The Radical Left Euroscepticism in the European Parliament: The GUE/NGL Pan- European Political Group

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1 The Radical Left Euroscepticism in the European Parliament: The GUE/NGL Pan- European Political Group Elif Tahmiscioğlu, M.A. European Studies, Europa Universita t Flensburg (2017) Abstract: There is a trending phenomenon in Europe, which is called Euroscepticism. Not just in the United Kingdom which resulted in Brexit but in the EU Member States, Eurosceptic parties have become more popular in recent years. Furthermore, Euroscepticism is also gaining power in the European Parliament (EP). Nevertheless, Euroscepticism in the European Parliament is not as popular as the rising Euroscepticism in the member states and the European public discusses the radical left Euroscepticism more than the radical left one. Therefore, this paper examines the radical left Eurosceptic political group of the EP; European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL). Keywords: Radical-Left Euroscepticism, European Parliament, GUE/NGL 1. Introduction Euroscepticism has been a growing phenomenon in Europe and this fact paves the way for more studies in this field. However, studies on the radical right Euroscepticism are more common than the radical left Euroscepticism. Even though radical left Eurosceptics have fewer seats than the radical right in the European Parliament (EP), they have gained power since the Eurozone Crisis. These two conflicting ideologies criticize European integration from different sides. While the radical left Eurosceptics are against the neoliberal and business friendly economic system of the European Union, the radical rightists oppose the Union because of their concerns about national sovereignty. In this context, this paper is analyses the radical left Euroscepticism in the EU by focusing on the only radical left Eurosceptic political group in the EP, European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL). The first section explains the Euroscepticism and the related theories and approaches which is used for the GUE/NGL analysis. The second part is about the GUE/NGL, its inner dynamics and effectiveness inside the EP. 2. Euroscepticism and Theoretical Concepts Euroscepticism has been used in everyday life more frequently after the Brexit referendum. In academia, the most well-known definition of the Euroscepticism belongs to Paul Taggart. Taggart defines Euroscepticism as a term expressing the idea of contingent or qualified opposition, as well as incorporating outright and unqualified opposition to the process of European integration (1998: 366). Paul Taggart together with Aleks Szczerbiak have worked on party-based Euroscepticism and categorized it into two parts. The first one is hard Euroscepticism and the second one is soft 1

2 Euroscepticism. Hard Euroscepticism is a principled opposition to the EU and the European integration. Parties which think that their countries should withdraw from membership, or completely oppose the European integration are hard Eurosceptics (Taggart and Szczerbiak 2002: 7). On the other hand, soft Euroscepticism is not a principled opposition, but soft Eurosceptic parties have concerns on some policy areas of the EU and think that some policies are against the countries national interests (Taggart and Szczerbiak 2002: 7). Sofia Vasilopoulou created a different approach to Euroscepticism theories. She recognized four aspects related to the European integration, a common cultural definition of Europe, the principle of cooperation at a European multilateral level, the EU policy practice and the desire to build a future European polity (2011: 224). By using these indicators Eurosceptic parties are categorized into three: rejecting, conditional and compromising (Vasilopoulou 2018: 24). This classification is mainly for radical right Eurosceptic parties because of that Keith (2018: 90) uses the Expansionist/Integrationist category instead of compromising Euroscepticism in order to explain radical left-wing Euroscepticism better. Rejectionist radical left parties are against the principle of European integration, the practice of European cooperation and the future of European integration. Conditionals are just in favour of the principle of European integration and against the others. Expansionist/Integrationist radical left parties are against the practice of European cooperation, but in favour of its principle and future prospects (Ibid: 91) There are other categorisations for Euroscepticism nevertheless, the Euroscepticism literature predominately focuses on domestic politics (Leruth 2018: 385). Therefore, they are not mentioned in this paper. Euroscepticism does not just belong to internal politics and political parties, but it also exists in the European institutions. Especially after the Eurozone Crisis, it has seen that Euroscepticism is present in pan-european and transnational levels (Ibid: 385). For this reason, FitzGibbon, Benjamin Leruth and Nicholas Startin (2017) have studied it. According to them, transnational Euroscepticism is the coordination and communication of opposition to the process of European integration across several countries on the other hand, pan-european Euroscepticism is at the EU level (FitzGibbon et al. 2017: 3). All these conceptualizations are used while the only radical left Eurosceptic political group in European Parliament GUE/NGL is analyzed in following chapters. 3. Euroscepticism in the European Parliament 3.1 The Eurosceptic Political Groups in the European Parliament The European Parliament is the supranational institution of the European Union. When the EU deepens, the role of the European Parliament also increases. Therefore, naturally the EP is a pro-integrationist institution. However, the European Parliament is also a platform for Euroscepticism in the supranational level (Brack and Costa 2018: 374). Euroscepticism in the EP is not new. Since the first election in 1979, there has been Eurosceptic MEPs, but never as many as they are in the current parliamentary period ( ). The 30.5 percent of the members of the European Parliament (MEP) are Eurosceptic (Brack 2017:69). Political groups cannot campaign during the EP elections. National political parties run in the European Parliament elections, but national parties can be associated with a European political party (Europarty) and after the elections they can join a political group in the European Parliament. Hence, political groups can be coalitions of Europarties, national parties, and independent politicians. In order to form a political group, at least 25 members from the one 2

3 quarter of the member states are needed. Forming a group in the EP provides effective cooperation for Eurosceptic parties to gain access to resources and gain legitimacy (Leruth 2018, p.385) In the current EP, there are four openly Eurosceptic political groups. We can categorize them into two following the Taggart and Szczerbiak s classification. Soft Eurosceptics are European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and GUE/NGL and hard Eurosceptics are Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) and Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) (FitzGibbon 2017: 5). We can also classify them into two according to their ideological positions. ECR, EFDD and ENF are all right wing political groups only GUE/ NGL is a left wing Eurosceptic political group. 3.2 The GUE/NGL as a Left Eurosceptic Political Group GUE/NGL stands for the confederal group of the European United Left and Nordic Green Left. It is based on a Europarty; Party of the European Left (PEL) and two alliances; the European Anti-Capitalist Left (EACL) and Nordic Green Left (NGLA). A pan European group made up of those from the party family who hold seats in the EP which consists European Parliament group and a broader transnational group made up of all parties prepared to affiliate together that consists a Europarty (Holmes 2017: 65). According to these definitions, the PEL is a transnational Eurosceptic party and the GUE/NGL a pan- European group. The GUE/NGL has 52 MEPs from 18 different national political parties and 14 different Member States. In 2014 election, GUE/NGL s seats increased from 35 (4.76 %) to 52 (6.92% of the parliament) (Chiocchetti 2014:9). Existing members just gained three more MEPs, but the group expanded more because of the affiliation of non-represented radical left parties which brought 13 MEPs and technical agreements with non-leftist parties that brought 3 more nevertheless, 2 MEPs left due to the disaffiliation of Greek KKE (Ibid: 10). The radical left-wing parties oppose capitalism, the free market and liberal economics and they try to change them through parliamentary means (Halikiopoulou 2014:2). The GUE/ NGL s slogan is another Europe is possible. On their websites, they explain their vision as the social equitable, peaceful and sustainable European integration process based on international solidarity (GUE/NGL). In principle, the group supports the European integration, however, it is critical to major European Union policies which are market oriented, neoliberal and elitist. That makes them soft Eurosceptics. According to the GUE/ NGL, the European integration process should be based on solidarity, workers rights, peace, gender equality, civil liberties, democracy and environmental responsibility (Holmes 2017: 70). The GUE/NGL parliamentary group is highly opposed to the certain aspects of the EU and it wants to change them. They see the EU as an organization where business interests are given priority all the time, at the expense of the ordinary workers and citizens (Holmes 2017: 70). The GUE/NGL strongly opposes the policies which support this argument. They reject the EU s economic program, which was seen a project of neoliberalism (Ibid). The European Constitutional Treaty was also rejected because the GUE/NGL perceived it as the constitutionalisation of the liberal model (Ibid). Moreover, the GUE/NGL is against the free trade, which is the fundamental policy of the EU. The group claims that liberalisation of trade has caused worldwide social and ecological destruction and it is against to all international trade agreements that are shaped by the interests of big businesses (GUE/NGL 2015). 3

4 According to radical leftists, regional policy of the EU is less about solidarity and cohesion and more about making regions compete with each other (Ibid). The EU s foreign and security policy is also criticized for the role the EU plays for armament within and outside Europe and not based on the construction of a peaceful world (Ibid). The Eurozone Crisis deeply affected the radical left Euroscepticism. It proved what they had been arguing about capitalism for many years and the GUE/NGL blamed EU policies for the crisis. They said the European Union is not the victim of the current economic, financial, environmental and global food crisis but one of its motors (Holmes 2017: 73). They strongly oppose the austerity measures and emphasized that there is no democratic control over the European Central Bank (Ibid). The attitude of the EU during the crisis benefited the radical left and the most seats were gained in the 2014 elections from the crisis-hit countries (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain) (Keith 2018: 87). Nevertheless, they could not be as effective as it was expected towards to austerity because of their fragmented structure. The GUE/NGL is a confederation, which consists of 18 different national parties and each has different attitudes towards the EU and the European integration. Dan Keith (2018) classifies these parties using Vasilopolou s framework which is explained in the first chapter. The categories he uses are rejectionist, conditional and expansionist/integrationist Euroscepticism. Rejectionists parties inside the GUE/NGL are PCP (Portuguese Communist Party), V (Left Party of Sweden) and the Red Green Alliance. PCP is not just opposed the EU policies but also the ideology of the EU s construction (Janssen 2014: 8). The PCP sees EU as a neoliberal and militarist project and does not offer any solutions for economic crisis inside the EU because the EU is doomed to fail (Keith 2018, p.91). The V and the Red-Green Alliance also reject the European integration project and they want to defend their Scandinavian Leftist position and the welfare state (Janssen 2014: 9). The second category is the conditional Eurosceptics. They demand the return the powers to the nation states and they think the decision-making process inside the EU should be more intergovernmental than supranational. Expansionist, on the other hand, support European integration to move farther towards establishing a social Europe and that is how the problems created by the economic crisis can be solved. They urge the EU to replace austerity policies with EU-level taxes, an expansion of the EU budget to boost employment, a minimum wage, regulations on capital and reforms to make the European Central Bank accountable to elected institutions of the Union (Keith 2018: 93). Due to its fragmented structure, radical left cannot launch effective campaigns against the austerity (Keith 2018: 94). Furthermore, the crisis deepened the division between radical left parties inside the GUE/NGL between the ones which support reformed social Europe and the supporters of weak or collapsed European Union (Ibid). However, the GUE/NGL group is quite active inside the European Parliament in the seventh parliamentary term ( ). The group was the second in giving speeches, third in parliamentary questions and first in the number of amendments (Brack 2018:401). Nevertheless, they were far from creating a change, only the small amount of their amendments were approved (Ibid: 402). These facts show us that radical left cannot be effective at the EU level. The main reason is that European People s Party (EPP) and the Progressive Alliance of Socialist and Democrats (S&D) have the parliamentary majority (Chiocchetti 2014: 13). The presence of the radical left is still beneficial for the EU, even though they cannot affect the European politics much in the European Parliament because 4

5 they increase the legitimization of the EU and in the future, they can be more effective if they can overcome their differences and work together to establish a social Europe. Table : Classification of the parties inside the GUE/NGL political group Rejectionists Conditional Expansionist/Integrationist PCP (Portugal) AKEL (Cyprus) Syriza (Greece) Red-Green Alliance (Denmark) Sinn Fe in (Ireland) Left Front (France) V (Sweden) SP (the Netherlands) VAS (Finland) Party of the Animals (the Netherlands) KSCM (Czech Republic) Die Linke (Germany) IU (Spain) Podemos (Spain) The People Decide (Spain) PRC (Italy) BE (Portugal) Source: adapted from Dan Keith s chapter in the Routledge Handbook of Euroscepticism (2018: 91) 4. Conclusion 2014 European Parliament Election results were not just the success of the radical right Euroscepticism but also the radical left gained more seats. This increase in the number of seats mainly the consequence of the Eurozone Crisis. The crisis showed how correct the radical leftists are especially to the crisis-hit countries citizens. The radical left attacks the EU policies from a different ideological perspective. In general, they support the European integration, but they want an integration based on solidarity. They work to establish a social Europe. Nevertheless, it has to keep in mind that there are hard Eurosceptic radical leftists, which support the collapse of the Union. Unfortunately, the Eurozone Crisis and the austerity policies made hard Eurosceptics more radical. The radical left is not really effective due to this fragmentation. However, they still actively participate the EP. Even though the current allocation of the parliament does not allow them to create a change, if the EU cannot stop the deepening of the economic inequalities between regions, this group can become more effective in the EU politics. 5

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