24 March 2017

Bruegel: European spring – Trust in the EU and democracy is recovering

Trust in the EU and satisfaction with democracy are returning in southern European countries, where citizens’ confidence in European institutions was dented during the crisis years.

[...]As Europe marks the 60th anniversary of the Rome Treaty, we can also see some positive developments: trust in the EU and satisfaction with democracy have actually been recovering for about three years now in southern Europe, where such trust had fallen the most compared to the other European countries. [...]

At the same time, it is remarkable that support for the euro remained at a high level in southern euro members and suffered little during the crisis. This may suggests that southern euro citizens consider euro membership useful, and when they face problems, they turn their negative views towards the EU and politics, reflected in lower satisfaction with democracy. [...]

There is a large heterogeneity both in the level and changes of citizens’ perceptions across the EU. Some interesting points:

 

• Trust in the EU has increased in the United Kingdom after the Brexit referendum, albeit from a low level;
• Trust in the EU and satisfaction with democracy are gradually falling in France;
• The euro is becoming even more popular in Germany, while trust in the EU has only slightly recovered;
• Satisfaction with democracy at home is the highest in Nordic countries: Denmark, Sweden and Finland;
• In all 13 new member states that joined the EU in 2004-13, satisfaction with home democracy has consistently been (much) lower than satisfaction with EU democracy, while the 15 older member states are mixed in this regard;
•  At the same time, satisfaction with home democracies is on an upward trend since the crisis in Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia;
• Support for the euro is lower now than a decade ago in those new member states that have not yet joined the single currency: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania – the same applies to Denmark and Sweden too;
• Support for the euro is at or close to its highest level in six new member states that have introduced the common currency: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia. This result, together with the previous point, suggests that euro area citizens are actually happy with euro membership, but the attractiveness of the euro has declined in the ‘outs’.

Full article on Bruegel

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