Talking About Europe and Migration: a Multilevel Analysis of Parliamentary Debates.

According to recent research both the migration and the European integration issues are raising in their salience. This is particularly true after the economic crisis that, since 2009, contributed to the politicization of the European Union (EU). This paper has the core objective to compare the positions endorsed by two 'different' populist Eurosceptic parties with reference to both the migration and the European integration issues: the Northern League (NL) and the Five Stars Movement (FSM). To do that this work proposes to disentangle the issue 'European integration' into four different dimensions comparing parties' positioning to: the very idea of the European integration (both in terms of deepening and widening the EU), the policies enacted by the EU, its institutional architecture and the European political elite. Beside this, this work provides also insights on the positions taken by FSM and LN toward migration, operationalizing it along the control vs. integration dimension. The empirical analysis conducted in this work focuses on debates delivered by the two parties' representatives in two decision-making arenas on two different level of governance (national parliament and European parliament). Doing that, allows researchers to observe the above-mentioned aspects both from a multilevel and multidimensional perspective.