Flexible Venues and Voices: Populist and Right-Wing Parties, the European Parliament and Civil Society Equality Organizations 2014-2019

The European Parliament (EP) offers channels for policy input through committees, intragroups, and the commissioning of reports and studies. Civil society equality organizations (CSOs) promoting diversity, gender equality and sexual rights are among the actors using such channels. Today they experience severe cut-backs and direct attacks by populist and radical-right parties who increasingly gained electoral support in several member states. The trajectory on the supranational level is less clear. This article examines the question of whether the increase in populist and right-wing parties in the EP changed how supranational CSOs promoting (gender) equality used venues for making their voice heard in EP policy-making in the 2014–2019 legislature. We investigate the challenges to the relationships between the EP, its committees and political groups, and equality CSOs. Analysing documents and interviews with MEPs and CSOs, our findings show that in the changing political environment, CSOs have moved towards more informal channels of participation, thereby avoiding polarization and conflict and maintaining an effective presence on the political stage.