British Influence on Conceptualising Eurosceptical Discourse in Central-Eastern and Southern Europe: The Case of the ECR and EFD(D) groups in the European Parliament

Arguably the UK is a mother country of the party-based Euroscepticism. However, the so-called “British Euroscepticism” remains important not only due to its domestic dimension, and consequential impact on the whole of the EU, but also due to its dissemination. The UK-based politicians greatly contributed to creating and popularising all over the Continent some key concepts of opposition to the European integration process, such as the sovereignty issue, the democratic deficit, and respective rhetoric concerning e.g. ‘faceless bureaucrats’. Moreover, they have been at the core of institutionalisation of the Eurosceptical movement on the EU arena, and often shared their experience with the partners from other Member States. Since the ‘Big-Bang Enlargement’ of 2004-2007 the Eurosceptical parties have been becoming more visible both in the ‘old’ and ‘new’ EU. Paradoxically one of the forms of integrating newcomers into the ‘old’ system was institutionalisation of two European Parliament groups representing soft (ECR) and hard (EFDD) Eurosceptic stance (Szczerbiak&Taggart), which were based on a mix of British; Central-Eastern; and Southern European MEPs. The groups established during the 6th term were renewed after both the 2009 and 2014 elections. The paper will analyse the impact of the British party-based Euroscepticism on the strategies and manifestoes of political parties from the countries of Central-Eastern and Southern Europe represented in the ECR and EFD(D) groups in the 7th and 8th EP terms. The aim will be to establish similarities and differences in reception of Eurosceptical ideas in both parts of the EU, to confront the foreign Eurosceptical ideas with the native ones, and to assess the scope for the reproduction of radical scenario currently leading in the UK to the referendum on its EU-membership (2017). The paper shall be based on the findings of the research project conducted at the Warsaw University in 2013-2014.