Abstract
This chapter analyzes the complexity of the transnational links of the minority nationalist parties. Since the first 1979 European elections, a fundamental dualism in transnational links developed: the search for the formation of a single political group and Europarty or the integration in other political groups and Europarties. The emergence and trajectory of transnational party links inserting minority nationalist parties, its nature and limits were the result of a process of political negotiations among transnational party elites and resulted in the fragmentation of the party family. Beyond the constraints imposed by minor size, the historical trajectory of transnational party coordination and the division of the minority nationalist party family respond to the heterogeneous ideology and the strategic dilemmas confronting minority nationalist parties in the European arena. The chapter describes how minority nationalist parties are scattered among different political groups and Europarties, and how these divisions have become a permanent feature of the party family in the European arena.
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Notes
- 1.
Signing parties included the Irish Republican Movement , the Galician UPG , later followed by other parties such as Euskal Herriko Alderdi Socialista , Esquerra Catalana des Traballadors.
- 2.
In 1978, the Breton UDB, born in 1964, was in the midst of a major crisis. The dark tide that followed the sinking of the Amoco-Cadiz preceded a major crisis of the party with the rupture with the left and its declining electoral performance afterwards.
- 3.
Other organizations would emerge within the context of party and civil society networks. The framework of the CONSEO, Conference of Nations without a State in Western Europe, provided a symbolic mantle of solidarity to movements across Western Europe (ERC, BNG, Sinn Fein, HB, the Corsican FLNC). Unlike EFA, whose efforts were always to organize party political space in Europe, the CONSEU included political parties , political movements and associations through several conferences since the 1980s.
- 4.
The leadership of EFA was in the hands of Flemish politicians, formally the presidents of EFA (except for the Scottish W. Ewing and Carlos Garaicoetxea), until 2014.
- 5.
According to EFA membership , the Europarty counts 38 full members and six parties with observer status (www.e-f-a.org/whos-who/memberparties).
- 6.
The question of the programmatic diversity of nationalist parties as a potential obstacle to common political action was solved within EFA with Phil Williams’ PC proposal of a joint manifesto under the principle of the lowest common denominator (Lynch 1996: 146).
- 7.
In the case of the SNP, the option of independence in Europe has prevailed over time, Plaid preferred self-government , and other parties oscillated, such as the N-VA and the CDC . Demands have increasingly moved from the integral regionalism launched by EFA in 1981 to the claim of ‘internal enlargement’ in Europe in EFA programs.
- 8.
EFA also failed to integrate the SVP, a distance that was historically preserved over time.
- 9.
This move was not without consequences since the presidency of EFA in the hands of the Flemish Eric de Voort passed to Francois Alfonsi.
- 10.
EFA has the right to veto if there is more than one party. But EFA did not create the problems, when Spirit was dissolved, N-VA joined EFA. In the case of EA and Aralar , EA was one of the founding parties of EFA and EA abstained from voting. The veto right was not exercised.
- 11.
EFA in the European parliament includes an MEP from the Latvian Latvijas Krievu sabieniva, Tatiana Zdanova, since 2009.
- 12.
This is the case of the CiU, the PNV, the SVP and the SFP as governing or coalition partners, the latter at the national level.
- 13.
EFA did not have a candidate to preside the Commission, we think that efforts have to be concentrated where they should be and we do not have any chance to influence the decision.
- 14.
In France, Italy and particularly in Spain, these electoral alliances joined parties from different regions to secure representation in the EU parliament.
- 15.
The coalition reached the limits with the inclusion of the BNG in the coalition for the 2004 European elections that, according to one of its coalition partners, shocked the rest of the parties for its Eurosceptical electoral campaign.
- 16.
Tribunal Constitutional 28/1991 (Montero and Cordero 2009).
- 17.
The Spanish Popular party promoted a change in the statutes, a new Article 5 that required membership on regional organizations in order to become part of the international.
- 18.
In the 2009 and 2014 European elections, new political parties , UPyD and Ciudadanos, obtained representation in the European parliament. The party asked for and obtained affiliation in the Liberal group. A reaction from Convergencia and PNV soon took place. The relationships with this party, in particular, after the Catalan escalation of demands for a referendum, were sour. In 2014, both parties rejected first the inclusion of Ciudadanos in the group, and after it became a fait accompli, attempted the creation of subgroup within the Liberals to accommodate minority nationalist parties—in the event that the Flemish N-VA would join the group, which it did not, since the Flemish party entered the Conservative ECG.
- 19.
The N-VA had entered a coalition with the Flemish CD for the 2004 European elections.
- 20.
Flemish Greens in the Greens-EFA group were not entirely convinced of this institutional arrangement given the domestic tensions between the parties. Nevertheless, N-VA continued to be part of the EFA group during the seventh legislature.
- 21.
The party joined the European Conservative group after previous speculations they would in fact join the Liberal group, and under the accusation of its leader Guy Verhofstadt, since it implied the surpassing of the Liberal group by the Conservative group as third group in the EP.
- 22.
European Liberals such as Graham Wilson or Van Halen have publicly supported these political processes in Catalonia.
- 23.
The Catalan process, from the demonstration of September 2012 to the anticipated elections in November 2012, marked a major breakthrough. For Catalan MEPs, the Catalan process is clearer than the Scottish one, but in the British case, the British government of Cameron supported the celebration of a legal Scottish referendum. Thus, the Catalan route would be different.
- 24.
UDC was not an independentist party, and its proposals included a confederal Spain within federal Europe . The issue of the consulta raised the question of the legal and political prospects for independence within Europe in order not to cross the line of Catalan independence outside the EU.
- 25.
What would we do with those of the Padania?
- 26.
This new adscription is defended by the PNV in these terms: We feel comfortable with membership in the European Democratic party, since we are a humanist party.
- 27.
The search for political allies and recognition involved the lobbying activities of Catalan MEPs and also the president of the Catalan regional government in Brussels. President Mas held a conference in Brussels in /11/2012 before the elections, in the think-tank Friends of Europe, everybody was there and he presented his route map. In 2012, the plan involved two alternatives. Plan A, if parties ask for a transfer of competences to the Spanish government, plan B a Catalan law of consultas, and plan C, anticipated elections. It was formulated before the elections. There, Mas was asked the meaning of an independent Catalonia. If a federal Europe comes into existence, Massachusetts, if there is no federated Europe, then, Finland. Thus, Mas made explicit the envisioned political scenario.
- 28.
In turn, territorial divisions are increasingly more important than ideological ones. Issues such as the banking system or euro are very divisive. Another issue that divides parties is the question of more or less Europe.
- 29.
Despite the efforts of the EFA secretariat in the European parliament to convince them to participate in EFA, EH Bildu decided to join the Confederal group of the European United Left.
- 30.
In 2004, the coalition did not materialize because of the presence of PNV and CDC , which ultimately was considered a right-wing party collaborating with the Aznar government.
- 31.
UDC , for example, had contacts with the SVP (in the same group) and the partido húngaro in Romania for linguistic matters.
- 32.
The divisions and cooperation in the European parliament are complex. In the European parliament, there are other types of borders in cultural and linguistic issues. The Hungarian minorities are very sensitive for instance in the intergroup. In specific issues, there are analogies that go beyond the ideological spectrum. In agricultural matters, and the divisions of North-South are mingled with ideological divisions.
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Gómez-Reino, M. (2018). Transnational Party Coordination Among Minority Nationalist Parties. In: Nationalisms in the European Arena . Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65951-0_5
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