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The article presents a large-scale analysis of party attitudes toward the EU with a specific focus on Euroscepticism. We first compare the attitudes of radical parties to those of mainstream parties in order to assess their differences with regard to many specific aspects of the EU process. Then, we show that extreme left and extreme right express rather distinctive views when moving from broad Eurosceptical stances to more specific preferences on the integration process. Finally, we highlight significant differences in party attitudes toward the EU across countries, particularly between the old and the new member states.

The ways in which political actors form positions on European integration in the face of exogenous shocks, such as the financial crisis that spilled over to the Eurozone countries, have become a key question in studies of politics in Europe. In the article, we show that party system polarization over European integration has increased during the crisis, but only with respect to the parties’ public stance. Instead, the crisis does not appear to pose a real threat to the consensus on the European Union among party elites serving in public office, which remains almost as strong as before. Hence, a so far unconsidered consequence of the crisis may concern a mounting tension inside political parties, between a leadership that is more sensitive to popular pressures and to Euroscepticism and public office holders that reiterate the traditional elite consensus on Europe.

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This article examines the attitudes of national political elites towards the EU and the recent politicisation of Europe in the Italian party system. Italian political elites have experienced some important transformations in the recent past as a consequence of the emergence of new parties, the re-alignment of other established parties and some structural transformations in their socio-demographic traits. This article shows that positive feelings towards the EU have survived the acute change to the composition of the political elites, and that support for Europe is still widespread. Variations are mainly differences in degree of support. Although opposition to the EU has emerged, this has not occurred in a linear way and remains dispersed, while a Eurosceptic camp able to challenge the mainstream pro-European conduct of the Italian elites is far from being in place.

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