IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v26y2025i3p637-644.html

What unites the right in the European Parliament?

Author

Listed:
  • Philipp Broniecki

    (Department of Political Science, 6305University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway)

  • Bjørn Høyland

    (Department of Political Science, 6305University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway)

Abstract

This letter analyzes coalition patterns among right-wing groups in the European Parliament, exploring the conditions that lead these groups to unite on policy. Using voting records from 2019 to 2024 and Legislative Observatory data, we identify three coalition types: Grand Right (all right-leaning groups), Far Right (excluding the center-right European People’s Party), and Center Right+ (including at least one far-right group). The potential for right-wing unity is substantial, particularly on EU Integration, climate, security, and cultural issues. For 2024–2029, two possibilities for right coalitions emerge: the European People’s Party allies with the far-right on cultural, climate, and security issues, challenging the European Parliament’s progressive stance, or the far-right joins the center-right on economic issues, normalizing right-wing influence in EU policymaking.

Suggested Citation

  • Philipp Broniecki & Bjørn Høyland, 2025. "What unites the right in the European Parliament?," European Union Politics, , vol. 26(3), pages 637-644, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:26:y:2025:i:3:p:637-644
    DOI: 10.1177/14651165251341573
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14651165251341573
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/14651165251341573?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andreas Fagerholm, 2024. "Sympathy or Criticism? The European Far Left and Far Right React to Russia’s 2022 Invasion of Ukraine," Europe-Asia Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 76(6), pages 829-850, July.
    2. Tanja A. Börzel & Philipp Broniecki & Miriam Hartlapp & Lukas Obholzer, 2023. "Contesting Europe: Eurosceptic Dissent and Integration Polarization in the European Parliament," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 1100-1118, July.
    3. Nathalie Brack & Awenig Marié, 2024. "From fringe to front? Assessing the voting influence of the radical right in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 25(4), pages 748-771, December.
    4. Elisa Cencig & Laura Sabani, 2017. "Voting Behaviour in the European Parliament and Economic Governance Reform: Does Nationality Matter?," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 28(5), pages 967-987, November.
    5. Simon Hix & Amie Kreppel & Abdul Noury, 2003. "The Party System in the European Parliament: Collusive or Competitive?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 309-331, April.
    6. Maria Sigridur Finnsdottir, 2024. "Far-right cooperation: Gender, political networks, and the cordon sanitaire in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 25(4), pages 772-798, December.
    7. Hix, Simon & Noury, Abdul & Roland, Gérard, 2005. "Power to the Parties: Cohesion and Competition in the European Parliament, 1979–2001," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(2), pages 209-234, April.
    8. Rooduijn, Matthijs & Pirro, Andrea L. P. & Halikiopoulou, Daphne & Froio, Caterina & Van Kessel, Stijn & De Lange, Sarah L. & Mudde, Cas & Taggart, Paul, 2024. "The PopuList: A Database of Populist, Far-Left, and Far-Right Parties Using Expert-Informed Qualitative Comparative Classification (EiQCC)," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(3), pages 969-978, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zoe Lefkofridi, 2020. "Competition in the European Arena: How the Rules of the Game Help Nationalists Gain," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 41-49.
    2. Christian B. Jensen & Jonathan Slapin & Thomas König, 2007. "Who Calls for a Common EU Foreign Policy?," European Union Politics, , vol. 8(3), pages 387-410, September.
    3. Bjorn Hoyland, 2006. "Allocation of Codecision Reports in the Fifth European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 7(1), pages 30-50, March.
    4. Fang-Yi Chiou & Silje SL Hermansen & Bjørn Høyland, 2020. "Delegation of committee reports in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(2), pages 233-254, June.
    5. Bjørn Høyland & Indraneel Sircar & Simon Hix, 2009. "Forum Section," European Union Politics, , vol. 10(1), pages 143-152, March.
    6. Anna A. Dekalchuk & Aleksandra Khokhlova & Dmitriy Skougarevskiy, 2016. "National or European Politicians? Gauging MEPs Polarity When Russia is Concerned," HSE Working papers WP BRP 35/PS/2016, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    7. Zoe Lefkofridi, 2020. "Competition in the European Arena: How the Rules of the Game Help Nationalists Gain," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 41-49.
    8. Amie Kreppel & Corinne Tomasi, 2025. "Oversight, Accountability, or Influence? Understanding the Use of Monetary Dialogues in the European Parliament," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 13.
    9. Edoardo Bressanelli & Christel Koop & Christine Reh, 2016. "The impact of informalisation: Early agreements and voting cohesion in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 17(1), pages 91-113, March.
    10. Fraccaroli, Nicolò & Giovannini, Alessandro & Jamet, Jean-François & Persson, Eric, 2022. "Ideology and monetary policy. The role of political parties’ stances in the European Central Bank’s parliamentary hearings," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    11. Wolfram Kaiser, 2017. "Limits of Cultural Engineering: Actors and Narratives in the European Parliament's House of European History Project," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(3), pages 518-534, May.
    12. Heike Klüver & Iñaki Sagarzazu, 2013. "Ideological congruency and decision-making speed: The effect of partisanship across European Union institutions," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(3), pages 388-407, September.
    13. Wagner, Wolfgang & Herranz-Surrallés, Anna & Kaarbo, Juliet & Ostermann, Falk, 2017. "Politicization, party politics and military missions deployment votes in France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Global Governance SP IV 2017-101, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    14. Natasha Kossovsky & Kathleen M. Carley, 2020. "The collapse of the second Yatsenyuk government: roll call vote and dynamic network analysis," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 123-143, March.
    15. Darko Cherepnalkoski & Andreas Karpf & Igor Mozetič & Miha Grčar, 2016. "Cohesion and Coalition Formation in the European Parliament: Roll-Call Votes and Twitter Activities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(11), pages 1-27, November.
    16. Bruce Desmarais, 2012. "Lessons in disguise: multivariate predictive mistakes in collective choice models," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(3), pages 719-737, June.
    17. Abdul G. Noury & Gérard Roland, 2002. "More power to the European Parliament? [‘Nice try: Should the Treaty of Nice be ratified’?]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 17(35), pages 279-319.
    18. Eugenio Salvati, 2024. "Debating Legitimacy and Solidarity in the European Parliament: Patterns of Opposition and Conflict During the Pandemic," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(6), pages 1692-1711, November.
    19. Manuele Citi, 2015. "European Union budget politics: Explaining stability and change in spending allocations," European Union Politics, , vol. 16(2), pages 260-280, June.
    20. David M Willumsen, 2018. "The Council’s REACH? National governments’ influence in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 19(4), pages 663-683, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:26:y:2025:i:3:p:637-644. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.