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The times they are a changin': Euroscepticism from the margins to the mainstream

Brussels, Belgium
24 June 2013

Until the end of the 1980s euroscepticism was largely a peripheral phenomenon. With the so-called 'permissive consensus' and the weak visibility of EU issues in most national arenas, it was largely confined to the margins. The situation has changed, however, as the EU has evolved and its competences have increased. With developments such as the Maastricht Treaty, the advent of the Euro, the 'big bang'  enlargement of 2004 (and the subsequent 2007 enlargement), the failed European constitution and the subsequent Lisbon Treaty, this permissive consensus' has come under increased strain across the EU nation states. Subsequently the crisis in the Eurozone has further galvanised opposition to the EU evidenced by 'hard' Eurosceptic political parties gaining ground against mainstream parties and the latter adopting an increasingly 'soft' Eurosceptic stance in response.  
With levels of scepticism on the rise at the level of public opinion, referendums in certain countries (and the prospect of them) serving to increase the salience of the EU, non-party groups gaining prominence and national medias increasingly questioning the rationale of the European project, the workshop, which draws on a range of prominent academic and practitioner perspectives, aims to take stock of how eurosceptcism has moved from the margins to the mainstream and to analyse the consequences of this for the future.