Análisis de Flujo Vehicular

As in the case of core parties, this chapter did not find strong evidence indicating that party-based Euroscepticism in Serbia and Croatia was driven by a party’s peripheral position, as has been argued in the comparative literature (Taggart 1998; Szczerbiak and Taggart 2000). While empirical data from Table 5.3 suggests that all peripheral parties were hard Eurosceptic, nevertheless their peripheral location in the party system only reinforced scepticism and impacted their rhetoric. However, with the notable exception of a few Croatian parties, a party’s peripheral status did not solely determine its underlying stance on the EU.

This may be attributed to two key factors: the structure of these party systems and the prevalent nature of parties’ opposition to Europe. First, as argued earlier in this chapter, the logic and structure of Serbian party systems did not create conditions for protest-based

Euroscepticism. Specifically, there was not a distinct group of core Euroenthusiastic parties, and Euroscepticism was present at the political core. As a result, protest Eurosceptic peripheral parties had no space in which to exploit this issue and underline its uniqueness, as argued in the comparative literature (Taggart 1998). Moreover, the lack of Western-style cartel parties consequently prevented the emergence of cartel or anti-establishment parties; as a result, only one party, Dveri, emerged as a protest Eurosceptic party in 2012. In Croatia, the party system and the consensus among mainstream parties on the EU created conditions favourable to protest based anti-establishment Eurosceptic parties that appear to have been motivated by their peripheral status but equally, if not more importantly, by nationalist ideology. Second, as argued in Chapter 3, the majority of parties approached the EU ideologically. This trend may also be seen in the case of peripheral parties. All peripheral parties were hard Eurosceptic parties who objected the EU and opposed these countries’ EU memberships in principle, and they appear to have been predominately ideologically driven, with a strong nationalist, conservative, and often radical right identity. Thus, a party’s peripheral status served primarily as a reinforcement for already strong and identity-driven hostility or scepticism to the EU. Additionally, the rhetoric of peripheral parties was clearly shaped by, inter alia, their peripheral position.

Specifically, there were two types of peripheral parties that expressed hard Euroscepticism, the Socialist Party of Serbia and the Serbian Radical Party, on the one side, and a number of minor, mostly non-parliamentary parties, on the other side. The Socialist Party of Serbia and the Serbian Radical Party in the early 2000s may be characterized as peripheral. Their peripheral status at that time was the result of the fact that, after they were removed from power in 2000, both parties became ‘anti-system’. These parties opposed ‘the very system of government’, as conceptualised by Sartori (1990, p.329), and did not share the values of the political order within which they operated. They also adopted a Eurosceptic stance, rejecting Serbian EU membership and opposing cooperation with the ICTY and the EU.

As discussed in Chapter 4, the Socialists fundamentally changed over the years, while the Radicals accepted the political system, participating in the 2003 elections and consequently becoming the largest party in the parliament. Nevertheless, the Radicals did not deviate from their radical right ideology and, therefore, still exhibited some characteristics of peripheral parties. Following an electoral fiasco in the 2012 elections, the party did not manage to secure places in the parliament, and so returned to the position where, in many ways, it belonged: that is, the political periphery. However, the Euroscepticism expressed by the Serbian Socialists and Radicals does not appear to have been the result of their

peripheral position in the party system. Their stances were more deeply rooted in the ideology and policies of nationalism and isolationism that both parties propagated and implemented during the 1990s. The Radicals especially expressed a strong ideological opposition to the principles of liberal democracy, symbolised by the EU.

Conversely, a group of minor non-parliamentary and largely radical right, Eurosceptic parties emerged over the years, although many quickly disappeared from the political scene in both countries. What characterised these parties was both hard Euroscepticism manifested as strong opposition to Serbian/Croatian EU membership and a pronounced nationalistic ideology. As discussed earlier, despite a very large number of parties in Serbia, there were no conditions for the emergence of protest-based Eurosceptic parties that successfully presented themselves as a viable alternative to established, mainstream parties.

The notable exception was Dveri which was founded before the 2012 parliamentary election after a decade of activities as a non-governmental organisation. This party’s hard Euroscepticism can be primarily attributed to its ideology and pronounced conservatism as expressed by Vladan Glišić (Interview 2011), one of the party leaders.²⁰ The party’s protest nature, however, significantly contributed to its rhetoric and how it used the issue of Serbian EU membership in domestic party competition.

Bakić (2013, p.2) argued that Dveri was a highly conservative party. He explained that it fostered extreme conservatism, promoting the family as the most important social institution and advocated a religious-moralistic outlook. This clerical party won a relatively high percentage of votes (4.34%) in 2012 and came close to securing seats in the parliament. Compared to other Serbian parties, Dveri garnered the most Eurosceptic electorate (see Table 6.3.), since 81% of its voters opposed Serbian EU accession (BCBP 2012). Bakić (2013) argued that it enjoyed the support of the more conservative parts of the Serbian Orthodox Church, war veterans, members of the armed forces, and the police.

Drawing upon Taggart’s (1998) theoretical frameworks, Dveri can further be classified as a protest anti-establishment and hard Eurosceptic party. The main characteristic of this party was its anti-establishment nature, evident in the fact that it did not want to be called a

‘party’ but rather a ‘movement’, effectively emphasising its protest and anti-mainstream status. The party leadership emphasised that Dveri was not a party but the ‘voice of the people’ that would fight against the corrupt political mainstream and ‘partocracy’ (Dveri

20 The party did not have a leader but a leadership made of a few senior party leaders that made all political decisions.

2012a). Bakić (2013) also noted that this party sharply criticised the illegitimate oligarchic structure of the Serbian society. It thus stood for ‘a change of not only the regime, but also the whole system in the country’ (Dveri 2012a). In its programme, the party declared the failure of the current social contract between the Serbian people and the government, and therefore proposed ‘a new national contract’ (Dveri 2012a). The key element of such a contract would be an immediate suspension of negotiations with the EU, an analysis of the cost of the deals reached so far with the EU, and an orientation towards Russia as ‘a natural, historical and political basic foundation of Serbian foreign policy’ (Dveri 2012b).

This party was, therefore, the only protest and Eurosceptic party in the country that failed to exert any significant impact or to change the balance between the mainstream parties, although it did somewhat shape the nature of the European debate in the run-up to the 2012 elections.

Given the nature of the party system in Croatia and the nation’s wider political consensus on EU, a number of protest, conservative, and right-wing hard Eurosceptic parties emerged over the years. They mainly came from the tradition of the Croatian right, a conservative national political movement that developed in the mid-nineteenth century.

This movement demandedgreater Croatian autonomy and self-rule, with Croatian national and ethnic rights being central to its ideology. Until 2011, the only parliamentary party representing this political tradition was the Croatian Party of Rights. Following the 2011 elections it was replaced by the Croatian Party of Rights-Dr Ante Starčević, which secured only a single parliamentary seat. The hard Euroscepticism of these parties was based on opposition to the conditions imposed by the EU. These included cooperation with the ICTY and ‘handing the heroes of the homeland war over’, opposition to the pooling and delegation of the sovereignty in the EU, given that ‘Croatia will lose its sovereignty and freedom that was achieved with difficulties during the homeland war’, and fear that Croatia will lose its cultural and economic independence, national identity, and tradition (Stojić 2006, p. 329).

Another group of peripheral parties consisted of a number of short-lived, nationally oriented parties that had been founded by former members of right-wing factions of the Croatian Democratic Union. These politicians were defeated in the 2002 intra-party election as devotees of the former Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, and as a result founded a number of peripheral parties, such as Only Croatia, The Independence and Progress Party/Croatian Bell, and Croatian Growth-HRAST. However, none of these

parties managed to become a relevant political force in the country. Like Serbian Dveri, these Croatian parties strategically employed harsh rhetoric directed against the two core, mainstream parties, the Croatian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party. They accused them of betraying the nation through the sale of Croatian land and sea; hiding the results of the accession negotiations; and the semi-colonial position of the country.

Croatian EU membership, as claimed by the Only Croatia’s vice president Marjan Bošnjak (Interview 2011) in an interview, would mean joining ‘Euroslavia’, underlining the fears that the EU would be similar to the former Yugoslavia. However, these peripheral parties were highly unsuccessful in emphasising their ‘outsider’ status as a means to boost their electoral appeal. That may be attributed to the fact that they refused to engage with other political issues, since ‘that would unnecessarily spread the debate to other areas, which was favoured by the Euro-fanatical elites, while the very survival of a state was at stake’

(Bošnjak, Interview 2011). Finally, since 2010, a number of fringe, but not radical right or nationalistic parties, emerged in response to the financial crisis and Croatia’s completion of its accession negotiations, including the Alliance for Change. This party exhibited typical characteristics of left-wing protest and anti-establishment parties, sharply criticising the supposedly neo-liberal nature of the EU and the potential negative economic consequences of Croatian EU membership. However, it failed to make any political impact.

In summary, while the parties of the Croatian right were deeply ideologically Eurosceptic, other peripheral parties appear to have been somewhat motivated by their fringe nature.

They expressed protest-based Euroscepticism aimed against the Euroenthusiastic core and mainstream parties. Moreover, all of these parties emerged at times of either parliamentary elections, or more importantly, during the Croatian referendum on EU membership in 2012. However, given their ideological background, political genesis, and the arguments used to present their stances to the wider public, it remains difficult to assess the extent to which they were motivated by their ideologies or peripheral status.

5.4 Conclusion

This study draws a number of conclusions regarding the correlation between Serbian and Croatian parties’ electoral performance and core/peripheral status, on the one side, and their views on Europe, on the other. Most notably, this study found that neither parties’

governmental/opposition or their core/peripheral positions crucially determined their underlying stances on the substance of European integration. Instead, in most cases, these

positions were ideologically driven. The notable exceptions were strategically motivated former Eurosceptic parties whose opposition experience appears to have significantly contributed to their fundamental ideological transformation and eventual adoption of a Euroenthusiastic political agenda. However, the chapter also found that a party’s position in the party system significantly impacted how parties used the EU issues in political competition. Specifically, governmental and core parties tended to express pro-EU attitudes, whereas peripheral (and, to a lesser extent, opposition) parties adopted Eurosceptic narratives.

This chapter specifically found that the nature of the party system and individual political parties had significant consequences for how parties responded to Europe. In other words, different features of the two parties systems in Serbia and Croatia created different opportunities for these parties to express Eurosceptic or Euroenthusiastic sentiments. In Serbia’s highly fragmented ‘polarised pluralistic system’, EU issues, particularly different stances on Serbian EU membership, were the source of centrifugal drivers of the party systems and reflected a society divided between traditionalism and modernism. The Croatian party system was more moderate pluralistic with limited fragmentation, consisting of two dominant parties. Although moderate polarisation existed, it did not give rise to such sharp divisions between the relevant parties on EU issues. Consequently, the EU was not a contentious issue and all relevant parties reached a consensus on Croatian EU accession early in the negotiation process, which greatly moderated the party scene and discouraged pronounced Euroscepticism.

This chapter did not find empirical evidence to support hypothesis H3a that the longer that parties are in opposition, the more likely that they will adopt Eurosceptic attitudes. Government participation did not prove to be the determining factor in underlying party attitudes towards the EU in Serbia and Croatia. However, it had some moderating effects on rhetoric and specific policies pursued by governing parties, particularly former Eurosceptic parties, such as the Socialist Party of Serbia, the Serbian Progressive Party, and the Croatian Democratic Union. After coming to power, these parties followed their strategic reorientation and pursued a pro-EU agenda in an effort to prove their new political orientation. However, their government involvement was a result of the transition undergone before coming to power, rather than the cause of it. In general, government participation discouraged Euroscepticism and reinforced the pro-European policies of the majority of the parties examined. Regardless, it did not determine them.

Furthermore, in contrast to Sitter’s (2001) argument, opposition status not only failed to create incentives for the development of Eurosceptic sentiments but was an important factor that, inter alia, triggered hard Eurosceptic parties to adopt Euroenthusiastic positions.

Specifically, there was no clearly established pattern of party competition that may have created conditions for ‘opposition based’ Euroscepticism. This was particularly the case in Serbia owing to its highly polarised and atomised party system, which resulted in the lack of stable patterns of competition between government and opposition parties. Moreover, this chapter identified a tendency for mainstream opposition parties in both countries to criticise governmental parties for not being pro-European enough, rather than encouraging them to become Eurosceptic. It also argued that for opposition parties, repeated exclusion from government was a consequence, not a cause of scepticism and hostility towards the EU. Pro-European attitudes seemed to be a necessary precondition for parties in (potential) candidate countries to attain power (given the role of ‘external veto actors’ i.e., the EU and the Western countries) as confirmed in the case of parties that secured government participation only after having previously abandoned their long-term Eurosceptic stances.

Most remarkably, the study found that opposition status played a crucial role in triggering the transformation of strategically driven parties from a hard Eurosceptic to pro-European pole. Specifically, a combination of two factors arising from the domestic party systems, namely the office- and vote-seeking character of the parties and opposition status, created conditions for the fundamental reorientation of three core parties: the Socialist Party of Serbia, the Serbian Progressive Party and the Croatian Democratic Union. These parties initiated their transformation while in opposition after experiencing ‘political ostracism’.

They either lost elections for the first time since their founding or feared long-term opposition status after many unsuccessful attempts to form a government, which were strong strategic incentives to adopt a pro-EU political agenda.

Moreover, the data considered here did not support H3b hypothesis: the more that parties are positioned towards the periphery of the party system, the more likely it is that they will adopt Eurosceptic attitudes. More specifically, this chapter did not find strong evidence that a core position within the party system was a factor that shaped pro-EU party stances. The Euroenthusiasm of core parties was either consistent, ideologically driven or was the consequence of their strategically motivated transformation. Conversely, party rhetoric on Europe may have been impacted by a party’s core status but only when there was a

consensus on Europe at the political core. Specifically, being core in the context of Serbian party politics does not appear to have had any moderating effect on party stances towards the EU, including party rhetoric, primarily due to the lack of pro-EU consensus at the political core, which gave parties considerable freedom to express Eurosceptic rhetoric. In Croatia, however, due to the wider EU consensus, core parties were discouraged from employing Eurosceptic rhetoric and were thus seen as out of the pro-EU core which, in turn, moderated their rhetoric, although it did not determine their broad, underlying stances.

Finally, this chapter did not find evidence to support the claim that party-based Euroscepticism in Serbia and Croatia was driven by a party’s peripheral position. Rather, this study found that party peripheral status served primarily as a reinforcement for existent and mostly identity-driven hostility or scepticism towards the EU. This was primarily due to the structure of these party systems, particularly the Serbian ones, where, given the lack of pro-EU core as well as Western-style cartel parties, there was no space for Eurosceptic peripheral or anti-cartel parties to exploit this issue and underline their uniqueness. Thus, peripheral Euroscepticism was primarily rooted in an ideology of nationalism and opposition to the principles of liberal democracy as symbolised by the EU, rather than in the parties’ deliberate strategic decision to be anti-European ‘outsiders’ (aimed at boosting their electorally effective ‘peripheral uniqueness’). However, the rhetoric of peripheral parties was clearly shaped by their ‘outsider’ position and protest nature.

Chapter 6: Party attitudes towards the EU and relations