The European Parliament in turbulent political times : concluding reflections

Abstract

The European Union became more politically salient and contested from the early 1990s onwards. Analysis of the impact of politicisation on the Union’s directly elected Parliament has not been a central focus on the literature on politicisation. The objective of the concluding reflections is to explore the interaction between the politicisation of European integration and the development of the European Parliament (EP). The reflections focus on three inter-related facets of how the EP addressed the emerging challenges to the Union’s political system. First, it looks at the 2014 EP elections and reviews the EP party groups’ deliberate attempt to introduce political choice in the Spitzenkandidaten process. Second, it analyses the outcome of the 2014 EP elections and the emergence of a fractured parliament with the political success of far-right parties. Third, it assesses how the arrival of far-right governments undermining the Union’s normative order challenges the EP political groups.