How Hard Does It Have to Be? Reconsidering European Integration and Hard Euroscepticism

Andrea Pareschi

Journal of Common Market Studies, 2026, vol. 64, issue 1, 449-460

Abstract: Recent research on party‐based Euroscepticism increasingly ascribes ‘hard Euroscepticism’ only to parties pursuing exit from the EU. I argue that such interpretation, besides deviating from Taggart and Szczerbiak's original work, conceals the actual extent of ‘principled opposition’ to European integration. This contribution reconsiders and redefines hard Euroscepticism, restoring consistency with Szczerbiak and Taggart's reasoning whilst anchoring the category in the substantive core of European integration: an integrated common market, the legitimacy of a supranational layer, the possibility of further expansion of competences and EU core values. Compared to the understanding centred on exit, this (re)definition brings several advantages. Above all, it prevents the reduction of hard Euroscepticism to a merely strategic–tactical variable exclusively reserved for opposition parties. Moreover, it avoids the conflation of ‘strange bedfellows’ in the adjacent category of soft Euroscepticism. These arguments should stoke debate on the relationship between interpretations of European integration and Euroscepticism, hard and soft.

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13745

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jcmkts:v:64:y:2026:i:1:p:449-460

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0021-9886

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Common Market Studies is currently edited by Jim Rollo and Daniel Wincott

More articles in Journal of Common Market Studies from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().