Eurosceptics--enemies or a necessary part of European integration?

• Author: Kaniok, Petr
• Position: Essay

Introduction

In his oft-quoted study "Europe's 'Democratic Deficit': The Question of Standards" the Italian political scientist Giandomenico Majone claims that the evaluation of any product or institution is a matter of defining standards and their subsequent application. The European Union (EU), its institutions and the state of democracy within constitute no exception. The issue of setting standards which are then used for evaluation is substantially a matter of choice for the individual who establishes them (Majone, 1998: 5-6).

Although Majone's study is related to the question of democratic deficit, it can be generally applied in evaluating the EU's political system as well as the approaches towards this system. Establishing standards for the democratic character of this sui generis organization or, on the contrary, pointing out its democratic deficit only makes sense if the target (the EU's nature and character) is precisely defined. The fact that the democratic deficit discussion developed in the mid-1990s and went hand in hand with an equally stormy debate about Euroscepticism was probably not an accident. Although the term as such was only introduced into academic discourse at the end of the 20th century (Taggart, 1998), an enormous number of both empirical case studies and theoretical treatises appeared over approximately thirteen years, focusing mainly on Euroscepticism manifested in political party programmes.

Simplifying matters somewhat, it can be said that this imposing body of research amounts to the academy's attempt to reckon with tendencies which have appeared in the European integration process since the beginning of the 1990s: the politicization of the integration process, the increasing involvement of the European public, and the gradual disintegration of the "permissive consensus" (17) connected with the latter developments. Disapproval towards the evolution of European integration, expressed, for example, by the referenda on primary law revisions or during the European Parliament (EP) elections, appeared as a new phenomenon calling for a comprehensive theoretical explanation. However, despite these enormous efforts, no generally respected typology has been created so far, let alone placed into standard use. Simultaneously, the term Euroscepticism has been widely accepted and used both in the political as well as in academic discourses.

The research question this paper focuses on is the following: Why is it that a term which is so firmly present in the world of European politics has not been, so far, adequately defined? In other words, why does Euroscepticism cause so many theoretical problems? The paper analyses existing typologies and conceptualizations of Euroscepticism by focusing on the typology developed by Taggart and Szczerbiak and places it in a broader discussion about the character of the European Union.

The paper presumes the importance of standards, as stated in the introduction, and is structured as a normative piece of work. Without a normative definition of the EU that takes into account the finality of European integration and its structure, attempts at conceptualising the criticisms of European integration and the opposition to it are pointless. Consequently, the paper is divided into five substantial sections. The first section briefly comments on the present day Euroscepticism research and introduces the relevant concept of soft and hard Euroscepticism. The second section focuses on absence of explicitly stated standards in these typologies, especially those regarding the statehood of the EU and the definition of the pro-European stance. Afterwards, these standards are applied to the prevailing conceptualization of Euroscepticism. Before the conclusion, the paper demonstrates what an explicitly defined EU--in this case EU as a political system--means for the conceptualization of Euroscepticism.

Euroscepticism: The creeping enemy

As indicated above, the discussion on Euroscepticism began both in the EU itself and in the political science field in the mid-1990s. Before the creation of the EU, European integration was an elite-driven project that did not impinge, directly or indirectly, on the life of the common electorate. The EU Constitution, which includes concepts such as European citizenship but which also strengthened the powers of the directly-elected European Parliament (EP), has brought European integration substantially closer to the public and to everyday politics.

The phenomenon of Euroscepticism is vague and its definitions vary. A number of theoretical studies were done in the first decade of the 21st century focusing mainly on party based Euroscepticism (18) (Taggart, 1998; Kopecky and Mudde, 2002; Conti, 2003; Taggart and Szczerbiak, 2003; Conti and Verzichelli, 2004; Riishoj, 2004; Flood, 2002; Szczerbiak and Taggart, 2008a). This "battle of abstract concepts and understandings" was followed by a huge amount of empirical work, in the form of either case studies or articles based on a comparative approach (e.g., Batory, 2001; Henderson, 2001; Lees, 2002; Church, 2003; Harmsen, 2004; Neumayer, 2008; Szczerbiak and Taggart, 2008b).

However, despite this intensive effort, no generally respected and uncontested typology was created during these debates. In the second half of decade, the theoretical discussion died down as no new input or idea on how to define Euroscepticism occurred. On the contrary, one can notice an opposing trend, especially in the last years, in the sense that many studies treat Euroscepticism as a theoretical phenomenon that can be operationalized simply as a lack of support for European integration (e. g. Boomgaarden et all, 2011; Lubbers and Scheepers, 2005). It is however questionable whether this minimal stance is able to explain what Euroscepticism really represents.

Looking back at the state of the art of Euroscepticism research, one can very quickly sum up that there never has been "one" Euroscepticism. Taggart (1998), who was the pioneer on Euroscepticism research, distinguished four types of party based Euroscepticism (Taggart, 1998: 368-369) by taking into account the degree of relevance or salience of opposition towards the EU for the respective party. Four years later, this initial typology was followed by a new typology developed by Taggart himself and his colleague Szczerbiak, splitting Euroscepticism between its soft and hard versions. According to this new approach, which worked with two dimensions (opposition towards the EU and opposition towards EU membership), "hard Euroscepticism is where there is a principled opposition to the EU and European integration and therefore can be seen in parties who think that their countries should withdraw from membership, or whose policies towards the EU are tantamount to being opposed to the whole project of European integration as it is currently conceived" (Taggart and Szczerbiak, 2003: 6). Soft Euroscepticism, on the contrary, was defined as follows: "where there is not a principled objection to European integration or EU membership but where concerns on one (or a number) of policy areas leads to the expression of qualified opposition to the EU, or where there is a sense that 'national interest' is currently at odds with the EU trajectory" (Taggart and Szczerbiak, 2003: 6).

Taggart and Szczerbiak's typology provoked several reactions and can be seen as the starting point of an intense theoretical debate. The most influential contribution was that of Kopecky and Mudde (2002), who raised two main objections. First of them concerned the category of soft Euroscepticism which they contested as too inclusive and thus encompassing any disagreement with the EU and its policies. Kopecky and Mudde's second objection concerned the issue of EU membership. In their view, this was not the crucial point dividing hard and soft Eurosceptics. Instead of emphasising the support for EU membership of the given country (or lack thereof), they suggested taking two different factors into consideration: (1) the principle of ceding sovereignty of the nation state towards the supranational structures and (2) support for/opposition against further enlargement of EU sovereignty (as a contemporary trajectory of European integration). Combining these two dimensions led to a new typology consisting of four categories--Euroenthusiasts, Europramatists, Eurosceptics and Eurorejects (Kopecky and Mudde, 2002: 303). Both Eurosceptics and Eurorejects articulate some reservations about the EU--the former support the principle of ceding sovereignty and reject further enhancements of EU competencies while the latter fight against both the basic idea of European integration and an increase in its role.

Taggart and Szczerbiak reacted to this new typology by redefining their initial concept. Soft and hard Euroscepticism "version 2.0" abandoned the issue of EU membership and replaced this criterion by another which looks into support for (or opposition to) the transfer of political power from the states to the supranational centre. In their revised conception, hard Euroscepticism is "principled opposition to the project of European integration as embodied in the EU, in other words, based on the ceding or transfer of powers to [a] supranational institution such as the EU" (Szczerbiak and Taggart, 2003: 12). Consequently, soft Euroscepticism is an attitude where "there is not a principled objection to the European integration project of transferring powers to a supranational body such as the EU, but there is opposition to the EU's current or future planned trajectory based on the further extension of competencies that the EU is planning to make" (Szczerbiak and Taggart, 2003: 12).

With Taggart and Szczerbiak's refinement, developments in the conceptualisation of Euroscepticism were essentially complete and their revised typology is now the oftenest used, notwithstanding the fact that scholars have attempted to...