POSITIONSFÖRFLYTTNING I EU-FRÅGAN - En analys av hur MP, V och SD uttrycker sig om EU i samband med att de avlägsnat kravet på EU-utträde

Abstract

The Swedish Green Party, the Swedish Left Party and the Sweden Democrats are the only political parties that have shifted from advocating for Sweden to leave the European Union to accepting the Swedish EU-membership in the past 15 years. Previous research in this field has focused on explaining how different political parties position themselves towards, or express their views on, the European Union. Little research has been done on how parties express their views on the European Union when shifting their EU-policy. This essay aims to analyze how the Swedish Green Party, Swedish Left Party and Sweden Democrats explain their position to the EU before and after removing their aspiration to leave the EU from their party programmes. The qualitative research of party programmes and debate articles results in three primary findings. Firstly, all of the three parties use similar themes when discussing their EU-policy both before and after the repositioning. However, they approach these themes from different angles due to their ideological differences. Secondly, the Swedish Left party rarely mentions any benefits with international cooperation despite their globalist ideology. Thirdly, the parties do not bring up more positive aspects of the EU after repositioning.