Sinn Fein's Approach to the EU: Still More 'Critical' than 'Engaged'?

Sinn Fein's relationship with the European Union has changed significantly since the late 1990s. The party has moved from a position of outright opposition to European integration to one of 'critical engagement'. This has been embodied most clearly in its campaigning (and growing success) in European Parliament elections and referendums on European treaties. The degree to which this constitutes a process of Europeanization of the party is tempered, however, by the motivations for this shift in policy, which are closely related to the party's electoral and political strategies in both parts of Ireland. Moreover, the party's cautious engagement with the EU is predicated on a careful presentation of itself as a resolutely republican and left-wing party. The role it plays in European elections and referendums, therefore, is a self-consciously independent and oppositional one. The Europeanization of the party is clearly shaped by the motives, context and dynamics of the domestic arena as much as the European one. This is exemplified in the de facto prioritizing of the 'critical' over the 'engaged' elements in Sinn Fein's approach to European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]