Stability or Variability? Understanding the Evolution and Nature of Euroscepticism in Spain After the Great Recession

Since the onset of the Great Recession, Euroscepticism greatly increased in the peripheral European countries hit hardest by the economic crisis. Financial troubles and subsequent exogenous shocks as the refugees’ crisis triggered a crisis of representation of mainstream parties opening a new political space for opposing the EU. Thus, old and new Eurosceptic political actors gain electoral support and become relevant in the politicization of the EU in public debates. Spain was a country characterized by broad Euro-enthusiastic orientations both at individual and party level, except for ‘soft’ left-wing Eurosceptic parties. Apparently, the scenario has barely changed regarding European integration. On the supply side, several factors have discouraged the rise of ‘hard’ party-based Euroscepticism; while on the demand side, according to Eurobarometer data, the increase of the number of those disillusioned with Europe is limited to the worst period of the debt crisis (2011-2014). However, our intuition is that the stability of orientations toward the European integration process among Spanish parties and publics may be only superficial apparent and much more complex than these data reveal at first sight. In this paper, we investigate to what extent do Spanish publics and political parties have changed their orientations towards the European Union since the onset of the Great Recession. We examine, beyond views of a common ‘sovereignty’ type of Euroscepticism, the existence of different sorts of public opinion and party-based Euroscepticism based on positions over UE principles, polity and policy elements. We utilize data from the 1999-2014 CHES Expert Survey and Eurobarometer surveys.