Liberal Parties in Europe Ahead of the 2024 European Elections (original) (raw)

The Specter Haunting Europe: Distinguishing Liberal Democracy’s Challengers

This article takes issue with the common practice of lumping together as “populist” the various challengers to democracy in contemporary Europe. Instead, it disaggregates, and then classifies, such challengers into three analytically distinct categories – antidemocrats, nativists, and populists. Such a classification reveals quite distinct patterns of geographical distribution of cases across Europe, each class of parties with its own political strength and governing potential. It is shown that the gravest threat to contemporary liberalism comes from populist rather than from antidemocratic or nativist parties. The classification proposed opens large areas for new comparative research and has important policy implications.

Political parties in a changing Europe

Political Parties in the New Europe. Political and …, 2002

, the Keele European Parties Research Unit (KEPRU) was the first research grouping of its kind in the UK. It brings together the hitherto largely independent work of Keele researchers focusing on European political parties, and aims: • to facilitate its members' engagement in high-quality academic research, individually, collectively in the Unit and in collaboration with cognate research groups and individuals in the UK and abroad; • to hold regular conferences, workshops, seminars and guest lectures on topics related to European political parties; • to publish a series of parties-related research papers by scholars from Keele and elsewhere; • to expand postgraduate training in the study of political parties, principally through Keele's MA in Parties and Elections and the multinational PhD summer school, with which its members are closely involved; • to constitute a source of expertise on European parties and party politics for media and other interests. The Unit shares the broader aims of the Keele European Research Centre, of which it is a part. KERC comprises staff and postgraduates at Keele who are actively conducting research into the politics of remaking and integrating Europe.

Political Parties in the European Union

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 2019

Media often portrays European Union (EU) decision-making as a battleground for national governments that defend the interests of their member states. Yet even the most powerful individuals, such as the German chancellor, the French president, or the Commission president, are party politicians. At the same time the consistent empowerment of the European Parliament (EP) means that the party groups of European-level "Europarties"-political parties at European level-are in a key position to shape EU legislation. The Parliament has also become more directly involved in the appointment of the Commission, with the results of EP elections thus influencing the composition of the Commission. Examining the "partyness" of European integration, this article argues that scholarly understanding of the role of parties in the EU political system has taken great strides forward since the turn of the millennium. This applies especially to the EP party groups, with research focusing particularly on voting patterns in the plenary. This body of work has become considerably more sophisticated and detailed over the years; it shows that the main EP groups do achieve even surprisingly high levels of cohesion and that the left-right dimension is the primary axis of contestation in the chamber. It nonetheless also emphasizes the continuing relevance of national parties that control candidate selection in EP elections. Considering that most votes in the Parliament are based on cooperation between the two largest groups, the center-right European People's Party (EPP) and the center-left Party of the European Socialists (PES), future research should analyze in more detail how these groups build compromises. Actual Europarties, however, remain relatively unexplored. Case studies of treaty reforms or particular policy sectors reveal how individual Europarties have often wielded decisive influence on key integration decisions or key appointments to EU institutions. The Europarty meetings held in conjunction with European Council summits are particularly important in this respect. The regular, day-today activities of Europarties deserve more attention, both regarding decision-making and vertical links between national parties and their Europarties. Overall, it is probably more accurate to characterize Europarties as networks of like-minded national parties or as loose federations of member parties, especially when compared with the often centralized and strongly disciplined parties found in the member states.

European political parties: poorly identified political bodies

Jacques Delors Institute, 2023

Political parties play a central role in contemporary liberal democracies: they are essential conduits between citizens and political decision-making and candidate selection. Given their role at the national level, it is not surprising that political parties have been turned to as a solution to the democratic deficit in the European Union (EU). This study aims to explore the different facets of European political parties, the challenges they face and the prospects for the role of European political parties for supranational democracy. It is structured in four parts. The first part will briefly trace the evolution of European political parties. It shows that the creation of a regulatory framework has favoured the emergence of Europarties. After a period of rapid emergence and great volatility, their number seems to have stabilised in the recent period, with 10 European political parties recognised by the Authority for European Political Parties and Foundations (APPF). The second part analyses the financing of European parties. Introduced in 2003, the direct funding of political parties has been modified in 2007, 2014, 2018, 2019 and is currently being modified. We show that while European political parties have been able to rely on an increasing level of financial resources, not least due to the increase in public funding, the use of these subsidies is also subject to certain limitations. The most important is that European funds cannot be used to directly or indirectly finance national political parties or candidates, nor for national election or referendum campaigns. Although far from being their only obstacle, the rules surrounding the use of European funds are one of the constraints limiting the involvement and visibility of European political parties in political life. A third part addresses the question of the role and nature of Europarties. It focuses in particular on three essential functions of parties in a democracy: the articulation and aggregation of interests, the function of linkage and the influence on the decision-making process. It analyses the low visibility of Europarties in elections; the contribution of the Spitzenkandidaten procedure; the structure and rules of membership of European political parties; and finally, the question of the influence of Europarties via the Parliament, the Council and the European Council. The conclusion looks at the main constraints on European political parties and discusses the prospects for the next European elections of 2024 and 2029. In particular, beyond the progress on transnational lists and Spitzekandidaten, the visibility of the Europarties could be easily and quickly increased through the inclusion of their logo in the campaign material of their member parties.

Political Parties and Political Foundations at European Level. Challenges and Opportunities (2014)

2014

This Report is a follow-up study on "How to create a transnational party system" (2010); it illustrates recent challenges and opportunities at EU level concerning the emergence of: i) transnational parties and a transnational party system; ii) constraints and opportunities for representative democracy. The main areas addressed in the report are: (a) voting coherence of the EP Party Groups after the Euro-crisis; (b) regulation of political parties at European level (PPELs); (c) role of political foundations at European level (PFELs).