Different Concepts of Relations between European and National Party Structures: Oskar Niedermayer's Model of Europarties' Institutionalisation Revisited

According to Oskar Niedermayer’s (1983) concept of Europarties’ institutionalization, these organizations have to go through three phases (contact, cooperation, integration) in order to be fully institutionalised. Researchers dealing with Europarties put them at the second stage (Ladrech 2002), between the second and third (Johansson, Zervakis 2002) or at the beginning of the third phase of development (Sandström, 2004) depending on which transnational organization they analysed. It seems to be obvious that Europarties established in various periods (form 1970s till nowadays) can be at different stages of institutionalisation process. Surprisingly, organizations that were created at the same time significantly differ as well. Whereas some tend to create highly integrated supranational structure, the others seem to settle for inter-party cooperation. Hence, the aim of the paper is to analyse relations between Europarties and their member-parties to answer the question of whether the only way of development (institutionalization) is the accomplishment of integration phase. Europarties operate in the multi-level system of the European Union, hence maybe the other model of development is possible like in the case of parties operating in federal states where state-wide parties are often federations of regional ones. In order to address the question it is worth considering where individual Europarties currently are on their path of the Niedermayer’s model of development. This can be done by analysing: extent to which national parties exert influence on European party structures and whether the autonomy of the former is limited through their membership in the latter (Fabre 2011). The influence is measured by the involvement of national parties in composition of Europarties’ bodies, decision-making process within Europarties (including selection of leading candidates), using (if so, to which extent) or not common symbols, common membership etc. The limitation of national parties’ autonomy (often voluntary and self-imposed) is illustrated by examples from CEE member-states. Placing parties established at the same time in different places of the spectrum reaching form cooperation to integration may be testified not so much by the low level of institutionalization of some of them comparing to the others, but about the adoption of a different vision of development and relations with the member parties. Subjects of the analysis are all Europarties formally recognized by the EU in 2019: ALDE, EPP, PES, EDP, EFA, EGP, PEL, ACRE, ECPM, ENF.