European radical left foreign policy after the invasion of Ukraine: shifts in assertiveness towards Russia

ABSTRACT

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has prompted a closer examination of parties’ attitudes towards the Putin regime. While research has examined the connections of the EU's far-right with Russia, less attention has been given to the stances of Radical Left Parties (RLPs). We close this gap by analysing Roll Call Votes (RCVs) in the European Parliament. Our findings indicate that RLPs displayed the lowest levels of assertiveness towards Russia before 2022, being even less assertive than other Eurosceptic groups. RLPs significantly increased their assertiveness after the invasion, bringing them closer to the EP mainstream. However, some divergence in assertiveness towards Russia existed within the RLPs before 2022 and remains relevant after the invasion, with the Traditional/Communist parties standing closer to Russia than radical New Left/Democratic Socialist parties.

KEYWORDS:

• Russia
• European Union
• Radical Left Parties
• 2022 invasion of Ukraine
• foreign policy

Acknowledgements

We express our sincere gratitude to Ben Martill and David Patton for their invaluable advice. We are also deeply thankful to Milada Vachudova and Grigore Pop-Eleches for their crucial guidance and for facilitating discussions about our paper with other participants at the panel, 'Central and East European Perspectives on Russia's War on Ukraine,' during the CES Conference in Reykjavik in June 2023. Additionally, we extend our appreciation to the four reviewers and the editors whose insights significantly enhanced the quality of our article.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 In the written explanation of their vote on the B9-0123/2022 (Russian aggression against Ukraine) about EU actions in support of Ukraine, C. Daly and M. Wallace (Independents for change, Ireland) both stated that ‘I voted against the final resolution because it is a recipe for prolonging the war, and escalating the conflict, rather than a resolution which could assist in delivering peace’ (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/197731/CLARE_DALY/other-activities/written-explanations).

2 Both EP groups criticize these alliances for various reasons, with the GUE/NGL expressing disdain for attacks on fundamental rights by the USA or Israel. A second point of agreement among right-wing and left-wing Eurosceptics centers on the belief that the EU itself, through its austerity measures, may inadvertently contribute to human rights violations. Consequently, both groups argue that the EU should refrain from asserting its commitment to human rights in its foreign policy (Börzel and Hartlapp 2022).

3 The challenge with these classifications lies in the complexity to capture parties’ dynamism, as some parties can be difficult to categorize, exhibiting ambiguity or volatility in their positions.

4 Revolutionary Extreme Left parties are small, ideological extreme and electorally irrelevant groups such as Trotskyist, Maoist or Leninist parties.

5 https://left.eu/issues/publications/nato-eu-end-the-militarisation-of-europe/

6 There is not a proper systematic description of the RLP's reaction yet but some original documents belonging to several RLPs exposing this interpretation can be found here https://links.org.au/ukraine-positions-european-left. The position of the Greek KKE can be read here https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Statement-of-Press-Office-of-the-CC-of-the-KKE-on-the-Ukraine-and-the-referendum-in-the-Crimea. The reaction of the leader of Podemos can be found, among other sources, here https://www.elmundo.es/espana/2014/09/09/540f0faf22601d76308b4574.html.

7 The text can be read here https://links.org.au/european-left-party-ukraine-ukraine-no-more-war-no-more-fascism. Interestingly, the text discusses the threat of imperialism from both Western countries and Russia, as well as the threat of fascism, which is attributed to the Ukrainian radical right and extreme right separatist groups in Donbas. However, it is noted that within some factions of the RLP activists, the separatist republics in Donbas and their militias are regarded as anti-fascist entities (see, for example, https://links.org.au/ukraine-dominates-discussion-party-european-lefts-summer-university).

8 Some RLPs have notoriously presented the war as a proxy conflict between NATO/US and a subordinated EU, vs Russia. Spanish United Left MEP M. Pineda stated that there was an attempt by the EU of ‘maintaining Ukraine in the EU’s sphere of influence’ in the ‘context of the NATO and Russia conflict’ (Macro-financial assistance to Ukraine (C9-0028/2022) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/197828/MANU_PINEDA/other-activities/written-explanations). Clare Daly, MEP from the Irish Independents for change, has stated on several occasions that ‘ignoring the role played by the US and NATO in destabilising the area for the past decade, using Ukraine as a pawn in its battles with Russia, only serves to prevent an understanding of the measures necessary to secure peace’ (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/197731/CLARE_DALY/other-activities/written-explanations).

9 Geopolitics and countries' security postures (Schuster and Maier 2006) can also influence parties' positions. Our analysis, which focuses on RLPs that are largely absent from Eastern Europe – with the exception of the Czech Republic – makes it challenging to properly assess the impact of these factors. Furthermore, initial explorations do not seem to indicate any significant differences between Southern and North-Western Europe.

10 The results are robust to this specification. Once abstention, absenteeism and non-voting are left out of the scope of the analyses, the overall level of assertiveness is obviously somewhat higher. Nonetheless, there are no significant differences in the effects of measurement among parties. Hence, unlike some PRRPs – especially the Hungarian Fidesz, see, e.g. Holesch and Zagórski (2023) – RLPs seem not to use abstention, absenteeism or non-voting to hide their eventual compliance with Russia.

11 Compared to Table 1, which gave the results for The Left in the EP group, we had to exclude the Dutch Party for Animals (PvdD), which is not considered to be an RLP, and we added KKE (the Communist Party of Greece) from the Non-inscrits, which clearly is an RLP. Similar to Table 1, the average level of assertiveness within this radical left group is 0.272. Before February 2022, the mean assertiveness stood at 0.164. Also in this case it nearly tripled to 0.478 after the invasion, confirming the largest increase among all party families in the EP.

12 In his written explanation of the vote on The EU’s Foreign, Security and Defense Policy after the Russian Invasion of Ukraine (A9-0164/2022), Spanish United Left MEP M. Pineda acknowledged ‘the presence of various elements that divide the (Left) group, such as the sanctions or the transfer of weapons to Ukraine’ (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/197828/MANU_PINEDA/other-activities/written-explanations).

13 Incumbency might also influence the shifts in policy. However, as we comment in the discussion, it seems less relevant than the other mentioned factors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Commission's Horizon Europe Programme for Research and Innovation, under the Grant Agreement number 101132483 (Project: BridgeGap).