Europeanisation of Welfare Discourses of European Populist Parties?

This paper explores the relationship between nationalism and welfare provision in Europe through a labour market perspective. The rise of rightist populist parties across the European Union has created a new dynamic in terms of re-defining the boundaries between citizens and non-citizens through welfare provision in general and labour market access in particular. The paper investigates the extent to which the labour market policies of populist parties in Sweden, Germany and United Kingdom are converging. These countries have very different welfare systems, yet the dominant populist parties support broadly similar policies that frame access to labour markets in distinctly nationalist terms. By focusing on the debates surrounding the 2014 European Parliamentary Elections we argue that what we are witnessing is a process of Europeanisation of the populist right politics, at least in relation to immigration and the free movement of people within the European Union.