Euroscepticism, also known as EU-scepticism, means criticism of the European Union (EU) and European integration. It ranges from those who oppose some EU institutions and policies and seek reform, to those who oppose EU membership outright and see the EU as unreformable. The opposite of Euroscepticism is known as pro-Europeanism, or European Unionism.
Greece is a parliamentary representative democratic republic, where the President of Greece is the head of state and the Prime Minister of Greece is the head of government within a multi-party system. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Hellenic Parliament. Between the restoration of democracy in 1974 and the Greek government-debt crisis the party system was dominated by the liberal-conservative New Democracy and the social-democratic PASOK.
The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy is a conservative-liberal political party in the Netherlands. The VVD, whose forerunner was the Freedom Party, is a party of the centre-right, which promotes private enterprise and economic liberalism.
Janez Drnovšek was a Slovenian liberal politician, President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia (1989–1990), Prime Minister of Slovenia and President of Slovenia (2002–2007).
The Justice and Development Party, abbreviated officially AK Parti in Turkish, is a conservative and populist political party in Turkey. As of 2021 the party is the largest in Turkey and has been in power almost continuously since 2003, with its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, prime minister or president during most of this time, and still president as of 2021. The party suffered a setback in the 2019 local elections, losing Istanbul and Ankara and other large cities, in addition to losses attributed to the Turkish economic crisis, accusations of authoritarianism, as well as alleged government inaction on the Syrian refugee crisis.
The Movement for Social Democracy is a Greek Cypriot, social-democratic political party in Cyprus.
The Democratic Party is a Greek-Cypriot nationalist, centrist political party in Cyprus founded in 1976 by Spyros Kyprianou.
New Democracy is a liberal-conservative political party in Greece. In contemporary Greek politics, New Democracy has been the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties along with its historic rival, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK). New Democracy and PASOK were created in the wake of the toppling of the military junta in 1974, and ruled Greece alternately for the next four decades. Following the electoral decline of PASOK, New Democracy remained one of the two major parties in Greece, the other being the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA).
Law and Justice is a right-wing national-conservative political party in Poland. It is a member of the Eurosceptic European Conservatives and Reformists Party at European Union level. With 198 seats in the Polish Sejm and 48 in the Senate, PiS is currently the largest political party in the Polish parliament, and the dominant party of the United Right ruling coalition. The current twenty-five PiS MEPs sit in the European Conservatives and Reformists Group in the European Parliament.
Order and Justice, formerly the Liberal Democratic Party was a right-wing national-conservative political party in Lithuania that self-identified as "left-of-centre", at least on economic matters. It had eight members in the Seimas, the unicameral Lithuanian parliament, as of the last election it participated in (2016).
Theodora "Dora" Bakoyanni is a Greek politician. From 2006 to 2009 she was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, the highest position ever to have been held by a woman in the Cabinet of Greece at the time; she was also Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in 2009. Previously she was the Mayor of Athens from 2003 to 2006, the first female mayor in the city's history, and the first woman to serve as mayor of a city hosting the Olympic Games. She also served as Minister for Culture of Greece from 1992 to 1993.
Dimitris Avramopoulos is a Greek politician of the conservative New Democracy party, and former career diplomat. He has served in various high-level cabinet posts, including Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for National Defence, and was Mayor of Athens in 1995–2002. He served as EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship in the Juncker Commission between 2014 and 2019.
Turkey is negotiating its accession to the European Union (EU) as a member state, following its application to become a full member of the European Economic Community (EEC), the predecessor of the EU, on 14 April 1987.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in Cyprus may face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Both male and female same-sex sexual activity are legal in Cyprus, and civil unions which grant several of the rights and benefits of marriage have been legal since December 2015.
Oleksandr Volodymyrovych Lavrynovych is a Ukrainian physicist, lawyer, politician, former member of the Supreme Council of Justice of Ukraine, a former Ukrainian member of parliament and former Minister of Justice of Ukraine. He is a Merited Jurist of Ukraine (2003). He was one of the founders of the first democratic party in Ukraine in 1989 – People's Movement of Ukraine and considered to be one of the "fathers" of the independence of Ukraine from the Soviet Union.
The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) is a Eurosceptic, anti-federalist political group of the European Parliament. The ECR is the parliamentary group of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party European political party (formerly known as the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe or Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, but also includes MEPs from four other European parties and thirteen MEPs without European party affiliation.
The Movement for a Europe of Liberties and Democracy, abbreviated to MELD, was a national-conservative political party at European level founded in 2011, composed of parties belonging to the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group in the European Parliament, with the notable absence of the UK Independence Party, which was a member of the EFD, but not of the MELD. In 2012, MELD received a grant from the European Parliament of €621,482. Its affiliated political foundation was the Foundation for a Europe of Liberties and Democracy (FELD), which received a grant of €412,361. Both were headquartered at 18, rue Cler, in Paris, France. The president of the party was Jacek Wlosowicz.
Democratic socialism is a left-wing political philosophy that supports political democracy within a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy and workers' self-management within a market socialist economy, or an alternative form of a decentralised planned socialist economy. Democratic socialists argue that capitalism is inherently incompatible with the values of freedom, equality and solidarity, and that these ideals can only be achieved through the realisation of a socialist society. Although most democratic socialists seek a gradual reformist transition to socialism, democratic socialism can support revolutionary politics as means to establish socialism.
Kyriakos Mavronikolas is a Cypriot Movement for Social Democracy politician. He served as the Cypriot Minister of Defence from 2003 to 2006, and he sat as a Member of the European Parliament for Cyprus from 2009 to 2012, when he vacated his seat and was replaced by Sophocles Sophocleous. Mavronikolas is a graduate of the University of Athens faculty of medicine, and outside politics he works as an ophthalmologist.
Sophocles Sophocleous was born and educated in Lefkosia. He then studied at the University of Human Sciences of Strasbourg and Paris-X-Nanterre and at ICCROM in Rome.
