Challenging the EU Status Quo - Exploring How Secessionist MEPs Enact their Agendas in the European Parliament

This paper advances new ways to think about the effects of European integration by exploring its consequences for the behavior and identities of regional secessionist actors. It thereby aims to gain a better understanding of the recent trend of calls for independence in the EU and their relation to the process and realities of European integration. Over the years, we have seen that the more the EU integrates, the more its internal divisions have intensified. Contrary to expectations, European integration seems to have sustained, rather than eradicated, the quest for independence in the EU by pro-European secessionist parties, which is effectively challenging the status quo and political organization of the EU. Hence, there is a need to better understand why, how and under what conditions secessionist parties incorporate European integration in their strategies as well as how it manifests itself in their identities. Previous research has so far overwhelmingly focused on the Europeanization of secessionist parties at the national level, even though they have also mobilized at the European level. This study breaks new ground by offering a systematic comparative analysis of how secessionist parties have been making use of the European Parliament and draws on new data from the last 20 years. In particular, the paper explores how pro-European secessionist MEPs have balanced their interests in the European Parliament between 1999 and 2019 and to what extent they have Europeanized their separatist agenda by taking it to the supranational level. The paper draws on a quantitative content analysis of the plenary debate contributions, written questions and committee choices of three different pro-European secessionist parties (CiU, N-VA and SNP) in the European Parliament.