The EU Party System after Eastern Enlargement

This paper investigates whether and how the process of Eastern enlargement of the European Union has altered the EU party system. This process has added representatives of some forty new parties to the previous structure. Comparing party placements on the two main dimensions of political contestation in the EU — the left–right dimension and integration–independence dimension — it is found that Eastern enlargement did surprisingly little to the format of the party system and the stature of its political groups, both regarding their distinctiveness and their cohesion.