„True democracy is opposed to liberal democracy”. These words open an essay in “The European Conservative”, an online journal, that regularly celebrates Orban‘s “Christian democracy” as a role model of conservative democracy. Conservatism, centering around the idea of an “extra-human origin of the social order independent of human will” and consequently essentially reactionary in its constant endeavour to (re-)establish that good order, is a natural contender of liberalism, with its emphasis on liberty (guaranteed through the protection of individual right), constrained power and neutrality towards different concepts of the “good life” (thus building on equality, tolerance, and pluralism and rejecting any normative order of preferences). As conservatives’ “good order” always builds on hierarchy and authority, it can be characterised as what Kauth and King term “ideological illiberalism”. This new conservatism comes with a different understanding of democracy, a claim to rebuild real popular sovereignty by placing greater emphasis on the commons (the national interest and defence of majority populations; traditional values, religion and patriotism; common sense and attitudes to morality) and reject liberalism’s “radical” overemphasis of the individual. Conservative thinkers call for a “conservative replacement of liberal democracy” understood as the freeing of democracy from the constraints imposed on it by liberalism to make the “true will of the people” heard. this paper wants to step away from the classificatory debates of illiberal democracies (and whether this is democracy at all), but aims to provide a better understanding of how different self-proclaimed “conservatives” understand and frame what they regard as the pathological problems of liberal democracy, in particular in the format the EU propagates. The focus in this paper is on current EU accession candidates and their “new conservatives” (parties and social movements), their design of “civilizational and true” democracy, and their resistance to and contestation of the EU’s liberal conditionality. In their resistance to “Western liberal values” (while not necessarily opposed to joining the EU), they find their role models in the “East”. This is relevant not only for critically addressing the transformative challenges of accession processes (and later potential for backsliding), but it also sheds light on conservative democracy promotion and consequently on conservative alliances in and outside the EU to create a “different” Europe rescued from the “moral, social and economic decay brought about by liberal democracy”.

The paper aims at comparing the European policies of Fidesz and Brothers of Italy. Both parties can be considered populist and right-wing parties, hence, somewhat out of the establishment. Moreover, both parties have criticised the way and form of the European integration several times, so can be considered Eurosceptic parties. Both parties are senior members of the goverment in their countries, which helps to examine not only their communication but also their actions in the light of the European integration process. It is impossible to compare all aspects of their European policies, so the paper focuses on the most important dimensions. The parties' attitude towards the deepeing of the European integration is on the limelight, i.e. how these parties think about the various aspects of the closer integration in certain areas. On the other hand, the paper does not neglect the question of widening of the integration process, so the these parties' opinion on the accession of new member states (Western Balkans, Ukraine etc.). The paper concludes that apart from foreign policy priorities, the examined parties' crticism towards the EU is quite similar and based on their countries' peripheric position within the integration. It raises the question whether we can talk about a centre-periphery division instead of an East-West one.

Serbia has recently experienced significant democratic backsliding. While the internal, domestic factors leading to this phenomenon have been widely examined in existing literature (Bieber 2020; Kmezić 2020; Pavlović 2020; Stojarová 2020), this paper focuses on the external aspect of this worrying trend. It specifically intends to conduct a comparative analysis of how European transnational parties responded to democratic erosion by looking at the convergences and divergences characterizing the strategies adopted by two leading European parties, the EPP and the PES, in their interactions with increasingly undemocratic Serbian authorities. This approach is motivated by a marked difference in how the EPP and the PES – presumably following the logic of partisan allegiance – responded to autocratic tendencies in this country.

The EPP largely ignored the increasingly non-democratic practices of its Serbian affiliate, the Serbian Progressive Party. On the other hand, the PES has been more critical towards Serbian authorities, criticising ‘a mockery of democracy’ and calling upon EU members to block its accession negotiations. The diverse views of two leading European parties have been most apparent following the December 2023 Serbian elections, widely perceived as unfair or even ‘stolen’ by the regime.

I seek to comparatively examine the driving forces behind their actions and analyse the positions of individual national members of these party federations. I will investigate the role of ideology, partisanship, and intra-party dynamics in shaping their stances, aiming at understanding how these factors interact within the Union’s complex party system. I also seek to examine how the lack of consistency among key EU players affected both the Serbian EU membership bid and its fragile democracy, further weakening the credibility of the Union in this region.

To do so, I will analyse the official materials of European parties. However, I will primarily examine qualitatively the contents of amendments tabled by these parliamentary groups to EP resolutions concerning this Western Balkan state. Additionally, I will scrutinise their motions for a split vote on relevant provisions of these resolutions and how individual MEPs voted on these issues. This is a relatively novel approach that may reveal the genuine position of European parties, unlike looking at the content of EP resolutions themselves which tend to be the result of the trade-offs between parliamentary groups.

The populist radical right (PRR) in Europe has long been portrayed as small fringe groups at the outskirts of mainstream politics, groups with neo-fascist agendas, hostile to the very notions of democracy and freedom(s). And yet, over the past few decades, PRR actors across Europe, both in the East and in the West, have not only successfully adopted the mainstream (liberal democratic) vocabulary but also creatively adapted it to their own ideological needs, turning the concepts of democracy and freedom(s) into key discursive tools in their strategies of power struggle. This paper uncovers mechanisms behind the discursive construction and use of the concepts of democracy and freedom(s) by PRR parties in different electoral contexts across the European Union.

By focusing on the cases of two very dissimilar PRR parties from different contexts in the common EU framework – the French National Rally and Polish Law and Justice – the paper offers a (synchronic as well as longitudinal) comparative analysis of electoral speeches given by their respective leaders between 2007 and 2023. Taking inspiration from the post-foundational tradition, it combines Rhetorical-Performative Analysis with some methods and techniques from the toolkit of the Discourse-Historical Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis focusing on functional grammar, reference analysis, and pragmatics.

The paper shows that despite some differences, PRR actors both in Western and Eastern Europe have effectively appropriated the concepts of democracy and freedom(s) redefining them along populist, nativist, and authoritarian lines. Hence, the PRR has managed to normalise and mainstream its (previously marginal and radical) views and positions ultimately challenging the current hegemonic order in the EU.