Avoidance, Attack, Awareness, and Action: Opposition Party Strategies on Democratic Backsliding in the European Parliament

Democratic backsliding confronts opposition parties with strategic dilemmas, such as whether to form electoral alliances. In the EU's multi-level governance context, opposition parties can complement domestic strategies with international strategies, appealing to European institutions for sanctions like Article 7 or conditionality mechanisms. While such demands may halt backsliding, they also risk backfiring by triggering domestic backlash. This paper examines this trade-off by analyzing speeches made by Polish and Hungarian opposition MEPs in the European Parliament from 2010 to 2023. Four main strategies are identified: avoidance, where parties remain silent to avert backlash; attack, using the European stage to criticize domestic governments and express solidarity without directly calling for EU action; awareness-raising, informing European audiences about domestic developments or framing backsliding as a European issue; and demanding action, explicitly advocating for EU measures. Preliminary findings reveal all strategies are employed to varying extents, with differences across parties. Progressive and smaller mainstream parties tend to favour EU action, while centrist and major opposition parties often focus on domestic issues or remain silent. Over time, as backsliding persists, calls for EU involvement have grown more prominent. Polish Eurosceptic anti-system parties largely reject EU involvement and sometimes align with incumbents, whereas Hungarian Eurosceptics adopt a more ambivalent position. The analysis suggests that opposition behaviour is shaped by ideological orientations and external factors, such as the progression of backsliding and domestic power dynamics.