European integration and the economic crisis: The changing positions of left parties in Spain and Italy

Abstract

Historically leftist parties did not have a uniform position toward the EU: on the one hand, the radical left parties (RLPs) were critical toward the neoliberal character of the integration process; on the other hand, social democratic parties (SDPs) generally showed a Europhile attitude similar to other mainstream forces. This chapter aims at answering one main question: eight years after the eruption of the crisis, to what extent do the two party families hold divergent positions toward the EU? In order to answer these questions, we propose a binary comparison between Italy and Spain taking into consideration parties that belong to both party families: the PSOE and the PD for the social democratic parties and IU-Podemos and PRC-SEL for the RLPs.