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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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that other Member States – above all Germany
– are even profiting at least indirectly from Italy’s
problems
1
.
Currently, membership in the EU is also per-
ceived much more as an opportunity than risk
than was the case in 2015 (61 compared to
46 %). Back then four countries – the
Netherlands, France, Sweden and the Czech
Republic – tended to associate the Community
with the term “risk”. Now majorities in all coun-
tries (once again) agree that membership offers
these EU countries more of an opportunity for
betterment.
In five countries – Spain, Germany, Slovakia,
the Netherlands and Sweden – the EU also
tends to stand more for justice than injustice.
Opinions are split in Italy, France and the Czech
Republic. In six of the eight countries, however,
members of the lower classes tend to associate
the EU more with injustices.
The most important tasks of the EU
In September 2015, citizens considered coping
with the refugee influx to be by far the EU’s
most important task. Since then the number of
refugees has dropped significantly, but the issue
still stands at the top of the list. In the current
study – once again in response to the same
open-ended question – 54 % across all coun-
tries viewed this to be the most important or
second most important task facing the EU
(down 9 percentage points). Combatting unem-
ployment has also lost its sense of urgency, but
at 28 % (down 9 percentage points) of men-
tions remains in second place. The topics of
“strengthening the economy” and “reducing
1
Cf
. the FES study
Fremde Freunde
, 2017.
debt” have also dropped in importance some-
what (respectively losing 3 percentage points).
Above all two tasks have gained importance
in the last two years: first, fighting terrorism (up
9 %), which has moved to third place on the
agenda. Second, a reduction in social injustice
(up 8 %), which played scarcely any role at all in
2015, is now in seventh place (
Chart 3
).
There are some commonalities, but also sig-
nificant differences in priorities across national
borders, however. There is continued agree-
ment that refugee policy has the highest priority
in seven of the eight countries. The frequency of
mentions varies significantly, however. In the
Czech Republic and Slovakia, three out of four
citizens place that topic in first place. This result
is remarkable because neither country has ac-
cepted hardly any refugees to date, while both
are resisting any EU-wide allocation of migrants.
The two Visegrád states are followed by
Sweden in third place. There, more than half of
persons surveyed assign top priority, and an-
other 18 % second highest priority, to the topic
of refugee policy. Sweden is the only country
where this topic has gained in importance (up
6 %), suggesting that it is being discussed in an
increasingly controversial manner. Italy, which at
present has to cope with the largest number of
refugees, is only in fifth place (60 %), which is
probably primarily due to the fact that Rome is
currently struggling with a whole host of serious
problems.
The topic of “refugees” has lost significantly
in terms of salience in four out of the eight
countries, among them France (down 10 %),
the Netherlands (down 16 %) and above all in
Germany (down 34 %).
Spain assumes a special position just like
back in 2015. Then and now it is the only coun-
try in which refugee policy does not dominate
the agenda, ranking fourth instead (17 %). As