phenomenon, this study asks: How and to what extent do actors in the public sphere attempt to (de‐)politicize European Union (EU) policies? (De‐)politicization is understood not only as a process but also as the deliberate framing of debates over EU issues at a domestic level. This paper conceptualizes (de‐)politicization acts in the public sphere and shows how these can be detected empirically through a claim‐level (de‐)politicization index. This approach is applied to a database of evaluations (claims) on EU trade, by EU actors, national executive actors and societal actors, surrounding the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement, in the media of six Member States (Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, and Denmark). Whilst all kinds of actors may engage in (de‐)politicization, the analysis of the index allows us to determine if a certain category of actors does so to a greater or lesser extent compared with others.

A Background to a Methodology for Transport Mobile Applications Designing with a Focus on EU Interoperability

European rail transport policy aims to create a single railway area. European Union (EU) issues, for this purpose, sets of regulations and directives. Individual countries are involved in its implementation according to their capabilities. The aim of this article is to examine the current state of interoperability in the EU, especially in the Czech Republic, and to compare selected mobile applications regarding the possibility of unifying their design of mobile applications. A systematic literature research review methodology was used. The sources of information were mainly the scientific database Web of Science and the database of EU documents EUR-Lex. When examining one of the main parameters—the use of mobile networks—it was found that all of the selected applications use public mobile networks, none of them uses the Global System for Mobile Communications–Railway (GSM–R) network. This finding confirmed the theoretical assumption that this network is not currently ready for more or less massive operation of mobile applications. The possibility of using the next generation railway mobile network is open for discussion as one of the next steps to ensure interoperability in telematics applications.

Time is on my side? The temporal proximity between elections and parties’ salience strategies

AbstractThe emphasis national parties put on European Union (EU) issues in their manifestos varies to a great extent between countries. A systematic explanation of this variation is, however, still lacking. We address this gap by exploring the effect of the temporal proximity between national and European Parliament (EP) elections within the national electoral cycle on national parties’ EU issue emphasis. Multilevel mixed-effects Tobit regressions on a sample of 956 manifestos, produced by 340 parties running for national elections in 27 EU member states between 1979 and 2019, indicate that temporal proximity displays a positive effect on national parties’ EU issue salience: the closer in time EP elections are to national elections within the national electoral cycle, the more parties emphasize EU issues in their national election manifestos. This is particularly the case for non-Eurosceptic parties. These findings have important implications for our understanding of party competition in EU member states.

European Critical Analytics in Search of Answers to New Challenges

Until today, the European Union (EU) has associated its foreign policy with normative power, which is the main instrument of soſt power. However, the crisis of global governance has affected the global strategy of the EU. The article explores the most pressing of these changes. The research was based on official publications made by various European think tanks and individual analysts. The EU has an effective mechanism for interaction between think tanks and political leaders. As a result, the European analytics can justify various concepts and approaches that later acquire legislative forms. Also, the scientific analytics makes it possible to test the decisions being made. The article focuses on the following EU issues: new strategic culture; geopolitics and normative power in strategic documents; strategic autonomy; differentiation and fragmentation as policy tools; the end of unanimity in making responsible decisions; the concept of pragmatic federalism; military development; the so-called Strategic Compass; the Russian military special operation and the concept of world order, etc.

Faraway, so close: a spatial account of the Conte I government formation in Italy, 2018

AbstractThe formation of the ‘yellow-green’ government that took office in Italy after the general election held on 4 March 2018 looked puzzling to many commentators as the two coalition partners – the Five Star Movement and the League – appeared to be quite distant on the left–right continuum. In this article, we argue that despite being widely used in the literature, a unidimensional representation of parties' policy positions on the encompassing left–right scale is inadequate to explain the process of coalition governments' formation. We focus first on coalition outcomes in Italy in the period 2001–18. Our statistical analysis including, among other variables, parties' policy distance on the left–right dimension performs rather well until 2013 but fails to predict the coalition outcome in 2018. To solve the puzzle, we propose a two-dimensional spatial account of the Conte I government formation in which the first dimension coincides with the economic left–right and the second one is related to immigration, the European Union issues and social conservatism. We show that the coalition outcome ceases to be poorly understandable once parties' policy positions are measured along these two dimensions, rather than on the general left–right continuum.

Scientific research, current guidelines in the European Union and ethical issues

Scientific Research is the main process of evolution of Science. Especially in the Healthcare Sector, the context in which the development of Scientific Research is possible marks both the Legal and the Ethical data of each era. For example, the limits of research, the interventions in Humans, the existence of standards and the continuous control of research data are some of the elements of the ongoing scientific study for the framework within which scientific research can be conducted. In the first part of the present paper, the current in the conduct of Scientific Research in the field of Health at the international level in the field of health are developed through a bibliographic review. The second part of the paper summarizes the rules of the European Union on Scientific Research in Health. Finally, the third part of the work mentions the Ethical issues that have been mentioned in the literature, regarding the conduct of Scientific Research in the Health Sector.

Framing the EU: Big Data Analysis of South Korean News Media

Since 2010, both South Korea and the European Union have rapidly developed their diplomatic ties by completing a Free Trade Agreement and establishing a strategic partnership. However, perceptions of the European Union (EU) among Korean elites, media, and public have not been properly established. Against this backdrop, it is of value to examine the news media, which are the main sources of information for elites and the public. The purpose of this study is to examine the evolution of representations of the EU among South Korean media. To examine media representation, this study employed a quantitative methodology (semantic network analysis) for reviewing the data and a qualitative methodology (framing analysis) to interpret the results. The results of this study indicate that both conservative and liberal media employ conflict, economic consequences, and human interest framings to report EU issues. Despite some minor changes, neither type of media demonstrated clear differences in their EU coverage. The conclusion presented in this paper states that the South Korean media projects an incomplete picture of the EU to the Korean public. To overcome this issue, both South Korea and the EU should pay more attention to establishing accurate mutual perceptions to support a constructive future for their bilateral co-operation.

The emergence of biological invasions on food chains: a DPSIR analysis

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to illustrate the emergence of a biological invasion and to explain the potential economic and social consequences on food chains. Straddling between ecology, social sciences, resource management and economics, invasion science is aimed at detecting, understanding and mitigating the impact of biological invasions on receiving ecosystems, including food ecosystems.Design/methodology/approachAfter a theoretical investigation about the main notions relevant for the invasion science, the authors practically review the kind of impacts deriving from biological invasions, mainly under economic, human health, ecosystem and biodiversity criteria.FindingsThe authors apply the DPSIR (Driving forces–pressure-state-impact-response) framework, originally developed in the context of European Environment Agency in this different context in order to assess the social, economic and environmental impacts of Invasive Alien Species (IAS). Responding to this emerging phenomenon, the European Union issues the EU regulation 1143/2014 which is the first strong act on invasive alien species.Originality/valueImplications – Food chains are complex systems that have multiple interdependencies both endogenously and exogenously, such as food production, food transportation, food logistics, food distribution, and so forth. However, it is rarely conceived the impact of invasion systems on the dynamics of food chains, although food sustainability is in turn impacted by how effectively and efficiently the various interdependencies have been designed or are working.

Communicating Political Positions on European Issues: A Comparison of Parties and Newspapers in Seven Countries

This article starts from the observation that most voters know relatively little about positions and plans of political parties, especially when European Union politics is concerned. One reason for this could be that the main sources for political information, party communication and mass media coverage, provide voters only little concrete information about positions and plans of political parties. We ask how concretely, respectively vaguely, political parties and mass media communicate political positions prior to the 2014 European Parliament elections. We conducted a quantitative content analysis of all European Union–related press releases from 46 national political parties and of all European Union–related articles of 14 national quality newspapers from 7 European countries 12 weeks before the 2014 European Parliament elections. Our analysis shows that press releases as well as media coverage contain more concrete political positions on European Union issues than vague political statements. Other than expected, newspaper coverage provided the public with less concrete information than political actors did. Nevertheless, countries vary with regard to the extent to which party communication or newspaper coverage contain vague statements. We cannot find empirical support that the communication of concrete political positions depends on a party’s “extremity” of issue position or on the type of issue.

Gatekeeping the Plenary Floor: Discourse Network Analysis as a Novel Approach to Party Control

In the German parliament, the Bundestag, floor time is a scarce resource and is allocated to MPs by leaders of their respective parliamentary party groups. Previous research indicates that highly salient plenary debates tend to be dominated by party leaders and other loyal frontbenchers. Plenary speeches can therefore offer only limited insights into party unity. Any MP can give a so-called ‘explanation of vote’ (EoVs) to justify their voting decision and/or express their point of view. These written statements provide a more accurate depiction of the range of viewpoints present within legislative parties. In order to assess the effect of party control on observed party unity and parliamentary contestation, discourse network analysis has been employed in this study to compare legislative speech with EoVs in debates on the Greek crisis between 2010 and 2015. Discourse network analysis combines content analysis with an actor-centred approach, and this is the first time this method has been used to study party control and (dis)unity. Bundestag debates on the Greek crisis present an interesting case study, as the issue became increasingly controversial over time, both in the public and the legislature. While this became evident in declining voting unity and individual-level mobilisation through EoVs, the extent to which gatekeeping impedes contestation on the plenary floor needs to be assessed. In terms of representation, it is important that European Union issues not only make it to the plenary agenda but that these debates also reflect the different viewpoints of MPs.

Far right parties and ‘Europe’: societal polarization and the limits of EU issue contestation

ABSTRACT Europe has experienced both marked growth in public support for far right parties and growth in public Euro-skepticism. While far right parties have become associated with particularly strident negative orientations towards the European Union (EU), there is considerable variation in the extent of their antipathy, and, in the extent to which they emphasize the EU. Here we examine the conditions under which far right parties can successfully leverage the EU issue to win votes. Specifically, we argue that the extent of societal polarization on the EU constitutes an important intermediating condition. Our findings indicate that individuals are more likely to vote far right when these parties contest the EU, but only if they do so in a context of societal polarization on the issue.

Mismatch? Comparing elite and citizen polarisation on EU issues across four countries

ABSTRACTNational politicisation of European Union issues has risen following events such as the economic crisis and the refugee influx. This has led to changes at the party (rising Eurosceptic parties) and the voter level (increasing public Euroscepticism). EU politicisation is thus assumed to influence the overall distribution of EU positions in terms of EU polarisation. This raises the question to what extent there is a (mis)match between polarisation at the party and voter level, and its dependence on structural and supply-side dynamics. Using CHES 2017 data and survey data across four EU countries (Germany, Spain, Hungary and the Netherlands) this paper compares elite- and citizen-level EU polarisation. The results show a strong association of party- and citizen-level EU polarisation – for both general and policy-specific EU positions – with higher polarisation among citizens than among parties. Country-specific patterns are due to different political competition on the supply side.

Il clima socio-politico prima delle elezioni europee 2019

The SWG Institute, together with other European partners (Sigmados, Insa, Opinion-Way and IBRiS), carried out some surveys in the months preceding the European Parliament election 2019 in several European countries in order to measure the political climate perceived by citizens on topics such as: European Union, institutions, emotions and main issues present in national political debates. In the analysis, the convergence and divergence features between Italian and European citizens will be highlighted. Furthermore, in addition to the data concerning the entire population, data regarding specific socio-demographic segments of the electorate will be compared.