ABSTRACT
During the foundational years of the European Community, the communist party family constituted the most cohesive partisan opponent of the integration process. This anti-integrationist consensus gave way to increasingly heterogeneous responses to the emerging European polity. Today, the radical left is one the most divided party families in terms of attitudes towards the EU. Dissent over the desirability and scope of further integration has furthermore hampered the cohesion of the radical left at the European level. This chapter outlines the development of radical left party responses to European integration and examines the reasons for the observed positional discrepancies. The results suggest that divergent trajectories can be explained in terms of coalition tactics and national structures of party competition.
