Multi-level party politics in the European Union: assessing the coherence between European political parties and their member parties’ positions on EU enlargement

Abstract

Political parties constitute an integral part of democratic representation in the European Union (EU), however, their ability to formulate coherent positions across national and EU levels is still contested. Despite extensive research on the institutional structures of European political parties, limited attention has been paid to position coherence across party levels on specific policy issues. Even less is known about how such coherence changes over time, especially in light of major geopolitical events. Following the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, enlargement has become a controversial topic within the EU, providing a timely and relevant case to study multilevel party dynamics. This thesis examines 115 party manifestos from the 2019 and 2024 European Parliament elections to assess how coherent the Party of European Socialists (PES), the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), and the European Green Party (EGP) and their member parties have been on this policy area. It evaluates coherence across five key areas: overall stance on enlargement, temporal scope, geographical focus, internal EU reforms and security and geopolitical justifications. The findings suggest that over time, there has been an increase in coherence between Europarties and their member parties as well as among member parties. Although several areas showed coherence already in 2019, by 2024, coherence had strengthened in support for enlargement, a gradual approach to this process and security justification of enlargement. Nevertheless, this trend is not uniform; some categories have become fragmented on issues such as EU internal reforms, suggesting that coherence is not a static process.