The analysis indicates that popular support for EMU – in particular, trust in the ECB – hinges to a large extent on citizens’ perceptions of their personal situation and the overall economic context, as well as their broader attitudes towards the European Union...
Introduction
The financial and sovereign debt crisis brought issues of economic and monetary integration to the forefront of European and national political debates. This article explores the impact of these developments on public opinion. To this end, it traces developments in citizens’ attitudes towards European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) along two central dimensions: citizens’ support for the euro as the most tangible outcome of economic and monetary integration at the European level; and citizens’ trust in the European Central Bank (ECB) as the institution tasked with defining and implementing monetary policy for the euro area and safeguarding the stability of the single European currency.
While the euro and the ECB are closely linked at the institutional level, public opinion towards the two has followed divergent trends since the crisis. Citizens’ support for the euro remained stable at high levels even at the height of the crisis. By contrast, public trust in the ECB declined significantly during the crisis and has since been slow to recover. In autumn 2019 support for the euro among euro area citizens stood at 76%, following an almost continuous increase from spring 2016, while 18% of respondents in the euro area were opposed to the euro. By contrast, a total of 42% of euro area respondents expressed trust in the ECB, compared with 44% who said they did not trust the institution. As a result, net trust in the ECB remains in negative territory, while net support for the euro has been increasing steadily since 2013 and reached a record high in autumn 2019 (see Chart 1).
Chart 1
Net trust in the ECB and net support for the euro
Euro area, spring 1999 – autumn 2019
(percentage points)
Sources: Eurobarometer, own calculations.
Notes: Net support for the euro is calculated as the share answering “for” minus the share answering “against” to the question “Please tell me whether you are for or against it: A European economic and monetary union with one single currency, the euro.” Net trust is calculated as the share of respondents giving the answer “Tend to trust” minus the share giving the answer “Tend not to trust” to the question “Please tell me if you tend to trust it or tend not to trust it?: The European Central Bank.” Respondents who answered “don't know” are excluded in both cases.
This article explores this divergence in citizens’ support for the euro and trust in the ECB in greater detail. Who are the citizens who support the common currency, but do not have confidence in the ECB? How do they differ from those citizens who support the euro and have trust in the ECB? To explore these questions, we introduce a fourfold typology of attitudes towards EMU based on different combinations of citizens’ views on the euro and the ECB. Drawing on survey data from the Eurobarometer, we analyse the prevalence of the different groups in the general public of the euro area from the inception of the common currency in 1999 to 2019. We explore variation at euro area EU Member State and regional levels, among different sociodemographic groups and based on citizens’ economic perceptions and socio-political orientations...
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