How the EU Enters Domestic Agendas. European Integration, Political Parties and the Media in France, Germany and the UK (1990-2012)

A growing literature deals with the intrusion of EU-related issues on domestic political agendas and with its consequences on party competition. This paper examines such issues enter the French, British and German domestic agendas. On the basis of an analysis of the coverage of EU-politics in Die Süddeutsche Zeitung, Le Monde and The Guardian, I explore the timing of the agenda setting of Europe, its mechanisms and the actors involved. The widespread observation of an increasing politicization of European politics, most notably in the form of the “new cleavage”, the “end of the permissive consensus” and the “sleeping giant” hypotheses, implies a growing salience of Europe in the public debate. This paper adopts an agenda-setting perspective and provides empirical evidence that attention to Europe is highly punctuated – with peaks of attention followed by long periods of inattention. A qualitative study of the articles published during peaks of attention then shows that press coverage is far from reflecting mechanically all “important” events of European integration. Until recently, European issues impose themselves only in situations of conflict affecting mainstream parties. The strategies and success of Eurosceptic minorities of such parties are thus key to understand how European integration affects party competition. Interestingly, the patterns of agenda setting observed since the early 1990s have changed dramatically with the current financial and debt crisis. Since 2010, in all three countries, I observe a linear trend towards more visibility of European politics: the EU appears to be more and more discussed and to have established itself as a structural component of the quality press agenda. Moreover, mainstream parties’ internal conflicts are no longer a necessary precondition for the EU to be debated. Party-exogenous mechanisms of agenda setting gain in importance, suggesting that established parties could face growing difficulties in avoiding problems of European integration.