More Politics, More Problems? Intra-Party Dynamics and Conflict in a Politicising European Parliament

The increasing politicisation of the European Union has transformed the long-standing image of the Union as a largely technocratic and post-ideological project. In combination with the EU’s multiple crises, a rightward reorientation of EU politics, and the growing presence and influence of far-right parties, this shift has turned the European Parliament (EP) into a crucial arena for the return of politics to the Union. Yet despite the growth of research on EU politicisation, most work continues to focus on elections and institutional behaviour. This leaves largely unexplored how EP party groups position themselves in this politicised environment and how internal tensions over salient EU-level issues may become visible in the public arena. This paper addresses that gap by developing a conceptual framework for analysing how immigration and environmental policy are politicised as EU-level issues across EP party groups and how party-group positions, framing patterns, and publicly visible tensions can be studied across groups, issues, and politicised episodes. The paper focuses on EP party groups as meso-level actors and on two policy domains that crystallise core ideological and strategic dilemmas in a politicised Union: immigration and environmental policy. These domains are highly salient in public debate and national politics, but they also expose tensions within and across party families over EU authority, competence, responsibility, and political direction. They are therefore particularly suited to theorising both the politicisation of the EU level and the public articulation of differences within party groups. The paper develops two interconnected analytical moves. First, it specifies when and in what form these issues can be understood as politicised, specifically as EU-level questions across EP party groups and parliamentary cohorts. Second, it identifies how party-group positions, issue framing, and publicly visible tensions can be conceptualised and compared across groups, issues, and politicised episodes. Together, these steps provide a framework for reconstructing both the EP’s changing political landscape on the selected issues and the public manifestations of disagreement, conflict, and differentiated positioning within party groups. Methodologically, the paper outlines a research design that combines qualitative document analysis and media content analysis. Document analysis can be used to identify official party-group positions, issue emphases, and framing patterns over time, based on policy documents, press releases, and plenary interventions. Media content analysis of EU-focused outlets can trace politicised claims and debates, identify critical episodes of politicisation, and map publicly visible intra-party frictions. The framework distinguishes between routine references to the EU and instances in which the EU level is made politically salient through explicit framing, attribution of authority or responsibility, or directional claims for action, restraint, reform, defence, or rollback. Overall, the paper takes a first step towards opening the black box of EP party groups in a politicised Union. By theorising when and how immigration and environmental policy become politicised as EU-level issues, how party groups may publicly position themselves, and when internal tensions may become visible, it provides the conceptual and methodological basis for subsequent empirical analysis of how politicisation is processed internally within party groups.