No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Who is fighting against the EU's energy and climate policy in the European Parliament? The contribution of the Visegrad Group
Abstract
In contrast to the main streams of literature, which primarily analyse the Visegrad countries (Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) as an example of a regional coalition and their role in the EU, we focus on the internal coherence of the group and especially issues on which they vote differently as well as their voting affiliation with political groups within the European Parliament. Our research is methodologically based on the analysis of roll-call votes (RCV). We conclude that there is considerable heterogeneity evident in MEP voting behaviour and thus we can assume that the relative proximity among Visegrad countries' positions is not apparent in the European Parliament. Moreover, we have confirmed that hard Eurosceptic MEPs are not a homogenous group and in the EP seeking support for legislative approval is more difficult than may be expected.
... The extent to which these cleavages found in other policy fields also apply to ECP, and the implications this has for further integration, has remained unexplored. A notable exception is a study by Zapletalová and Komínková (2020) which focuses on MEPs from the four Visegrad countries and suggests that while MEPs from this region increasingly object to ECP, their cohesion appears to be weak and that ad hoc national concerns are shaping their voting behaviour. ...
... We also contribute to the scholarship on spatial and ideological cleavages in the EP (Otjes & van der Veer, 2016) and on intra-institutional decision-making in the EU (Mühlböck, 2012). Our work adds to these literatures an explicitly ECP-related perspective that broadens Zapletalová and Komínková's (2020) focus on Visegrad MEPs and analyses voting behaviour of all MEPs on key pieces of ECP legislation. In addition, we enrich the literature on the policy implications of the rise of populist and Eurosceptic parties for the decision-making in the EP (Behm & Brack, 2019) by providing an account of the increasingly prominentand contested -field of ECP. ...
Analysing roll call votes from the energy and climate policy field in the Eighth European Parliament (2014–2019), this article asks why has the European Parliament succeeded in maintaining its relatively ambitious position and how national and partizan factors explain voting behaviour of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) on EU energy and climate legislation. We find the Eurosceptic vs. pro-EU cleavage to be the main conflict line structuring voting on energy and climate policy. Additionally, EU energy and climate policy has been supported by MEPs from member states with a track record of more ambitious climate policymaking and those with higher energy dependence. We show that increasing party fragmentation in the European Parliament has strengthened the influence of some progressive party groups, particularly the Greens, and has enhanced the European Parliament’s ability to mobilize support for a relatively ambitious energy and climate legislation.
... On the other hand, according to Mišík [72], this may also be determined by the internal energy policies of the V4 countries. This, in turn, is consistent with the recent findings of Zapletalova and Komínkova [73]. They examined V4 members of the European Parliament's voting behavior on EU energy and climate policy from 2014 to 2019. ...
... The divergence of positions is often conditioned by geographical location, historical baggage, or other endogenous factors of individual economies. This is also true for the Visegrad countries, as shown by research and studies on their EU energy policy positions [26,73,75]. However, it is more difficult to assess the actual progress of energy policy implementation in the V4 countries due to the limited number of quantitative studies on this topic. ...
Energy issues are sensitive for the four Visegrad countries as European Union (EU) member states; thus, this area’s convergence might be problematic for these countries. There is a clear research gap concerning the processes of Europeanization of the energy policy in the Visegrad countries. This article aims to identify and evaluate the progress of four Visegrad countries (V4) in implementing the EU energy goals in the context of the Europeanization. The article uses three main methods: Hellwig’s method, Kendall’s rank concordance coefficient, and k-means clustering. These calculations will allow one to study the Europeanization processes, which means checking the gamma convergence. For calculations, we use the available statistical data from Eurostat for the years 2005–2018. Poland and other Central European countries, including Czechia, and Hungary, largely depend on coal for their energy needs. The empirical results have shown that there have been no significant changes in the classification of EU countries in terms of their fulfillment of the EU climate and energy targets in the analyzed period. This is the case in all EU member states, including the Visegrad Group countries, but except for Poland. This means that the level of Europeanization of the energy policy and its effectiveness is similar in all member states except for Poland, which is becoming a kind of the exception. Throughout the investigating period, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia were close to meeting the set targets and could be rated high compared to the EU countries. Poland, especially since 2015, has been noticeably and increasingly distanced from the other V4 countries. It can be perceived as a gradual drift away from Europeanization of the EU climate and energy policy in Poland.
... Výnimku tvoria tie, ktoré ich činnosť mapujú v rámci väčších skupín (celá EÚ alebo V4) a v rámci kratšieho časového obdobia. (Cencig, Sabani, 2017;Zapletalová, Komínková, 2020) V podmienkach Slovenskej republiky sa doteraz uskutočnilo štvoro volieb do EP a pri každých voľbách sa SR umiestnila z pohľadu volebnej účasti vždy na poslednom mieste spomedzi všetkých členských štátov EÚ. Najnižšia účasť činila 13,05% ( Príslušnosť slovenských poslancov EP k jednotlivým európskym frakciám vykazuje stabilné zákonitosti. ...
This paper analyses the voting behavior of all Slovak members of the European Parliament since 2004 when Slovakia entered the EU until June 2022. Scholarly work has shown that MEP’s voting behavior is traditionally driven mainly by political party group membership and not by national origin. Nationality still has its importance, however only a secondary one in MEP’s voting decisions. Our aim is to identify policy areas where Slovak MEPs tend to vote similarly on a national basis. We applied the agreement index formula on every roll-call vote of the European Parliament during 2004 - 2022 for Slovak MEPs and sort them into policy area categories. Results showed the highest voting cohesion in international trade, budget, and regional development. The lowest voting cohesion was demonstrated in gender equality, petitions, and development. In general, the economic policy areas tend to have higher voting cohesion of Slovak MEPs than other policy areas. This paper opens up a set of questions for further research about the causes of the voting behavior of Slovak MEPs.
... The most critical policy in energy is to ensure its sustainable development continuously. Sustainable energy development can be guaranteed by dealing with market failures obstructing the transition toward a sustainable future [10]. These market failures include the insecurity of imported energy or fossil fuel needed to produce energy. ...
The Visegrád group's energy security is attributed to the national energy potential of each country. The energy potential results from the lack of crude oil and natural gas resources, limited access to the transmission network, and limited fuel storage. This bloc relies on raw material supplies from Russia, which is not evenly applied to all group members. Poland and Hungary have good storing potential, but it is not enough to achieve energy security and independence. Russia aims to keep control of this market while group members try diversifying their supplies to increase energy security. The purpose of this article is to present the energy balance in the Visegrád region. The analysis is based on the status of the renewable energy targets in the production, demand, import and export. Also, to determine the stability degree of these energy parameters. The material source is the literature and the energetic data from the European statistic's official agency Eurostat and European commission reports. From an energetic aspect, the four capitals were considered as a case study for a food processing plant with annual hot water demand of 43 MWh to evaluate the performance of the solar thermal energy. The simulation was conducted using T*Sol software considering 16 evacuated-tube collectors B. Schweizer Energy AG manufacturer. The chosen process heating system has a buffer tank and a continuous flow heater. Each collector was inclined according to the optimum angle for each case study. As a result, it was found that the energy demand in the Visegrád region is entirely related to the economic situation. In contrast, Political and energy development have a more significant impact than economic factors. From an energetic aspect, solar thermal energy is evident for Hungary and Slovakia since they have up to 20% solar yields compared to Poland and the Czech Republic. Nevertheless, the solar irradiation on the collector field is high enough to consider solar thermal energy solutions integrated into food and industrial processes.
... Apart from changes in the degree of urbanization, the countries of the Visegrad Group are still burdened after the previous economic system with an outdated structure of energy production based mainly on fossil fuels, thus CO2 production is greater than in other Western European countries [2,3]. The recent challenges related to the implementation of the carbon dioxide reduction plan in the European Union by 80-90% in 2050 and achieving climate neutrality will require significant financial outlays and the mobilization of social and economic resources [4][5][6][7]. ...
The key goal of this research was to figure out the short and long run relationship between environmental degradation caused by carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and energy consumption, the level of GDP economic growth, and urbanization in the Visegrad Region countries (V4). The study used data from the years 1996–2020. In the methodological area, ARDL bound test, and ARDL and ECM models were used to determine the directions and strength of interdependence. The results show that in the case of some V4 countries (Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary), changes in the urbanization rate affect CO2 emissions. Moreover, it was confirmed that the phenomenon of urbanization influences the enhanced energy consumption in the studied countries. In the case of individual countries, these relationships were varied, both unidirectional and bidirectional. Their nature was also varied—there were both long and short-term relationships. These findings suggest that the V4 countries should increase renewable and ecological energy sources. It is also recommended to enhancement energy savings in the areas of both individual and industrial consumption by promoting low-emission solutions. This should be done while considering changes in urbanization.
... Finally, enlargement gave a bigger voice to the less ambitious countriesthose concerned about the socio-economic repercussions of transition measures. Among those, Viségradand especially Polish and Czech MEPs-emerged as the most vocal critics of climate ambitions (Burns, 2019;Buzogány & Ćetković, 2021;Zapletalová & Komínková, 2020). However, the balance between climate ambition and distributive costs continues to be a major concern for many member states and one of the main reasons why MEPs might vote against their EP political group (Buzogány & Ćetković, 2021). ...
The European Union’s climate policy is considered quite ambitious. This has led to a growing interest among political scientists investigating the European Parliament’s ability to negotiate such ambitious climate legislation. These studies generally focus on the voting behaviour of members of the European Parliament, which allows us to know more about their positions when it comes to accepting or rejecting legislative acts. However, we know surprisingly little about how they debate and justify their positions in Parliament. In these debates, members of the European Parliament not only identify the problem (i.e., climate change and its adverse effects) but also discuss potential solutions (i.e., their willingness or ambition to fight and adapt to climate change). In addition, plenary debates are ideal for making representative claims based on citizens’ interests on climate action. Therefore, this article aims to understand how climate policy ambitions are debated in the European Parliament and whose interests are represented. We propose a new manual coding scheme for climate policy ambitions in parliamentary debate and employ it in climate policy debates in the ninth European Parliament (2019–present). In doing so, this article makes a methodological contribution to operationalising climate policy ambition from a parliamentary representation and legitimation perspective. We find debating patterns that connect quite detailed ambitions with clear representative claims and justifications. There is more agreement on what to do than how to get there, with divides emerging based on party, ideological, and member-state characteristics.
... However, as the Czech Republic and, conversely to Poland, Slovakia has gradually moderated its approach toward a market-oriented attitude on NS II and became less strongly opposed (Jirušek, 2020). Such "heterogeneity" among V4 states is also visible in other aspects of their external energy policy, even in EU legislative bodies (Zapletalová, Komínková, 2020). Therefore, one can conclude that neither internal nor external factors force Slovakia to seek shelter to preserve its energy security. ...
Energy security has been one of the most important issues in the European Union over the past few years. Although the debate has focused primarily on the approach of the main EU powers, this research aims at studying the impact of small Member States’ size on their energy security in the EU. Then it provides proposals to safeguard the energy security of EU small countries by providing a comprehensive interpretation of the term alliance in shelter theory. Applying the composed “smallness” index and the quantitative method, the results imply a direct relationship between the small states’ size and energy security in the first step. The study shows that such a relationship cannot be proven in non-small States. Although the EU has tried to strengthen collective energy security in Member States, such differences show that complementary policies are needed to ensure energy security in small countries. Given an extensive interpretation of “alliance” in shelter theory, this research proposes deep integration of the small states’ energy infrastructure in order to ensure their energy security. In the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where the EU’s energy security, especially in the small states, is more fragile than ever, adopting such a policy seems more vital.
... In general, the wave of right-wing populism, which has had a strong influence in Eastern European countries three decades after the collapse of the Eastern bloc (Żuk and Toporowski, 2020), has made the Visegrád countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) the main political and geographical blocks to the common climate and energy policy in the EU (Zapletalová and Komínková, 2020). Moreover, right-wing populism in both Poland and Hungary goes hand in hand with state centralism: in both countries, the governments defend the state's full control over key entities in the energy sector and its infrastructure (Szabo and Fabok, 2020). ...
The aim of this article is to explain the mechanisms that have increased the grassroots development of photovoltaics (PV) in Poland and to explain the motives of prosumers. Micro-installations have become a driving force for PV in Poland, thanks to which the country, whose energy industry is mostly based on hard coal and lignite, became the fourth PV growth market in Europe in 2020. Based on focus group interviews, the authors explain the motives of prosumers, the impact of investing in PV on changing their lifestyle, their readiness to switch to off-grid systems and their potential to create a prosumer social movement in Poland. The decentralisation of the energy sector and the mass prosumer response to the increase in energy price led the government to change the regulations in force in Poland from April 2022, which defined the method of settling the surplus energy given by prosumers to the grid.
... The Visegrad Group was established in 1991 as an irregular gathering of the leaders of the three, later four countries (following the breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1993) with a single agendamembership in Western institutions (Dangerfield 2008). The Visegrad Group (often also called the Visegrad Four; V4) fulfilled its main goal when all four states became EU members in 2004 (Zapletalová and Komínková 2020). This created the need to develop a new agenda for cooperation within the group, which had until then been almost exclusively focused on EU and NATO membership. ...
The Visegrad Group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) is a visible actor at the EU level in several areas including energy security. This chapter argues that the unity the group sometimes presents is the result of ad hoc policy convergence among members, and not the consequence of cooperation within the group. Indeed, as the chapter argues, the Visegrad Group lacks internal structures and is unable to forge compromises or provide a platform for discussion. This contrast is explained using the example of energy security and decarbonization – two closely related issues on which the Visegrad Group members have divergent preferences. While all four countries have similar preferences when it comes to energy security and have utilized the Visegrad Group to push for these at the EU level, their preferences on decarbonization are not always aligned. The chapter provides detailed insights into the main issues connected to decarbonization and examines the similarities and differences between the Visegrad Group countries in this policy area.
... From this perspective, the EU is not only a symbol of the "corrupt elites", but also a force that threatens the "sovereignty" of the national energy and economic policy. It is not by accident that the Visegrád countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) have become the main political and geographical blocks to the common climate and energy policy in the EU (Zapletalová and Komínková 2020). In Poland and Hungary, where right-wing populists have completely seised various state institutions, the governments defend the state's full control over key entities in the energy sector and its infrastructure (Szabo and Fabok 2020). ...
This article aims to outline the media and thematic framework within which environmentalists were described by the right-wing pro-government media in Poland from 2016 to 2020 and to explain the main ideological conflicts over ecology. On the other hand, the author shows how these conservative stereotypes about the environmental movement affect the opinions of Polish society. The author defends the thesis that the anti-ecological phobias of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government have politicised environmental issues and revived ecological conflicts. The results presented show the importance of cultural, political and spatial dimensions for the development of the environmental movement in Poland.
... Issues related to V4 energy have been discussed by scholars in recent years (Brodny and Tutak, 2021;Zapletalová and Komínková, 2020;Jirušek, 2020;Prontera and Plenta, 2020;Osička, Lehotský, Zapletalová, Černoch, Břetislav, and Dančák, 2018;Dyduch and Skorek, 2020) and concerned both the value and size of individual elements of the economy (Kuang, 2021) and important problems and solutions in the energy policies of member countries and the Group as a whole (Myszczyszyn and Suproń, 2021). ...
... Externally, Brexit is dampening the moods on both sides of the Channel, where the issue around a level playing field in environmental, food, and animal welfare standards proved one of the pinch points for the EU/UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Internally, Eurosceptic member of the Parliament tend to reject climate and energy policies, and the Visegrád group (Poland, Hungary, Czechia, and Slovakia) frequently calls for less ambition to avoid carbon leakage (businesses moving away from the EU to countries with laxer climate policies) and impacts on competitiveness (Zapletalová & Komínková, 2020). While this is not new, it is becoming more consequential. ...
The European Green Deal (EGD) is an ambitious strategy. However, significant events, incidents, and demands, from democratic backsliding in the EU to the Covid-19 pandemic, are causing the ground to shift underfoot. These events go beyond ordinary changes or even individual crises, cumulatively fuelling a “new normal” of turbulence for the EU, encompassing rapid, unpredictable changes. This turbulence can help and hinder policy design and implementation, requiring policy actors to think outside the box and beyond the status quo. This article investigates how the European Commission and other key actors can engage effectively with turbulence to ensure the successful delivery and implementation of the EGD. The first half of the article strengthens and adapts turbulent governance literature (Ansell & Trondal, 2018). It delineates how turbulence differs from crisis; expands the forms of turbulence to include horizontal scalar and policy turbulence, as well as its transversal attribute; and shifts the focus to governing with turbulence rather than against turbulence. The second half undertakes an initial analysis of the EGD in light of turbulence and provides a springboard for further investigations within this thematic issue and beyond. It is apparent that the EGD is both responding and contributing to a varied landscape of turbulence. Policy actors must identify and understand the sources of turbulence—including their transversal nature and the potential for responses to increase turbulence—if they are to effectively govern with turbulence.
... In addition to building a nationalist atmosphere to defend the position of coal in the energy sector, the government has been using slogans about 'defending energy sovereignty' and 'ensuring energy security' in recent years [14]. In general, the wave of nationalism and right-wing populism, which has moved through the countries of Eastern Europe three decades after the collapse of the Eastern bloc [15], made the Visegrád Group countries (The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) the main political and geographical area blocking the common climate and energy policy in the EU [16]. An important political reason slowing down and blocking the process of energy transition in Poland was also the government's fear of the mining trade unions' reaction [8]. ...
Can rising electricity prices be a driving force for energy transition in countries where the energy sector is dependent on coal? The goals of the article are to determine the readiness of entrepreneurs to invest in renewable energy and indicate the variables (company size, the length of time it has operated in the market, the form of ownership and the sector of the economy represented) that influence companies’ greater interest in making savings in energy costs. The research sample in the survey carried out using the computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) method included representatives of entrepreneurs from all regions of Poland. The result for all respondents was checked with the z-test (proportion test). The results obtained on a sample of 400 Polish entrepreneurs responsible for development policies in their companies explain which variables have the greatest impact on the decisions of companies in the context of investments in renewable energy: in Poland, greater interest in renewable energy can be observed in the public sector and in larger companies. The conclusion that can be drawn from this research is that the ownership structure of a company plays an important role in looking for savings by investing in renewable energy.
... A few publications have emerged devoted to the narrative or discursive aspects of national energy policymaking in the EU member states, such as one in Estonia (Holmgren et al. 2019) and another in pre-Brexit UK (Williams and Sovacool 2019). Relying on discourse analysis, special attention was paid to the mutual influence of national energy policymaking of the Visegrad Group (V4) and EU legislative bodies' decisions (Kratochvil andMišík 2020, Zapletalova andKominkova 2020), or the impact of Russian gas on V4 energy governance (Binhack andTichý 2012, Jirušek 2020) and Austria (Mišík 2016). While most published research has focused on discourses, we are broadening the research aims to the narratives at the Union-wide level rather than just the member state level. ...
Aiming to protect energy security, the European Union (EU) has sought to persuade third states to accept its energy acquis, relying on a formed strategic narrative. However, the coherency of this strategic narrative, as the prerequisite for being well-received, has not been studied before. Considering the strategic narrative theory and applying the content analysis method, our research has indicated that the EU’s narrative consists of five storylines, including geopolitics, the single energy market, and climate change, the last two of which have become increasingly accentuated over time. However, this strategic narrative suffers from two significant incoherencies, which lie between its storylines and also within the storyline. The results of our analyses indicate that both incoherencies originate from the securitisation of energy in the Union. This means that the effectiveness of the narrative formulated has been diminished, which is detrimental even to the EU’s climate policy. This could suggest that de-politicisation of energy is required to reinforce the narrative and enable the EU to address the world with one voice.
... As part of the European Union, Romania is expected to efficiently move forward with coherent policies in pursuit of the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, with effects on numerous economic sectors, including the WEFW sectors [76]. However, Central and Eastern European countries, Romania included, face multidimensional challenges of economic catching-up with older member states [77][78][79], to which Romania must respond in a sustainable manner [80] while considering the synergies and trade-offs specific to the WEFW nexus [81,82]. Sustainable management of resources and paying respect to the WEFW nexus have gained momentum, as it is imperative for delivering the United Nations' 2030 agenda for sustainable development in time [83] and for successfully implementing the European Green Deal [84,85]. ...
Boosting the externalities across the water, energy, food, and waste (WEFW) sectors is challenging, especially considering tightening constraints such as population growth, climate change, resource-intensive lifestyles, increased waste production, sanitary crises and many others. The nexus approach supports the transition to a more sustainable future because intersectoral trade-offs can be reduced and externalities exploited, making imperative for decision makers, entrepreneurs, and civil society to simultaneously engage, with respect to all the components of the nexus. This research addressed intersectoral synergies and trade-offs in the case of the WEFW nexus in Romania, judging from the perspectives of entrepreneurial activity and economic results. The objective of this research was to explore the nexus in-depth by statistically analyzing the financial and economic indicators reported by active enterprises at county-level, based on the Romanian Ministry of Public Finance data. Research results describe the effects of the policies implemented in the fields of WEFW sectors. At the same time, attention was paid to the quality of the entrepreneurial activity, analyzed from the perspective of economic performance. This paper fills a research gap regarding the WEFW nexus by resorting to an economic and entrepreneurial performance assessment in order to find sectoral pathways toward policy cohesion in Romania. Findings suggested the existence of major trade-offs among sectors, owing to the fact that each county has a different development degree.
... This article hopes to contribute to the scholarship pointing out the heterogeneity of the CEE region in these policy areas (Ćetković and Buzogány 2019;Zapletalová and Komínková 2020) by looking at a previously unexplored dimension of these policies; that is, by asking what factors have influenced the evolution of CEE countries' positions on EU targets for renewable energy sources. It argues that these positions have been influenced by the post-accession conditionality placed on CEE countries. ...
Renewable sources of energy are considered to play a crucial role in the transition towards a decarbonised economy. Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries’ positions vis-à-vis the European Union’s (EU) renewables goals do not form a homogenous group and have changed over time. After joining the Union, these countries initially supported the EU’s renewables targets due to post-accession compliance; however, once this accession legacy faded away, they started to pursue their preferences in a more assertive way, which resulted in different strategies and priorities. The development of CEE countries’ positions towards renewables targets is thus connected to the ‘emancipation’ of these countries and a more assertive way of pursuing their preferences at the EU level, once they were ‘freed’ from the influence of post-accession conditionality.
... Variation can be explained through various reasons, such as domestic players; lacking capacities; and populist governments. There is a large and vivid discussion on these topics in energy and EU studies journals which would help formulating clear-cut expectations (see, Zapletalová and Komínková 2020). Europeanisation is a multi-faceted and dynamic process, which can be viewed with a top-down and/or bottom-up perspective, that continuously evolves during the long process of adopting a new legislation to a local legal system. ...
This paper analyses the EU’s policies for energy and climate, using Börzel’s theoretical framework on Europeanisation, and examines Member States’ Green Deal responses, strategies, and compliance. As expressed in their final NECPs, although Member States’ responses vary, most of the critical components were partially addressed, while the others were largely addressed. We observe a considerable variation in Member States’ strategies. Member States classified as foot-dragging beforehand are fence-sitting now, while those previously categorised as fence-sitting are now either foot-dragging or pace-setting. The root cause of these classification changes for the Member States within the EU can be traced back to their internal environments in which the involved stakeholders each have a different response pace regarding environment, climate, and energy. We present and analyse our theoretical context, discuss the EU’s energy policies and the NECPs, examine Member States’ responses and compliance with this new framework, and propose several challenges.
... Thus, they still significantly diverge from the situation in the EU-15 countries. Therefore, energy and climate policy is perceived as a sensitive area for many countries, especially those in Central and Eastern Europe, where most of these countries are still highly dependent on fossil fuels [34,35]. ...
While joining the European Union (EU) in 2004, the countries of the Visegrad Group (V4) had to face a major challenge in the context of adapting to the EU standards in the field of energy use and energy efficiency. One of the sectors that heavily depends on the use of energy (mainly from fossil fuels) is the food production system, whose energy transformation is essential for future food security. The study aimed to measure the use of energy and its structures in the food production systems of the V4 countries and the EU-15 countries in relation to the implementation of the EU energy targets. The targets assumed, among other things, a reduction in overall energy use and an increase in the share of renewables in the energy mix. The proprietary method based on the assumptions of lifecycle assessment was applied to measure energy consumption in the food production systems with the use of input-output tables and energy accounts, which are part of the World Input-Output Database. The research shows a decreasing share of the food production systems in energy use of the V4 countries, while in the EU-15 countries, it remains on average at a stable, low level (around 4.4%). The discussed share for Poland averaged 8.8% in the period considered, for Hungary 7.6%, for the Czech Republic 3.8%, and for Slovakia 3.3%. The share of renewables in energy use of the food production systems is growing. However, in some countries of the EU-15, it increases at a slower pace than the assumed strategic goals, mainly in the countries that are the largest food producers in the EU. For Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy, the average deviation of the share of renewables use in the food production system from the 2020 target for the entire economy is around 12 percentage points. In the case of V4 countries, the share of renewable energy use in food production systems is close to the assumed strategic targets.
... The process of the infiltration of workers by the far right intensified after the global economic crisis in 2008 [33] and has reinforced the trends that have led to the strong political influence of right-wing populism in much of Eastern Europe more than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall [34]. Due to the right-wing populist shift in the former communist countries, the common EU energy and climate policy was opposed in the European Parliament primarily by Eastern European countries [35]. ...
This article analyses the business community in Poland and their views on climate change and the objectives of the European Green Deal (EGD). The authors focus on the analysis of the attitude of entrepreneurs towards the cultural and ideological stereotypes promoted by climate deni-alists. This article shows that the ideological factor may play a certain role in shaping the attitudes of entrepreneurs towards energy transition. The research was carried out on a sample of 400 entrepreneurs. The research results indicate that the ideological factor is of particular importance among entrepreneurs who are concerned about the costs of energy transition and the expenditure related to the implementation of the EGD for economic reasons. According to the authors, the stereotypes promoted by climate sceptics may find fertile ground, particularly when accompanied by fears of additional financial costs. Attitudes towards the goals of energy transition among entrepreneurs usually differ depending on the size of the company: representatives of smaller companies, who have greater concerns about their economic position, are more likely to present the views of climate sceptics. Acceptance for the theory of climate sceptics may also be influenced by the industry sector: those who may lose out on energy transition, such as representatives of the mining industry, may share the myths of climate denialists.
... The problem with SSM is implementation of strategies consistent with the type industry and natural environment conditions [23]. Although the idea of SD is popular with politicians, business leaders, entrepreneurs and societies, its implementation causes many problems in business practice [45]. Therefore, there is the tendency to use the same strategic approaches in many different economic sectors. ...
Companies that belong to the energy sector can use Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for their strategies and diversify electrical energy production with reverence to the natural environment. This article aims to analyze sustainability strategy types among the Visegrád Group (V4) countries’ energy producers, who decided to generate electrical energy from the renewable resources. This research uses an inductive inference approach supported by a literature study and deductive reasoning supported by a statistical reference method. The main finding is that the energy producers from the V4 group have a common direction of evolution in their strategies. This change is based on a growing share of renewable energy sources to achieve environmental excellence strategies. The lack of renewable energy sector organizations’ strategies translates into disappointment with the goals pursued by these organizations. The significance of this study lies in an explanation of how sustainability strategies compare at a firm and country-level in a proposed classification. The analysis can open future research areas to examine development of strategies in the renewable energy sector.
... The decomposition analysis also suggests energy intensity, and carbon emissions were the driving force for gross development product (GDP) per capita in the Visegrád Countries [11]. There could be possible heterogeneity in the approaches of the V4 Countries [12]. Thus, further country-based distinguished status is discussed in the next chapter. ...
This article aims to present some opportunities for improved solar energy utilization by raising the share of renewables in energy generation in the Visegrád Countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary). The analysis is based on the status of the renewable energy targets in the member countries and their future possibilities. This paper derives input through a thorough investigation of independent data, government policies, European Commission reports, and other data available online with free access. The analysis is processed by focusing on Hungary, as a country with various possible facets of solar energy demand and supply in the region. The assessment methodology is in the context of a geographical map, technical regression analysis, temperature distribution profiles, and the relative trends of solar potential in Hungary. The country currently has ten solar power plants with more than 10 MWp, and five remarkable plants under 10 MWp capacity spread over Hungary. The analysis on geographical aspects clubbed with technical and solar affecting parameters was carried out to harvest the sustainable potential of solar energy in the region. This study attempts to establish a relationship between the current and future prospects of solar energy in Hungary as a nation, and as part of the Visegrád countries, based on assessment for a sustainable future.
... Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is facing the dual challenge of energy transition and economic catch-up with older member states [4]. The tension between energy transition and economic development is obviously not specific to CEE, as it can also be found in Latin America [5] or Asia [6]. ...
The process of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 and cutting CO2 emissions by 2030 by 55% compared to 1990 as per the EU Green Deal is highly complex. The energy mix must be changed to ensure long-term environmental sustainability, mainly by closing down coal sites, while preserving the energy-intensive short-term economic growth, ensuring social equity, and opening opportunities for regions diminishing in population and potential. Romania is currently in the position of deciding the optimal way forward in this challenging societal shift while morphing to evidence-based policy-making and anticipatory governance, mainly in its two coal-mining regions. This article provides possible future scenarios for tackling this complex issue in Romania through a three-pronged, staggered, methodology: (1) clustering Romania with other similar countries from the point of view of the Just Transition efforts (i.e., the energy mix and the socio-economic parameters), (2) analyzing Romania’s potential evolution of the energy mix from the point of the thermal efficiency of two major power plants (CEH and CEO) and the systemic energy losses, and (3) providing insights on the socio-economic context (economic development and labor market transformations, including the component on the effects on vulnerable consumers) of the central coal regions in Romania.
... A large study on EU coalitions by the European Council on Foreign Relations (2018) concludes that 'the Visegrád group is able to effectively veto EU policies but not to set the EU agenda: its two sub-groups can agree on some of the things they dislike, but are too different from each other to cooperate on more constructive efforts' . Zapletalová and Komínková (2020) and Ćetković and Buzogány (2019) go even further. They point out that profound disagreements over where the EU's climate and energy policy should go exist across the whole group. ...
The Visegrad Group ranks among the most visible examples of regional cooperation in Europe. Within the Group’s agenda, cooperation on energy policy appears to be especially important and it is also a field in which the Platform is considered to perform especially well. This article provides an account of what ‘energy cooperation’ is according to the Platform itself. Specifically, it seeks to find out which energy policy issues are reflected by the Platform, how their reflection has evolved over time, and how they are framed (made sense of). To find out, all the official documents and communications issued by the V4 between 2000 and 2018, totalling approximately 660,000 words of text, were thoroughly examined using three separate analytical approaches. The results show that energy indeed features prominently in the V4 agenda with a focus on energy security – tacitly understood as security of (natural gas) supply – and pursuing common interests within the EU. The results also indicate that the energy cooperation is largely reactive, with the V4 much more likely to find common positions and agree on joint actions when facing external pressures. Especially since 2015, the cooperation has been chiefly defined by common resistance to the ambitious climate policies pursued by the EU. The article concludes by suggesting that Visegrad energy cooperation is likely overrated and that there is little evidence in the documents of the Platform that this agenda represents an ‘especially successful’ field of cooperation.
... This is not only difficult to implement in Eastern European countries, but also blocked by a large part of East European politicians in the European Parliament. (Zapletalová and Komínková, 2020). ...
The article presents the results of research conducted on a representative sample of Polish society and concerning their attitudes towards energy policy, the role and importance of coal, the preferred energy model and the future of Upper Silesia, which is the largest active coal basin in Europe. The context of the COVID 19 pandemic, which caused high morbidity among miners, popularised the challenge of energy transition in Poland, where energy continues to be largely based on coal. The authors defend the thesis that the main lines of conflict regarding the demand to move away from coal are political and ideological at the level of public opinion. The advocates of the coal status quo are supporters of the right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) and Confederation (Konfederacja) parties. Left-wing and liberal groups are most conducive to energy transition and ecological demands. Residents of large cities, as well as better educated and less religious people are more open to energy transition. Despite the divisions regarding the date of abandoning coal in Poland, there is social agreement that the government should financially support the activities transforming Upper Silesia into a region producing clean energy.
... Gas is the most important imported energy resource in the V4 countries, so energy security and energy policy are of great importance to all Group Member States. Despite the diversity of energy consumption and the importance of natural gas for their economies, they all face common challenges in terms of energy security (Zapletalová, Komínková, 2020). ...
... From his perspective, Eastern Europe plays an important role in the balance of power on the continent, as it is a buffer zone separating great powers, and at the same time, it provides an entry point into continental Eurasia. 2 The Visegrad Group or Visegrad Four (V4) countries are relatively small, medium-sized democratic states with a market economy. In the past, they have been quite unstable, and the national boundaries have been changing constantly. ...
Central Europe has always been an integral part of all processes on the European continent. Nowadays, more than 30 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Central Europe has broad opportunities for cooperation in all areas and is fully integrated into various regional and international organisations. Using qualitative methods—analysis and comparison with combination with the theory of social constructivism—help us understand the social phenomena of cooperation among states. Based on social constructivism theory, our article elaborates on the factors of cooperation between individual states, focusing on the cooperation of the Visegrad Four (V4) countries in Central Europe. We examine the factors leading to the establishment of V4 cooperation, its form, and specific features related to the European Regional Security Complex, as well as future challenges.
We present a comparative study of flows between institutional sectors in the economies of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, with particular emphasis on the role of the foreign sector. The purpose of our study is to determine the strength and nature of inter‑sectoral ties in the analyzed countries and point out the similarities and differences between them. The research method is based on the sequence of all transactions included in the System of National Accounts (SNA): product transactions, primary income generation and allocation, income distribution, and financial instrument transactions. The study is distinguished by its consistency and balance within the SNA. The method used to transform data into a payer‑payee matrix guarantees the preservation of these properties. It creates a new perspective for assessing the sensitivity of economies to external processes. It is the first such comprehensive comparative study, providing unambiguous and replicable results based on a standardized accounting system that operates in all European countries. The period covered by the study (2000–2020) allows us to draw interesting conclusions about the processes that took place during and after the accession to the European Union. The results indicate, inter alia, an increase in the involvement of the foreign sector, primarily in production processes (import, export) and investment. Particularly noteworthy is the high degree of financialization of the Hungarian economy.
Motivation: Euroscepticism is an phenomenon which is becoming increasingly important. EU countries ought to enhance cooperation in the face of major challenges. Despite challenges facing the European Union too little attention has been devote exploration Euroscepticism with particular reference to the V4 countries. Aim: The main objective of this study was to examine citizen?s Euroscepticism in the countries of the Visegrád Group. Accordingly, in the theoretical section were introduced definition of Euroscepticism, its classification and present differences in delineating of the phenomenon. Instigate an attempt to indicate the sources of Euroscepticism in the V4 countries and its characterize. The theoretical part was the basis for the empirical part in which was performed analysis results of Eurobarometer Public Opinion Researches. Materials and methods: Quantitative (basic statistical analysis and ALSCAL algorithm) methods were used in this investigation. The research data was drawn from Eurobarometer opinion polls commissioned by the European Commission. Results: The study indicated a varied level of Euroscepticism among the citizens of the Visegrad Group countries and the source of the whole phenomenon is strongly rooted in the sphere of migration. The Czechs are the most anti-European society from the V4 group. Reasearch on Euroscepticism must also be carried out at the level of the societies of individual states, and not only of political parties.
This chapter analyses the milestones of EU energy policy, focusing primarily on the period beginning in 2007, when the 2020 Climate and Energy Package was adopted, and including the establishment of the Energy Union in 2015, and the formation of the European Green Deal at the end of 2019. It discusses the increasing cooperation among Member States and EU institutions and the transformation of the energy sector and climate issues into one of the key EU policies. The chapter explores the Energy Union’s role as a hub linking energy and climate governance. In 2007, the European Council adopted ambitious climate and energy targets under the 2020 Climate and Energy Package. A different challenge lies ahead for EU energy governance, which is faced with the tension between growing European harmonisation, the EC’s increasing competences, and the principle of Member State sovereignty over national energy mixes.
En el convulso e inseguro contexto global y regional, la Unión Europea apuesta por reivindicarse como un actor operativo, autónomo y creíble en las actuales relaciones internacionales, pese al cierto desgaste interno que acusan los pilares que cimentan la integración, la falta de una cultura estratégica común que impide una clara identificación de prioridades políticas y de seguridad y la nueva actitud de EE.UU. hacia el concierto europeo, que deja de ser una prioridad para sólo aportar asistencia cuando sus intereses nacionales se vean afectados. Consecuentemente, Europa debe modificar sus planteamientos para enfrentarse a las coordenadas geopolíticas y estratégicas contemporáneas, y quizás al cambio de paradigma en la gobernanza mundial. Estas consideraciones encauzan el objeto general de nuestro estudio destinado a comprender y cuestionar cuál es el perfil real y actual de la Unión en el ámbito de la seguridad y defensa regional e internacional.
The results of experimental studies of ignition processes of multi-component fuel droplets based on coal, water and synthetic oil (synthetic-oil (SO)): water/coal/synthesis-oil (WCF-Oil) are presented. The liquid fuel component (SO) of the fuel is obtained by steam gasification of crushed rubber of used car tires. Integral characteristics of the ignition process of three-component fuel particles under high-temperature heating conditions were established during experimental studies.
High prospects of tires utilization unsuitable for further use by pyrolysis and combustion of thermal decomposition products in the composition of coal-water fuel are shown. It was found that addition of liquid rubber pyrolysis products to the structure of coal-water slurry leads to a significant acceleration of the ignition processes. A detailed analysis of the video footage showed that ignition process of fuel particles proceeds, as a rule, in several stages. In this case, ignition occurs in the gas phase.
New (significantly different from the known) mathematical model of the ignition process of significantly inhomogeneous multicomponent fuel has been formulated based on the results of experiments. The model describes the processes of heat and mass transfer that occur together under conditions of intensive phase and thermochemical transformations in a small neighborhood and in the pore structure of the fuel particle. The mathematical model was verified by a comparative analysis of the results of numerical modeling with experiment. A good correspondence between the theoretical and experimental values of the ignition delay times of fuel particles has been established.
Poland is the largest hard coal and second largest lignite producer in the EU, generating around 80 percent of its electricity from coal. Resistance to a reduction in coal production and consumption comes from various actors, namely, coal corporations, unions, parts of civil society and the government – as well as their coalitions. Their opposition centres around the prospect of losing their business, past negative experiences with structural change, fears of rising energy prices and energy security concerns, as well as potential unemployment in regions almost entirely dependent on coal.
This paper identifies key political and economic drivers and barriers of a reduction in coal production and consumption in Poland using the Triple Embeddedness Framework. Uneconomic coal mining, unavoidable energy infrastructure investments, rising air pollution levels and pressure from the European Union might provide new political momentum for a shift away from coal in line with international climate targets. However, results show that to achieve political feasibility, policies targeting a reduction in coal production and use need to be implemented jointly with social and structural policy measures, addressing a just transition for the affected regions in line with the vision of a ‘European Green Deal’.
The countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have commonly been regarded as climate and energy policy laggards blocking more ambitious EU decarbonization targets. Although recent literature has increasingly acknowledged the differences in national positions on energy and climate issues among these states, there has been little comprehensive evidence about their positioning on EU climate and energy policies and the domestic interests which shape government preferences. The article addresses this gap by tracing the voting behavior of six CEE countries (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania) on EU energy-related legislation in the Council of Ministers between 2007-2018. The article shows that the contestation of energy policies, particularly of climate-related legislation, in the Council of Ministers has increased over time and that these six CEE countries have indeed most often objected to the adoption of EU legislation. The CEE states do not, however, have a common regional positioning on all EU energy policies. Voting coalitions among the six CEE countries differ substantially across energy policy areas. The lack of a common regional position and changing national preferences have enabled the adoption of a relatively ambitious EU Energy and Climate Package for 2030. The differences in national voting patterns are explained by the evolving interests and the ability of key domestic political and economic actors to adapt to and explore benefits from the ever-expanding EU energy and climate policies.
While the notion of populism has gained greater conceptual clarity in the work of Ernesto Laclau, its material conditions of existence have not yet been properly theorized. In order to grasp populism’s historical specificity, an analysis of the internal dynamics of capitalism is required. A crucial distinction between Liberal and Regulated Social Structures of Accumulation (SSAs) reveals that the types of organic crisis associated with the former are conducive to populist expressions, while, regarding the latter, the opposite is the case. This claim is substantiated via exploration of the types of actors each kind of SSA empowers during the expansion phase, the nature of the systemic breakdown ensuing from each, and the mode of rupture of its associated social consensuses.
Although Europe has experienced unprecedented numbers of refugee arrivals in recent years, there exists almost no causal evidence regarding the impact of the refugee crisis on natives’ attitudes, policy preferences, and political engagement. We exploit a natural experiment in the Aegean Sea, where Greek islands close to the Turkish coast experienced a sudden and massive increase in refugee arrivals, while similar islands slightly farther away did not. Leveraging a targeted survey of 2,070 island residents and distance to Turkey as an instrument, we find that direct exposure to refugee arrivals induces sizable and lasting increases in natives’ hostility toward refugees, immigrants, and Muslim minorities; support for restrictive asylum and immigration policies; and political engagement to effect such exclusionary policies. Since refugees only passed through these islands, our findings challenge both standard economic and cultural explanations of anti-immigrant sentiment and show that mere exposure suffices in generating lasting increases in hostility.
There are long-standing debates amongst scholars of European Union politics over the relative importance of member states and supranational institutions in determining what happens in the EU. This paper treats the case of ‘Brexit’ as a case study, considering the positions of the EU institutions, France, Germany and the V4, focusing particularly on dissociation issues, questions of migration, the customs union and trade, and the UK’s relationship to the single market during the first year of exit negotiations. It finds that while there are distinct national priorities, EU institutions have been able to synthesise these rather effectively into a common position which meets member states’ priorities as well as their own, confirming the claims of those who emphasise the ability of EU institutions to drive European integration and act on behalf of member states.
Increasing support for Eurosceptic parties and movements can be observed in the European Union’s (EU) member states since 2009, when the economic crisis heavily affected the continent. This process has happened also within Central and Eastern European countries, especially in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary (collectively referred to as the Visegrad Group countries, or V4 for short). The goal of this paper is an analysis of far-right Eurosceptic politicians and their attitudes towards EU external actions. Using the Thomas Diez concept of discursive nodal points (DNPs) and examining European Parliament (EP) debates, literature about V4 Euroscepticism and media reports, this paper attempts to give answers about their attitudes to aspects of EU external actions. First, the notion of Euroscepticism is examined and the main difficulties with the definition are briefly discussed. Then, the methodology of this research and the concept of DNPs are laid out. The following section pays attention to V4 Eurosceptic politicians’ (V4E) attitudes towards five areas of EU external actions: EU-Russia relations, EU defence policy, environmental policy, development assistance policy, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) issue. In the conclusion, the author summarises that V4 Eurosceptics are divided in their positions towards EU external actions. Paradoxically, they are linked not in the being in opposition towards the EU, but rather in having pro-Russian attitudes and being against any EU activity that would violate Kremlin’s interests.
Migration flows, distrust in European institutions and transnational governmental ineffectiveness and low economic performance have become a favorable ground for the so-called populist governments that are widely using Eurosceptic and populist rhetoric today. Voters perceive traditional elite as powerless in front of contemporary socioeconomic problems. Consequently, populist leaders, at the regional level, have opposed the policies of European institutions. Populism has developed and become part of every European Union (EU) member state and today is gathering more and more Eurosceptic components too. This study is to investigate what message the Prime Minister of Hungary is conveying to his voters. In order to realize this primary objective, we will observe how the political discourse changed over time and how widely populist and eurosceptical rhetoric is present in today’s political discourse. In the first part of this study we briefly review the literature on populism and Euroscepticism to frame the articulations of different populist and various eurosceptical claims. Our goal is to identify, through thematic analysis, which concepts related to the European Union get more attention at the institutional level. We expect to find a significant occurrence of populist and Eurosceptical elements in the Prime Minister’s discourse.
The Visegrad Group (V4) was formed with the aim to support Central European countries – Poland, Czechoslovakia (since 1993 the Czech Republic and Slovakia) and Hungary in their efforts to join NATO and the European Communities. V4 had to redefine its role and tasks after 2004 having achieved the set objectives in the first years of its existence. The new format of the Visegrad Group made provisions for a close cooperation between member states within the European Union. The strategy of combining potentials of the V4 states in negotiations on the EU level is based on reasonable assumptions, as it may lead to an increased significance of the region in the decision-making process. The article discusses the genesis and evolution of the V4 up to 2004. Next there is presented Visegrad cooperation in the field of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU. The text analysis specific issues projecting the safety of Europe in recent years. The analysis of the commitment of V4 in the shaping of the EU CFSP will be based on source materials, mainly on documents produced by the authorities of the Visegrad Group such as presidency programmes, statements, declarations and annual reports.
The new governance mechanisms of the European energy policy proposed by the European Commission in its "Winter Package" will redefine European energy and climate governance. This contribution reviews the proposal, its supporting documents and overall stakeholder positions according to the criteria of the efficiency, effectiveness and acceptance of governance to assess its ability to support European energy and climate goals. We find that the proposed governance amounts to a densely meshed coordination of policies between the European level and Member States. Compared to the present governance system, the enhanced mechanism can draw on significant synergies and reduce administrative costs. Our review of stakeholder positions reveals strong acceptance of enhanced coordination. Nonetheless, our review identifies some potential flaws in terms of governance effectiveness. The proposed structures surpass the method of open coordination; they could also be seen as a case of "harder" soft governance in conflict with article 194(2) TFEU. Finally, the local level is excluded.
The Visegrad Group celebrated its 25th anniversary in February 2016. Established as an initiative of three statesmen from the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region, this cooperation has experienced booms and crises. The aim of this paper is to analyse the function of this regional integration in the years following the end of bipolar system as Visegrad Group members headed down the road to Euro-Atlantic integration. To this end, I apply different theoretical approaches and attempt to explain the influence of key former politicians as well as new scenarios for the Visegrad Group's position in the European Union. This analysis also covers the latest foreign policy changes and challenges facing CEE due to the involvement of a wider region that creates a counterbalance to the core EU. Statistical data and official documents from the Visegrad Group's website strengthen these findings.
This article examines the 2016 Referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union and draws on initial research into the reasons that the UK voted to leave and demographics of the leave vote. This initial analysis suggests that the Brexit (British Exit) vote reveals wider and deeper societal tensions along the lines of age, class, income, and education (Goodwin and Heath 2016). By providing an account of the background and events of the referendum, this article asserts that the vote was a case study in populist right-wing Eurosceptic discourse (Leconte 2010; Taggart 2004), but it also reveals strong elements of English nationalism (including British exceptionalism and social conservatism) in parts of British society (Henderson et al. 2016; Wellings 2010). Given this, the article begins to make sense of Brexit from a social quality perspective and outlines a possible social quality approach to the UK and Europe post-Brexit.
The recent conflicts of the Hungarian and the Polish governments with the European Union as well as the cooperation between the Visegrád countries during the migrant crisis have drawn
attention to this region. Eurosceptic parties in these countries have ensured significant reinforcement to the critics of the European Union since the Big Bang enlargement in 2004.
Most of them (League of Polish Families and Self-Defence in Poland, Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, Slovak National Party and Movement for a Better Hungary) have had a
populist profile and have profited from the general protest mood. However, in recent years more mainstream or established parties have started to criticize the European Union. Parties
considered Eurosceptic are in governmental position in two out of the four countries (Hungary and Poland) while they play significant role in Slovakia (Freedom and Solidarity) and in the
Czech Republic (Civic Democratic Party). The paper aims to explain the reasons lying behind the Euroscepticism of these mainly centre-right parties in the region, i.e. it examines if
Euroscepticism is a consequence of the ideology or only a part of a broader party strategy.
This paper investigates the impact of Central European MEPs on party cohesion in the European Parliament. By applying the principal-agent theory, it is also analyzed how loyal are the MEPs of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia to their European political groups and national parties. The empirical research carried out in this study demonstrates that the Central European MEPs have not brought more division to their political groups, but have been loyal members of their European parties. The Central European MEPs have not weakened the cohesion of the EP party groups, but party cohesion was even further strengthened between 2004 and 2014. Cohesion is the strongest in the biggest parliamentary groups. EPP and S&D set the direction for most politicians on most occasions. Clear 'rebel' cases, when national parties as a whole went against their European political groups are not more than 2-3 percent of all votes in the two biggest European political families. National parties have a bigger room of manoeuvre in the smaller political groups. In ECR and GUE-NGL the difference between loyalty to the national party and the European party group is significantly higher than in EPP and S&D.
This article discusses the problems of the sub-regional cooperation in East-Central Europe. It formulates the general conclusions and examines the specific case of the Visegrad Group as the most advanced example of this cooperation. The article identifies the integrating and disintegrating tendencies that have so far accompanied the sub-regional dialogue in East-Central Europe. Yet it claims that the disintegrating impulses prevail over the integrating impulses. East-Central Europe remains diversified and it has not developed a single platform of the sub-regional dialogue. The common experience of the communist period gives way to the growing difference of the sub-regional interests and the ability of the East-Central European members to coordinate their positions in the European Union is limited. The Visegrad Group is no exception in this regard despite its rich agenda of social and cultural contacts. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict confirms a deep divergence of interests among the Visegrad states that seems more important for the future of the Visegrad cooperation than the recent attempts to mark the Visegrad unity in the European refugee crisis. Finally, the Ukrainian crisis and the strengthening of the N ATO's " Eastern flank " may contribute to some new ideas of the sub-regional cooperation in East-Central Europe, to include the Polish-Baltic rapprochement or the closer dialogue between Poland and Romania.
There is growing evidence that negotiations in the European Union Council are not only taking place within the formal EU decision making structures. Member states strive to identify like-minded peers and to exchange information prior to the formal negotiations. Institutionalised intergovernmental coalitions that exist among the member states on a geographical affinity basis, e.g. Benelux and Nordic subgroups facilitate exchange among their members and grant them a bargaining advantage. The knowledge of the effects of territorially constituted institutionalised coalitions is, however, limited. Drawing on rational choice institutionalism, this study argues that territorially constituted institutionalised coalitions enhance the bargaining power through three mechanisms: first, exchange of information, which counterbalances the asymmetries in information distribution at the prenegotiation stage; second, pooling of expertise that allows the member states to share resources and provide common argumentation for their positions; and, third, through rhetorical action that gives more strength to normative justifications,which may lead to the normative entrapment of other member states outside the coalition.
The original purpose of the Visegrad Group (VG) was primarily to support its member states’ (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) accession to the EU and NATO. Despite some serious doubts about whether it would have a viable future beyond 2004, actual EU membership has given the VG an ever-expanding agenda for cooperation and coordination in many aspects of EU affairs, internal and external. The VG is now firmly embedded in the European political landscape and operates as a distinct regional grouping within the EU. Indeed, the February 2011 VG summit that marked the VG’s 20th anniversary was attended by Angela Merkel. Moreover, the leaders of the VG states recently met with Merkel and Francois Hollande at two V4-Weimar summits in November 2012 and March 2013.
This paper will reflect on ten years of VG cooperation inside the EU. It will focus on several issues: how actual EU membership revitalised the cooperation agenda of the VG; the ‘modus operandi’ of the VG and why it should be regarded as a specific vehicle for cooperation and coordination around EU affairs with well-defined limitations and not as some kind of Central European ‘lobby’ or regional ‘bloc’ within the EU; examples and areas of VG coordination on EU affairs, with special emphasis on the VG’s role in EU foreign policy - in particular with regard to relations with the eastern neighbours. Some parameters of VG cooperation will also be discussed, taking the VG’s inability to engage in any cooperation around EU-Russia relations as a key example.
This research note re-examines the evidence for the claim that political group cohesion has risen over time in the European Parliament. We first demonstrate that political group cohesion has always been high in the EP and one of the principal reasons for this is owing to the large number of lopsided votes that take place. We next demonstrate that on votes in which the main political groups are opposing, intra-party cohesion is lower than conventional wisdom would have us believe and, furthermore, cohesion on such votes has not systematically increased over time.
In recent years, populism has attracted considerable interest from social scientists and political commentators. Yet the term ‘populism’ remains both widely used and widely contested. It has been defined based on political, economic, social, and discursive features and analyzed from myriad theoretical perspectives and a variety of methodological approaches. This literature review surveys different academic approaches to the study of populism. It aims at promoting the theoretical understanding of the concept and opening new methodological pathways for the study of populist politics. The timeframe of the research we survey spans from the late 19th century to the present day, and its geographical focus ranges from Eastern Europe and Latin America to the Anglo-American democracies. A comprehensive discussion of the research on the topic is timely and warranted, considering the role of populist politics in contemporary democracies.
While members of the European Parliament are elected in national constituencies, their votes are determined by the aggregation of MEPs in multinational party groups. The uncoordinated aggregation of national party programmes in multinational EP party groups challenges theories of representation based on national parties and parliaments. This article provides a theoretical means of understanding representation by linking the aggregation of dozens of national party programmes in different EP party groups to the aggregation of groups to produce the parliamentary majority needed to enact policies. Drawing on an original data source of national party programmes, the EU Profiler, the article shows that the EP majorities created by aggregating MEP votes in party groups are best explained by cartel theories. These give priority to strengthening the EP’s collective capacity to enact policies rather than voting in accord with the programmes they were nationally elected to represent.
What are the consequences of globalization for the structure of political conflicts in Western Europe? How are political conflicts organized and articulated in the twenty-first century? And how does the transformation of territorial boundaries affect the scope and content of political conflicts? This book sets out to answer these questions by analyzing the results of a study of national and European electoral campaigns, protest events and public debates in six West European countries. While the mobilization of the losers of the processes of globalization by new right populist parties is seen to be the driving force of the restructuring of West European politics, the book goes beyond party politics. It attempts to show how the cleavage coalitions that are shaping up under the impact of globalization extend to state actors, interest groups and social movement organizations, and how the new conflicts are framed by the various actors involved.
So far, the Europeanisation of energy policy has occupied a remote place in the European integration literature. However, current developments such as the Energy Policy for Europe launched in 2007 and the Lisbon Treaty Title XXI on Energy have given greater prominence to this policy area within the integration process. Hence, there are several indications that the Europeanisation of energy policy is already taking place, even though the understanding over this process is still weak. And indeed, European studies are just beginning to shed light on this policy area. Against this backdrop, this article examines the EU environmental performance, supported by the Environmental Policy Integration (EPI), as a driver for the energy governance during the process of Europeanisation. Its main argument is that EPI is not only a variable for explaining the governance changes in the EU level concerning energy – defined here as 'green Europeanisation'–, but also a useful instrument for pursuing coherence within the emergent EU energy policy.
The Treaty of Lisbon has been dubbed ‘the Treaty of Parliaments’, as it upgraded the position of both the European Parliament and of national parliaments within the institutional system of the EU. However, the implementation of the new Treaty also brought to the surface the uneasy relationship between the European and national parliamentary spheres in a number of domains. Drawing on the notion of ‘parliamentary field’, this article accounts for this growing divide by highlighting the competitive dynamics that may emerge from a mismatch between formal constitutional authority and the actual parliamentary capital that parliaments enjoy. The article examines this proposition within the domain of foreign and security policy, where the process of establishing a new inter-parliamentary mechanism for scrutinising policy has placed the European Parliament and the national parliaments visibly at odds.
The codecision procedure was designed to change the distribution of power among the European Union (EU) institutions. In theory, the codecision procedure, at least the amended version introduced by the Amsterdam Treaty that came into effect in 1999, weakened the Commission and placed the Parliament on an equal footing with the Council. We assess how the codecision procedure works in practice using data on the preferences of legislative actors on a large number of proposals negotiated between 1999 and 2009. We also test theoretical propositions derived from Schelling regarding the effects of policy agreement within each chamber on the relative bargaining success of the Council and EP. Our findings suggest that, in comparison to the consultation procedure, codecision has strengthened the EP and weakened the Commission. However, the Council holds certain bargaining advantages over the EP, and as a result the EP has not achieved parity with the Council under codecision.
Multilateral, subregional partnerships are one of the defining features of contemporary European politics. The 2004 enlargement of the European Union introduced a new partnership entity to the mix—the Visegrád Group of states, comprising the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia—which offers its members a useful model to discuss and represent common interests in a collective manner within the regional and international political landscape. The article provides a reflection on the evolution of the Visegrád Group of states since 2004. It examines four key policy areas (institutional candidacy, energy policy, eastern neighbourhood and defence policy) where the group has either learned some difficult lessons or is seeking to apply those lessons. The article suggests that the Visegrád Group's greatest strength lies in its flexibility to become more responsive to the challenges it faces and it is likely therefore to remain appealing to its member states and to be a permanent feature within the wider cohort of European Union subregional partnerships.
Visegrad inter-state cooperation among the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia has faced numerous near-death experiences since its official birth in 1991. Furthermore, it has faced two challenges since the four member-countries’ accession to the EU in 2004. Then Visegrad was eulogized, considered deceased by many precisely for having achieved the apparently ultimate aim of EU membership. Second, having purposefully stated rumours of its death, Visegrad has since 2008 been confronted by issues from outside and ones well beyond its size – the Obama presidency and its apparent abandonment of Central and Eastern Europe in its “reset” strategy towards Moscow; a post-Lisbon EU agenda; strategic reorientations in NATO; and both the general, that is, global, financial crisis and particularly within the EU and regarding the Euro.
This article, by contrast, contends that the fundamental changes and challenges that Visegrad has faced enhanced the Group's clear and successful strategy. It identifies and elaborates that strategy, drawing also selectively and thematically on the Group's historical experience since 1991. These strategies include targeted rather than broad selection of aims; retaining an exclusive membership while also inventing variable and flexible mechanisms for adding non-member countries to help them pursue specific initiatives. Through a study of annual Group Presidency agendas and reports, high-level and ministerial meeting declarations and media and secondary source analysis and interviews with National Coordinators, the article contends that the Group continues to promote realistic aims, and provides a unique platform for exercising them. This study concludes that Visegrad, despite the outside challenges remains effective in raising awareness, advancing smaller-scale policies and influencing EU policy towards the Western Balkans and European Partnership (EaP) countries, as well as achieving specific Visegrad initiatives with those states.
Focusing on gas, this article explores the role of the European Commission in the process of European Union energy security policy development, and the extent to which the policy area is becoming increasingly supranational. Situating the article within the literature on agenda-setting and framing, it is argued that a policy window was opened as a result of: enlargement to include more energy import dependent states, a trend of increasing energy imports and prices, and gas supply disruptions. From the mid-2000s, the Commission contributed to a shift in political norms, successfully framing import dependency as a problem requiring an EU-level solution, based on the institution’s pre-existing preferences for a diversified energy supply and internal energy market. Whilst Member States retain significant sovereignty, the Commission has achieved since 2006 creeping competencies in the internal, and to a lesser extent external, dimensions of EU energy policy.
▪ Abstract With tools borrowed from the economic analysis of insurance, principal-agency theory has allowed political scientists new insights into the role of information asymmetry and incentives in political relationships. It has given us a way to think formally about power as the modification of incentives to induce actions in the interests of the principal. Principal-agency theory has evolved significantly as political scientists have sought to make it more applicable to peculiarly political institutions. In congressional oversight of the bureaucracy, increasing emphasis has been placed on negotiation of administrative procedures, rather than the imposition of outcome-based incentives, as originally conceived. Awareness of the problem of credible commitment has impelled more dramatic reformulations, in which agents perform their function only when their interests conflict with those of the principal, and they are guaranteed some degree of autonomy. The ‘political master’ finds himself in the position o...
Climate change has taken centre stage in European and international politics. Since the second half of the 1980s, the EU has established itself as an international leader on climate change and has considerably improved its leadership record. The Union has significantly enhanced both its external representation and its internal climate policies. However, implementation and policy coherence, coordination of EU environmental diplomacy, an evolving international agenda, EU enlargement, and a still precarious EU unity remain major challenges. Shifts in underlying driving forces and advances of EU domestic climate and energy policies nevertheless support the expectation that the EU will remain a progressive force in international climate policy for some time.
Populist parties are likely to gain consensus when mainstream parties and status quo institutions fail to manage the shocks faced by their economies. Institutional constraints, which limit the possible actions in the face of shocks, result in poorer performance and frustration among voters who turn to populist movements. We rely on this logic to explain the different support of populist parties among European countries in response to the globalization shock and to the 2008–11 financial and sovereign debt crisis. We predict a greater success of populist parties in response to these shocks in Eurozone (EZ) countries, and our empirical analysis confirms this prediction. This is consistent with voters’ frustration for the greater inability of the EZ governments to react to difficult-to-manage globalization shocks and financial crises. Our evidence has implications for the speed of construction of political unions. A slow, staged process of political unification can expose the European Union to a risk of political backlash if hard to manage shocks hit the economies during the integration process.
This article discusses the problems of the sub-regional cooperation in East-Central Europe. It formulates the general conclusions and examines the specific case of the Visegrad Group as the most advanced example of this cooperation. The article identifies the integrating and disintegrating tendencies that have so far accompanied the sub-regional dialogue in East-Central Europe. Yet it claims that the disintegrating impulses prevail over the integrating impulses. EastCentral Europe remains diversified and it has not developed a single platform of the sub-regional dialogue. The common experience of the communist period gives way to the growing difference of the sub-regional interests and the ability of the East-Central European members to coordinate their positions in the European Union is limited. The Visegrad Group is no exception in this regard despite its rich agenda of social and cultural contacts. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict confirms a deep divergence of interests among the Visegrad states that seems more important for the future of the Visegrad cooperation than the recent attempts to mark the Visegrad unity in the European refugee crisis. Finally, the Ukrainian crisis and the strengthening of the NATO’s “Eastern flank” may contribute to some new ideas of the sub-regional cooperation in East-Central Europe, to include the Polish-Baltic rapprochement or the closer dialogue between Poland and Romania. Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v10i1.251
This study reviews conservative political party policy positions in six European countries with high greenhouse-gas emissions (France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and the U.K.). Using party platform statements from recent election campaigns, the positions of moderate conservative parties are compared with those of far-right political parties to investigate similarities and differences on energy-transition policy. Three areas of policy are considered: climate-change mitigation, fossil-fuel development or sunsetting, and renewable energy and energy efficiency development. In the countries examined, moderate conservative parties generally remain committed to climate-mitigation policy and renewable energy and energy efficiency policy, but there are some roll-backs of support, and there is variation in their support for fossil-fuel development. Far-right parties tend to show evidence of rejection of climate science, opposition to decarbonization in general, support for natural gas hydraulic fracturing technologies, support for continued use of coal, and opposition to some types of policy favorable to renewable energy and energy efficiency. However, some far-right parties, notably in France and Spain, share several important positions with the center-right parties. The study cautions against assuming an automatic linkage between far-right parties and opposition to energy-transition policies and against assuming that far-right parties will oppose all types of energy-transition policies.
The leadership dynamics between the European Council, the Council and the Member States in European Union (EU) environmental policy since the 1970s are analysed. The puzzle is that, although the EU was set up as a ‘leaderless Europe’, it is widely seen as an environmental leader, albeit sometimes as a one-eyed leader amongst the blind. While differentiating between leadership types, it is argued that the European Council has the largest structural, the Council the most significant entrepreneurial, and the Member States the most important cognitive and exemplary leadership capacities. Most day-to-day environmental policy measures are negotiated by the Environment Council (in collaboration with the European Parliament). The European Council’s increased interest in high politics climate change issues is largely due to the EU’s global leadership ambitions. Member States have traditionally formed environmental leadership alliances on an ad hoc basis although this may be changing. © 2019
The article fills a research gap on voting behaviour in the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council by presenting an analysis of 12 years of voting records (2004 to 2016). Consensus, said to be the default option for EU decision-making, was also dominant in the JHA field. However, the research observes a tremendous increase in ‘no’ votes and abstentions during the post-Lisbon period. In explaining contestation, a qualitative analysis of inter- view data and voting statements identifies four dominant reason- ings: contestation can be related to member states’ sovereignty concerns, imply a critique on the respective proposal’s expected functionality, mark a misfit with national rules and politics, or point to unwanted budgetary effects. The findings show that the JHA Council has become more publicly political and has come to be a venue for national expression of discontent over the details of an EU Area of Freedom Security and Justice.
For countries emerging from communism, the post-1989 imperative to “be like the West” has generated discontent and even a “return of the repressed,” as the region feels old nationalist stirrings and new demographic pressures. The origins of the region's current illiberalism are emotional and preideological, rooted in rebellion at the humiliations that accompany a project requiring acknowledgment of a foreign culture as superior to one’s own. Further contributing to illiberalism in the region is a largely unspoken preoccupation with demographic collapse-resulting from aging populations, low birth rates, and massive outmigration-which manifests as a fear that the arrival of unassimilable foreigners will dilute national identities and weaken national cohesion. © 2018. The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
Laclau introduces three preconditions of populism: the formation of an antagonistic frontier separating the ‘people’ from the enemy; an equivalential articulation of demands; and the unification of social demands into a stable system of signification. I show that with Trump’s and Putin’s populism these preconditions change. An antagonistic frontier became perforated with double interpretation of the enemy. Dichotomy ‘we’ versus the ‘other’ is traversed by the division of the signification of the ‘other’ into the external and internal part as regards the signification of the community. An equivalential articulation of demands transforms into the paralogical chain that establishes cleavages in semantic relations among communities. There are mere ‘opening bids’ among communities without universal dimension as a result of hegemonization of a particular demand. The unification of social demands which has followed the hegemonical logic in Laclau’s account of populism turns into an allegorical unification that keeps being separated from all particular demands in order to maintain their paralogical chain. These transformations can be seen as the preconditions of metapopulism that is found in-between democracy with the particularized logic and populism with the hegemonized one.
In this article, we focus on the ongoing project of natural gas market integration in the Visegrad 4 region. Employing discourse-network analysis – a novel methodological framework that combines stakeholder analysis with frame analysis, we map and evaluate the individual stakeholders’ positions towards the project. The results show a substantial lack of shared understanding of what does such integration actually mean, how to implement it, how to recognize that it has been achieved, and how to relate it to integration that takes place at the European level. We conclude by identifying structural problems that prevent the regional integration from emerging and putting them in perspective of the common European gas market project.
The Roll Call Vote (RCV) of Members of the European Parliament is a standard data source for modern research into the European Parliament (EP). RCV samples are used in particular to study political group cohesion and the emergence of conflict lines within the EP. Current mainstream research thus treats RCVs as a reliable source of data. But other research exists that questions the suitability of the RCV as a sample that fairly represents the population of EP votes. Specifically, this latter research stream points to the over-representation of non-legislative items over legislative items and to the under-representation (or even complete absence) of some committees. However, these critically oriented studies focus on data that does not take into account changes that have occurred in recent years, after the Treaties of Nice (2001) and Lisbon (2007) came into force in 2003 (Nice) and 2009 (Lisbon). By analysing all votes that took place in 2013, the authors find that the RCV has become a more reliable data source in recent years. The most important difference ? that which obtained between legislative and non-legislative issues ? has completely vanished and the remaining differences show only a very weak effect. The authors attribute this change to the empowerment of the EP in the legislative arena and the amendment of the Rules of Procedure.
Research on coalition patterns in the Council of the EU has taken a leap forward over the last couple of years. A decade ago, Winkler complained that ‘there is surprisingly little clear evidence of coalition formation in the EU’ (Winkler 1998, p. 399). A few years later another group of scholars noted that ‘most of the suggestions [concerning coalitions] made in the literature seem to be based on anecdotal evidence, rather than on structured documentation’ (Elgström et al. 2001, p. 121). The closed nature of the Council and the lack of reliable systematic data contributed to this situation. Furthermore, a common view on the topic was that there would be few stable patterns to be found anyway, as coalitions were assumed to ‘shift from issue to issue’ (Spence 1995, p. 380). Such a view also fitted well with the ideal picture of the Council as a rational European problem-solving institution.
This paper analyses how disaffection with the EU influenced individuals' likelihood of turning out to vote and of casting a vote for a Eurosceptic party in the 2014 EP elections, and how these relationships were moderated by the Eurosceptic partisan supply of each country. We argue that the degree to which political parties oppose European integration, as well as the ideological leaning of Eurosceptic parties, should influence both the likelihood of disaffected citizens turning out to vote, and their likelihood of voting for a Eurosceptic party. Our empirical findings show that, in the presence of a party that is strongly opposed to European integration, disaffected citizens are more likely to turn out to vote and to vote for a Eurosceptic party provided that this party also shares their ideological leaning in the left-right dimension. These results indicate that Eurosceptic parties are important actors for the politicization of the European integration conflict and for the Europeanization of EP elections, but, at the same time, they suggest that opposition to European integration is subordinate to the traditional left-right conflict.
Energy policy, in Europe as elsewhere, has traditionally been a national concern. Countries are endowed differently in terms of energy resources, and have different import needs and consumption patterns. Among the countries of this study, Britain is nearly self-sufficient in both oil and gas, whereas Italy imports close to 80 per cent of its energy. Because of these differences there has not been a major rationale to develop an energy policy at the EU level. Also, member states have been opposed to an EU-wide energy policy.
The decisions of the European Parliament (EP) are shown to influence both EU emission allowance (EUA) prices and volatility. Reductions in price and increases in volatility are observed when EP decisions are (i) not “party-political” in origin, (ii) made during times of low market sentiment, or (iii) made during times of low market attention. Daily EUA prices from 2007 to 2014 are used in the study, with decisions analysed using an event study approach for price impact, and a GARCH specification for volatility impact. Our findings suggest the need for policymakers to improve communication of long-term strategies for the EUA market. This aims to reduce the evident ongoing uncertainty experienced by traders around each decision made by the EP. The finding that sentiment and market attention at the time of an EP decision influences the market's reaction indicates a need to consider market dynamics in terms of decision timing, so that market turbulence is not an unintended by-product of an EP decision. Some form of medium term forward guidance may be called for.
Drawing on the theoretical literature on institutional change, group size and party organizations, this contribution explains the impact the ‘mega-enlargement’ of the European Union (EU) has had upon political groups in the European Parliament (EP). Presenting an in-depth analysis of their organizational adaptation, this work demonstrates that the widening of the EU is an important catalyst for organizational reform, and facilitates deepening. Additionally, describing the organizational reforms implemented to tackle enlargement, it also shows that party cohesion is the product of intense co-ordination activity within the groups, which starts at the committee level, rather than the use of disciplinary tools by the party leadership.
Committees are the repositories of policy expertise within the European
Parliament and have played a key role in shaping the institution’s influence.
However, they face a number of challenges, two of which are explored in this contribution:
the use of early agreements under codecision; and the involvement of multiple
committees in decision-making. Hypotheses about the likely impact of these
twin challenges are developed and tested against the European Climate Change
Package. Analysis reveals both conflict and the erosion of the lead committee’s influence
in one case, which raises questions about the ability of committees to continue
to fulfil their expertise function. However, the overall picture to emerge is one of successful
inter-committee co-operation.
KEY WORDS Climate change; codecision; early agreements; European Parliament
committees; shared competence.
This article is about the instruments that have been adopted by various governments to implement the decided policy on climate change. This article surveys the theoretical literature on instruments, identifying and unpacking key terms, and it sets out two ways to theorize and thus explains observed patterns of instrument selection 'in practice', the first based on actor behaviour and the second on the mediating effect of institutions. It also investigates instrument choices in one important governing context, namely the EU, which comprises twenty-seven Member States and hosts the world's largest single market. The analysis in this article mainly focuses on instrument selection and adoption practices rather than performance. It also focuses on the instruments associated with mitigating climate change rather than adapting to its unfolding impacts. Finally, this article draws together the main arguments and identifies future challenges in this rapidly developing area of climate change research and policy.
The concept of populism has in recent years inspired much debate and much confusion. It has been described variously as a pathology, a style, a syndrome and a doctrine. Others have raised doubts as to whether the term has any analytical utility, concluding that it is simply too vague to tell us anything meaningful about politics. Drawing on recent developments in the theoretical literature, it is argued that populism should be regarded as a ‘thin’ ideology which, although of limited analytical use on its own terms, nevertheless conveys a distinct set of ideas about the political which interact with the established ideational traditions of full ideologies.
This study analyzes party group cohesion and patterns of defections of national party delegations from party group lines in the European Parliament (EP), using a total of 2,582 roll call votes. The study confirms previous findings according to which party groups in the EP show (surprisingly) high levels of cohesion. Nevertheless, it reveals the circumstances under which Members of the EP (MEPs) and their national delegations are more likely to defect, using the candidate selection process, the electoral system and relationships between MEPs and their home parties as explanatory variables. Assuming that MEPs have three different goals (re-election, office and policy), and want above all to secure re-election, one can expect that those MEPs whose chances of re-election are more dependent on national parties than others are more willing to vote against the party group line if a conflict between party group and national party emerges. Empirically, this is confirmed.