How ‘European sovereignty’ became mainstream: the geopoliticisation of the EU’s ’sovereign turn’ by pro-EU executive actors

ABSTRACT

There is a growing body of research on the leading role of radical and populist parties to situate ‘sovereignty’ as an increasingly central element of political discourse. However, there is much less said about the response of pro-EU actors, and how they can accommodate, modify, or reject the notion of ‘sovereignty’. The article begins with the following research question: what role does ‘European sovereignty’ play in the legitimation strategies among pro-EU executive actors? Through a framing analysis of Spanish, French, German, and EU executive actors, we uncover the way in which they articulate (European) sovereignty in their speeches. We argue that the resignification of the concept of sovereignty as ‘European’ plays a relevant role in the rearticulation of European politics, mostly led by French President Emmanuel Macron. The mainstreaming of ‘European sovereignty’ has implications for power relations, as it orients European political debates towards a geopolitical perspective.

KEYWORDS:

• Sovereignty
• pro-EU actors
• legitimation
• discourse
• framing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Juan Roch was financially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Universidades as a holder of a Margarita Salas postdoctoral fellowship (CAI/RSUE/2021-00334). Alvaro Oleart is a postdoctoral researcher supported by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS.