The Political Space in the European Parliament: Measuring MEPs' Preferences Amid the Rise of Euroscepticism

The 2014-19 European Parliament (EP) contained an unprecedented number of Eu-rosceptic Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). These changes reflecteda growing politicisation of European integration in which conflicts between thoseopposing the process and those favouring it became more pronounced. Using aunique time-series of surveys of the European parliamentarians, we examine howfar the policy preferences of the MEPs responded to this politicisation. MEPs’ pref-erences over general policy questions as well as EU-specific issues have traditionallybeen described by a multi-dimensional space: with a left-right dimension, incor-porating both economic and socio-cultural issues, distinct from a pro-/anti-Europedimension. We find that the political space in the EP evolved in the 2014-19 par-liament, with MEPs’ preferences more strongly aligned along a single dimension,which captures economic, socio-cultural, and EU integration issues.