ABSTRACT
Political parties in Europe differ in their policy positions on European integration. Most parties favor their country’s membership in the EU, though some oppose it. Some, while thinking that membership is generally a good thing, feel that steps towards unification have gone far enough – or even too far. Others believe that further steps should be taken. Political parties also differ in terms of more traditional political orientations – attitudes to the proper role of government in society, welfare provision, and other matters which have increasingly over the past half century come to be subsumed within a single orientation towards government action, generally referred to as the left-right orientation (Lipset 1960; Lijphart 1980; Franklin et al. 1992).
