Euroscepticism as an Aggregating Force? The Political Convergence Underpinning NGEU
The establishment of Next Generation EU (NGEU) represented a significant departure from the economic policy paradigm that had characterised the European Union’s response to the sovereign debt crisis. Less than a decade after the adoption of austerity-oriented policies, strict conditionality and fiscal discipline, the EU authorised the European Commission to borrow on capital markets and to transfer substantial resources to Member States through both grants and loans. NGEU therefore introduced an unprecedented degree of fiscal capacity and redistribution at the European level, while redirecting conditionality towards reforms and investments consistent with common European priorities.
This policy brief argues that the Covid-19 pandemic alone does not fully explain this paradigm shift. Alongside the severity of the economic shock, the growing political weight of Euroscepticism altered the incentives facing national governments and European institutions. Here, Euroscepticism is understood primarily as a political phenomenon expressed through parties and movements that challenge either specific EU policies or the integration project itself, ranging from soft to hard Euroscepticism. It should not, however, be understood as a homogeneous or uniformly distributed force. Its political content and intensity have differed across Member States and ideological families.
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