Reimagining Europe: Southern European radical left parties post-crisis

The Eurozone crisis, the threat of Grexit and the refugee crisis have cast doubts on the European Union’s continuing relevance and desirability in Southern Europe, a traditionally pro-European region. Southern European citizens’ attitudes towards the European Union have changed significantly, with rising levels of Euroscepticism having been recorded since the onset of the crisis in particular. We know less about how the current legitimacy crisis of the EU has affected the programmatic positions of South European political parties. The paper will focus on South European radical left parties in Greece, Portugal and Spain, which might in electoral terms be considered the main beneficiaries of the crisis. Are they now more ‘Eurosceptic’? How have their visions of Europe evolved, if at all? And what, ultimately are the implications of these changes for the position the entire radical left party family now takes with respect to the European Union?