This panel examines the current stage of the European integration process across different dimensions. Papers examine attitudes towards the EU, policies and events, and how these affect European integration and the future of the EU. At a critical post-pandemic juncture, in a contested geostrategic role across conflicts, and the nearing European Parliament elections, political parties, political groups in the European Parliament and public opinion have been changing attitudes towards the EU and increased the salience of the EU issue in the everyday national political debates. The politicisation of the EU views opposing (successful) transnational collaborations, and contestation, pointing to accountability, transparency, legitimacy, and democracy. This is a significant development as the European Parliament has long been the arena in which Euroscepticism has manifested itself and already seen the surface of new forms of contestation. The first paper examines the origins of support for EU Cohesion politics, a crucial policy for a policy field where regions, and national agencies, are called to purpose projects and realize the funded interventions. The second paper addresses whether the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 could contribute to the Europeanisation of EU member states' domestic political discourse, by using an original dataset of all official Facebook posts published by national political parties in the 27 EU countries. The final two contributions examine the recent European Parliament elections, and how these change the Parliament itself and what that may mean for the future of the EU, and how EU politics is able to mobilize grassroots transnational movements outside the heart of EU politics.

Launched about 35 years ago, the EU Cohesion Policy is nowadays an established source of funding for the less developed regions across the Union. They represent a large frame of policy interventions covering different policy areas such as welfare, transportation, innovation etc. and absorbing one third of the whole EU budget. Although these resources produced a visible impact on infrastructures and services, scholars have paid little attention to citizens’ attitudes to EU regional cohesion policy. This study aims to fill this empirical gap by investigating the origins of (specific) support for EU Cohesion policy. Using data from an original cross-national survey conducted in 7 EU countries, we aim to assess the relationship between the perceived benefits coming from EU Cohesion Policy and citizens’ attitudes towards the political institutions and actors of their regions of residence. This is especially crucial for a policy field where regions (along with national agencies) are called to purpose projects and realize the funded interventions. Our theoretical perspective is that citizens’ perceptions about regional politics are a key explicative factor of the perceived benefits coming from an EU policy. This includes not only the perceived political/administrative efficiency of regions but also the perceptions about the lawfulness of political elites and people’s sense of political efficacy.

In this paper, we ask whether the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 could contribute to the Europeanisation of EU member states' domestic political discourse. Using an original dataset of all official Facebook posts published by national political parties in the 27 EU countries, we check to what extent their communications include references to the EU, its supranational institutions and leaders. We then investigate whether vertical discourse Europeanisation increases after the invasion and how it relates to the discussion of the conflict. We find that domestic political debates feature Europe and the EU to a greater extent after the Russian invasion, primarily driven by the conflict's importance as a 'European issue,' but the effect of the war is heterogeneous across parties and countries.

The 2024 European Parliament (EP) elections were held between Thursday 6 June and Sunday 9 June. Projections expected that the three largest groups, the European People’ Party, EPP; Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, S&D, and Renew, RE, would remain the same, that Identity and Democracy, ID, group would see a sizeable increase, and the Non-Inscrits would view lower seats. In 2009, 2014, and 2019, comments and expectations pointed to a raise of Euroscepticism in the European Chamber, although it was the populist radical right that made the biggest gains, with the increasing fragmentation across the EP. In this paper, we study the results of the 2024 EP elections and whether there was a Eurosceptical mobilization by assessing whether this can be considered a significant development in European politics. First, the analysis seeks to explore whether the current Eurosceptical contestation can still be described as Euroscepticism. Already in 2019, we could observe that new forms of contestation towards the EU were projected from both mainstream and radical right and left for an alternative EU. On the right, with a Eurosceptic stance, opposing EU integration on the political and economic side, protecting national sovereignty, in particular with regard to the immigration agenda; and on the left, adopting a Euroalternative stance, addressing accountability, transparency, legitimacy, democracy, the role of the ECB, and a border-free Europe. If this persists, we address whether it is worth to be examined as a breaker or maker of European integration.

Social movement scholarship has emphasized that a progressive ‘Europeanization from below’ may be a breeding ground for major EU reform. Empirically, however, activists have found it difficult to make gains when targeting the EU polity. In order to understand the challenges that activists face in the context of transnational EU mobilization, our article draws from agency-approaches in social movement studies to propose an ‘EU mobilization package,’ comprising of three reoccurring strategic dilemmas that activists targeting the EU encounter: (a) the formulation of goals that both target the transnational level and appeal to national or local constituencies; and (b) the building of a transnational political organization that is both inclusive and effective, and (c) whether and how to interact with EU institutions, particularly in the context of European elections. We apply this conceptual framework to the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), a transnational social movement organization founded by former Greek finance minister Yannis Varoufakis in 2015 with the aim of major EU reform. Based on interview data and the analysis of DiEM25 public material, a discussion of the group’s strategic challenges provides important general lessons for our understanding of social movement mobilization targeting EU politics and transnational activism more generally.