Populism, Movements and Counter-Movements

In recent years, EU institutions had to face two combined challenges: populism and Euroscepticism. These two ideational systems are generally combined because they are both incorporated as signature policy ideas by a set of radical right populist parties, which have been successful in Member States and in the 2014 and 2019 European elections, even if not at the level that their opponents feared in the run-up to the 2019 elections. The intensity of this challenge produced a set of reactions, which this paper argues constitute a conflictual interaction between a populist movement and a countermovement that opposes it. The paper will investigate the extent to which MEPs feel part of two conflicting institutionalised political movements. Given the centrality of Euroscepticism as a key ideological element of the EP radical right, and the strong opposition it engenders in other party families, the paper also investigates the role of Euroscepticism in the movement-countermovement dynamic. On the basis of quantitative text analysis, it is argued that within the EP, rival ideas of the European project and therefore of Euroscepticism condense the identity of the two blocs and define their rivalry.