New Parliament, New Cleavages after the Eastern Enlargement? The Conflict over the Services Directive as an Opposition between the Liberals and the Regulators

This article analyses the parliamentary debates and decision‐making related to the highly contentious EU directive on services. It is intended as a contribution to the academic debate on political conflict lines in the European Parliament. Our argument is that neither the left–right cleavage nor a territorial one (old versus new Member States) can fully explain conflict at stake on socio‐economic issues. Rather, what we can observe is cross‐cutting opposition between ‘regulators’ and ‘liberals’.