Political stability of national delegations in the European Parliament.

This paper shows the analysis of political stability of national delegations in the European Parliament. It is based on the original research conducted with both quantitative and qualitative (MEP interviews) methods. So far, the research of the party system at the EU level focused most often on its transnational aspect, making the political groups or the European parties the subject of the analysis (Hix, Lord 1997; Kreppel 2001) and not paying much attention to national delegations, which are formally not recognised by the EP. The process of the European issues gaining importance in the European elections is accompanied by the rising importance of negative attitude towards European integration (Hooghe, Marks 2018: 127). The significance of issues related to “the national interest” encourages to take a closer look at the character of national delegations, which, being emanations of national party systems, can influence the stability of the EU party system. Research questions: 1) What is the degree of political stability of national delegations to the EP and how does it affect the party system in the EU?; 2) What is the level of cohesion between political stability of national delegations at European and country level? Methodological approach: The analysis of the political stability of national delegations will be conducted on two levels – the structural stability and the stability of inter-party competition. The structural stability refers to a national delegation as a product of a particular party and electoral system. The stability of inter-party competition refers to a national delegation in the EP as an effect of the voters’ political preferences – the transfer of votes between parties and their polarisation.