‘Against the Hegemony of Brussels’. The Anti-Europeanism of Right-Wing Political Parties in Poland

The chapter examines key features of anti-EU populist narratives in the Polish public sphere in the years 1998 - 2019. Empirically, the analysis covers both the discourse of Eurosceptic groups, starting from Liga Polskich Rodzin (League of Polish Families) and Samoobrona Rzeczypospolitej (Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland), which advocated the idea of rejecting the EU accession treaty in June 2003 as well as Solidarna Polska (Solidary Poland) and Konfederacja (Confederation) down to political parties representing “soft” euroscepticism, such as Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice) and the Kukiz’15 movement. The chapter identifies common elements of the anti-EU narrative of Polish right-wing populist parties since the opening of accession negotiations in 1998 to the European Parliament elections in May 2019.