Radical right-wing Eurosceptics as public orators in the European Parliament: the logic of persuasion as an instrument to break consensus

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine how members of the political group Identity and Democracy (I&D) attempt to break the existing pro-Ukrainian consensus in the European Parliament (EP). The adopted hypothesis is that I&D MEPs do that through the mechanism of the logic of persuasion. It was verified by analysing speeches during EP plenary debates on the situation in Ukraine and looking for evidence of this mechanism within them. The analysis demonstrated that almost 1/4 of the I&D political group uses the logic of persuasion in all their speeches to break the pro-Ukrainian consensus in the EP, but only six MEPs are likely to do that intentionally. However, some of the analysed MEPs use this mechanism in their speeches to undermine the consensus on migration and asylum policy.

Keywords

• Euroscepticism
• European Parliament
• logic of persuasion
• public orators