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THE EU IN THE WAKE OF BREXIT. RESULTS OF A REPRESENTATIVE SURVEY CONDUCTED IN EIGHT EU COUNTRIES
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called upon the Member States to show more
cohesion. Some countries, above all France and
Germany, have responded with a stronger reaf-
firmation of the EU. In this, they have the major-
ity of their respective populations on their side:
eight out of ten Germans and six out of ten
French are in favour of strengthening coopera-
tion. So are clear majorities in Spain, Italy and
Slovakia. Meanwhile, support is significantly
weaker in the Netherlands and Sweden. In the
Czech Republic, finally, more citizens are actu-
ally in favour of greater national autonomy than
more cooperation (47 to 40 %).
Basic attitudes towards the EU
In the autumn of 2015, as the refugee crisis was
unfolding, basic attitudes towards the EU were
rather sceptical: only somewhat more than one-
fourth (28 %) of citizens in the eight countries
surveyed believed that EU membership was to
the advantage of their country. One-third asso-
ciated it with disadvantages. Another consid-
ered advantages and disadvantages to be
roughly in balance. Attitudes in individual coun-
tries differed greatly, however. In five countries
– France, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden and the
Czech Republic – a plurality of citizens assumed
negative effects. This sceptical attitude was par-
ticularly salient in the Czech Republic at 44 %,
where by comparison only 13 % saw net advan-
tages. In Slovakia, positive and negative views
on EU membership were roughly equal. Solely
the attitudes of Germans and – particularly –
Spaniards displayed more optimism than pessi-
mism back then.
In early 2017, only one and a half years later,
a completely different picture emerges: EU
membership is assessed as significantly more
positive. Across countries, the percentage of
optimists has risen from 28 to 44 %, with only
22 % now fearing disadvantages (2015: 34 %).
There may be a causal link between this mood
swing and Brexit. Until recently, access to the EU
seemed tantamount to membership with no
option to leave. Making membership seem
more precarious, Brexit has apparently led to a
more focused analysis of the pros and cons of
EU membership. In all eight countries, there has
been a significant increase in the share of fa-
vourable views. At present, six of the eight
countries consider membership as positive. This
was only the case in three countries in 2015.
Views differ considerably between individual
countries, however. Germans display the most
positive balance: here the percentage of opti-
mists has doubled from 34 to 64 % (
Chart 2
).
A comparably positive development has tak-
en place in Slovakia, where the share of mem-
bership supporters has surged from 26 to 52 %.
Attitudes in Spain, where six out of ten citizens
hold the view that the benefits of EU member-
ship outweigh the disadvantages, are even
more marked. The citizens of Sweden, the
Netherlands and France now also see signifi-
cantly greater advantages than disadvantages in
EU membership.
Discernible doubt remains in Italy, where
citizens see advantages and disadvantages on
even keel. Current ambiguity does not equal
fundamental rejection of EU membership as
such, however, as two-thirds of Italians call for a
strengthening of integration. The Czech
Republic is the only country that views member-
ship as rather disadvantageous. Yet even in this
country traditionally EU-skeptical, a slight shift
can be observed: the share of optimists has
doubled from 13 to 25 %.
There is a widespread image of the EU as an
elite project from which lower classes profit lit-
tle, resulting in these strata being indifferent to