The Czech Republic and Slovakia provide an opportunity to compare the so-called party based Euro-scepticism in countries of the Eastern Enlargement. Both the cases pose the question whether the stance to the European integration is an intrinsic ‘opinion conflict’ within the respective political systems. The Czech Republic has developed rather anti-European stances in the last decade. On the contrary, the Slovak Republic confirms its pro-European stances; however, the Euro-question has been used as an argument to topple the government down. As internal rules of procedure of the Chamber of Deputies (Czech Republic) and the National Council (Slovak Republic) differ in terms of EU-related issues discussion, the question is to what extent those rules may even help to induce ‘Euro-scepticism’ within the system.
The paper focuses on the voting of parliamentary party groups (PPG) and speeches of individual parliamentarians on EU-related issues on the floor of the parliaments in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Based on the difference of internal rules of procedure of the both lower chambers of parliaments, the paper examines the nature of the stances toward the European integration posing a question whether those stances are party-based, or rather institution-induced. The paper stresses the following hypothesis: the EU-affairs discussion and PPGs’ stances toward the European integration may be even strengthened by institutional settings of parliamentary debates (stipulated by the rules of procedure).
