How Parties Politicised Europe (and Euroscepticism) in Italy at the Time of the 2014 EP Elections

Although in the past, within the Italian party system few voices were heard outside the two positions of principled support (definitely prevailing in the long term) and principled rejection (declining over time) of the Common Market, recently all positions - from hard Euroscepticism, through contingent attitudes, to principled pro-Europeanism – have become represented, thus making Europe a issue of renewed politicisation and divisions.

Research shows that the salience of the EU in the party system is greater where parties diverge, but lower where the EU constitutes a valence issue in either optimistic or pessimistic terms. Parties in the member states tend to de-politicise Europe when they converge optimistically on the EU process or when they agree on its negative qualities: in order to mark distance from each other and to appeal to voters parties mainly politicise those issues they diverge on and the European issue makes no exception. In the recent past, the Italian party system has become a case of increased demarcation on the European issue, while consensus has disappeared from political discourse. Competition over the EU has been internalised by the party system where it has become a relevant pattern of competition and it has even contributed to make the system more polarised.

The article examines the recent politicisation of the EU in the Italian party system based on the campaign for the European elections of May 2014 and on original survey data on the Italian MPs.