Les partis politiques européens : les grands absents de la politique européenne

Almost twenty years after their first legal recognition by the Treaty of Maastricht, the European political parties have not induced, as some political elites expected it, a “new era of European politics”. The 2009 European elections or the current European debates show that these parties remain ma...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Cristina Stănculescu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: European Institute of Romania 2012-03-01
Series:Romanian Journal of European Affairs
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Online Access:https://rjea.ier.gov.ro/wp-content/uploads/articole/RJEA_2012_vol12_no1_Les-partis-politiques-europ%C3%A9ens_0.pdf
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Summary:Almost twenty years after their first legal recognition by the Treaty of Maastricht, the European political parties have not induced, as some political elites expected it, a “new era of European politics”. The 2009 European elections or the current European debates show that these parties remain marginal actors of the European decision-making process. In this context, this article approaches two questions related to the European political parties: first - why have these parties formed and developed if they do not play the role classic political parties do; and second - why aren’t they playing this role? The author argues in this article that the answer to the first question is to be found in the spillover process that has been caused by the growth of European Parliament’s competencies and by the debate on EU’s democratic deficit. As for the second question, both the structure of the European political system and the internal heterogeneity of the European political parties limit their capacity to develop. Thus, it seems that EU’s founding compromise between supranational and intergovernmental positions is the most appropriate explanation for European political parties’ capacity/incapacity to establish themselves as “key” European actors.
ISSN:1582-8271
1841-4273