"The Threat of Contemporary Europe: Populism and Euroscepticism"

Abstract

Eurosceptic and populist parties and movements have shown tendencies to win elections and set the political agenda for the last decades in several countries of the European Union. The elections in some of those countries have shown that these parties and movements did not achieve their goals, but they won significant number of votes, which indicates that Euroscepticism and populism are not dead. The paper presents a theoretical overview of some of the key authors that reveal the concepts of populism and Euroscepticism. It presents the election results of some Eurosceptic and populist movements in several EU member states and it searches for an answer to questions such as what are the roots of populism and Euroscepticism, what is the ideological background of the legitimacy crisis in the EU, how do these parties and movements relate to classical political ideologies and what is the response of the mainstream politicians. These dilemmas are enhanced with the author’s contribution of recommendations about what are the possible convincing alternatives that should be put forward to counter this phenomenon and to overcome the threat to the European project.