Underlying left–right rationale in regionalist parties’ centre–periphery EU positioning

Centre–periphery is the fundamental ideology of regionalist parties. However, regionalist parties commonly position on issues beyond regional self-government; the left–right dimension complements these parties’ ideological repertoire. Being one of four strategies for dealing with the left–right dimension in party competition (Elias et al., 2015), regionalist parties typically subsume the left-right dimension into the centre–periphery one (Massetti and Schakel, 2015). In other words, their placement on regional self-government is a function of their underlying left–right discourse. Adopting a concrete leftist or rightist sovereignist discourse depends on the region’s economic position relative to the state’s average, fiscal autonomy, inner-state redistribution, and the state’s regional and socioeconomic policy. European integration has served as a favourable regional empowerment framework. Scholars agree that regionalist parties’ attitudes towards integrating Europe have been determined by the centre–periphery spectrum and also the left–right spectrum as an endogenous, pre-existing party ideology (Massetti and Shakel, 2021; Massetti, 2009; Elias, 2009, p. 149). Empirically, many left-wing regionalist parties opposed European integration during the 1970s–80s for being a neoliberal capital-driven venture exacerbating fragile economies. When they accepted European membership by the 1990s, they still criticised the economic framework (Gómez-Reino, 2013, pp. 153–156). Analogous is true for regionalist parties on the radical right yet for cultural and identity reasons (Massetti, 2009, 522). By and large, the literature on regionalist parties’ EU attitudes has treated the left–right dimension as merely complementary to centre–periphery and concentrated too much on economic aspects. I find that most centre–periphery reflections on the EU have clear left–right underpinnings. Applying thematic discourse analysis (Rozbroj et al., 2019), linking themes with latent belief systems, to regionalist parties’ sub-state parliamentary interventions in Corsica and South Tyrol, the respective poorest and wealthiest region of the state, over a recent five-year period (2018-2022), this study demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of the identified centre–periphery themes are seen through the left–right prism. While the underlying discourse depends on where the party is positioned from far-left, mainstream left, centre, mainstream right, and far-right, I find that hard economic arguments are present but not prevalent. Instead, the EU positions are imbued with values and principles, such as inclusiveness, solidarity, equality, public utility, and responsibility. This contribution evidences that regionalist parties base their positioning on centre–periphery aspects of the EU on their respective left–right ideologies, substantiating and explaining the regionalist parties’ EU attitude formation process.