The Czech Republic : Euroscepticism as a Dominant Tone
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| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | The Czech party system has underwent a profound changes since the parliamentary elections in 2013 undermining the position of two long-term strongest Czech political parties – the Civic and Social Democrats, and establishing a business firm party ANO as the predominant actor. Among the opposition parties, there are various parliamentary as well as extra-parliamentary Eurosceptic parties reaching form hard Eurosceptic far right Freedom and Direct Democracy claiming the “Czexit” to soft Eurosceptic Civic Democrats, members of the ECR Group of which Czech MEP Jan Zahradil is going to be the Spitzenkandidat for ECR after 2019 EP Elections. Therefore we can expect high level of utilisation of Eurosceptic topics and discourses. Moreover, the main ruling party ANO demonstrates high level of soft Eurosceptic discourses which can be reinforced by the recurrent accusations of the leader of the party of misusing the money form the structural funds. Moreover, the minority government is externally supported by the Eurosceptic Communist Party. Last but not least, the pro-integration parties like Social Democrats, Christian Democrats or TOP 09 are facing slightly declining electoral support which potentially challenges their very representation in the EP after 2019 elections. The paper will therefore examine, analyse and compare the Eurosceptic discourses present in 2019 campaign. The authors will explain the sources of Euroscepticism such as ideological position or strategic choice. |
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