Whither Europe? Fostering cooperation and increasing burden sharing in times of crisis 1 Insights from the EUENGAGE panel survey Davide Angelucci, University of Siena dangelucci89@gmail.com Linda Basile, University of Siena basile7@unisi.it Nicolò Conti, Unitelma La Sapienza nicolo.conti@unitelma.it Pierangelo Isernia, University of Siena isernia@unisi.it Francesco Marangoni University of Siena francesco.marangoni@unisi.it Francesco Olmastroni, University of Siena olmastroni3@unisi.it Adriàn Pignataro, University of Siena adrian.pignataro@gmail.com Luca Verzichelli, University of Siena verzichelli@unisi.it ABSTRACT: This paper investigates citizens attitudes towards the future of European governance in the fields of economy, immigration and security, within the context of the recent crises that have hit the continent in the past years, by examining the responses of public opinion to the EUENGAGE panel survey carried out in 2016 and 2017. Data show that strengthened policy cooperation on economy, migration, and security is still seen with a certain suspicion among citizens. Similarly, cross-country divides emerge on the willingness to share the burden of the current crises. In the security field the picture appears slightly different, with the UK being more favorable to unilateralism than the other EU countries. Data also revealed that preferences towards greater EU cooperation goes along with attitudes towards burden-sharing. Interestingly, more cooperative attitudes are shown by countries that are more in need of other s countries support. KEYWORDS: public opinion, European Union, economic crisis, security, immigration 1 This paper is largely based upon the findings of the three papers that are currently under review.
1. Introduction, A virtual agora in times of crisis 2 In the last decade, the EU has not been new to critical conjunctures, such as the migration, economic, and security crises, which have encouraged centrifugal tendencies and put the EU under strain (Laffan 2016). Throughout its history, European integration has entailed a constant process of negotiations between the EEC/EU and Member States over multiple policy areas. The authority of the EU has grown enormously compared to the original design, the need for uniform European rules in the internal market has created, over the years, escalating shifts in policy competences to the EU level. Member states have accepted an incremental transfer of sovereignty and regulatory powers to the EU. At the same time, the creation of a closer Union has brought to light the question of solidarity and responsibility-sharing among Member States, as enshrined in the Treaties (Lang 2013). However, since the mid-nineties, a persisting critical argument has concerned the risks of a lack of stability within the EU in the absence of a closer political union. Likewise, the uneven impact of crises on different countries has enhanced divides among Member States: on the one hand, those states more exposed to the crises demand for more help; on the other, the less affected countries seem often to be reluctant to such help. 2 Excerpts of this report have been presented at the XXXI Annual Meeting of the Italian Society of Political Science (Urbino, 14 th -16 th September 2017) and published as working paper in the EuVisions series (accessible at: http://www.euvisions.eu/effects-online-deliberation/). 2
This gloomy scenario emerged with increasing relevance in 2008, when the Euro-crisis broke out, quite early in the lifetime of the common currency, determining a decline in public trust in the Euro and, more broadly, in the EU. From this point on, harsh propaganda against the common currency has become the typical tactic of populist parties and the whole debate on prospective economic integration has turned into a more divisive confrontation within and among the member states. Similarly, the recent flow of irregular migrants to Europe has highlighted a potentially fatal divide among European Union (EU) member states. On the one hand, there are countries exposed to greater pressure either because they are at the border, that is, migrants main gateways to Europe, or because they are seen as favoured destinations: both demand a fair sharing of the migrant burden among all EU member states. On the other hand, other countries reacted to the increasing influx of people to Europe by building fences at their borders and/or refusing to share the responsibility of hosting refugees with their overloaded neighbours. At the same time, the prospects for further cooperation in the security field seems to be under question. Against this backdrop, it can be argued that the context of multiple crises has politicised the debate over EU governance stressing, in particular, the questions of the relationship between domestic and supranational authorities, the push towards a further integration on several policy areas, and the degree of mutual solidarity between the member states. In this perspective, this paper investigates citizens attitudes towards the future of European governance in the fields of economy, immigration and security, within the context of the re- 3
cent crises that have hit the continent in the past years, by examining the responses of public opinion to the EUENGAGE panel survey carried out in 2016 and 2017. The first wave of the EUENGAGE survey was carried out between April and October 2016 as part of the EUENGAGE project, funded by the EU H2020 programme (GA 649281), and was fielded between June 14 and July 20. The second wave was fielded between July and October 2017. Both surveys were conducted in 10 European countries (Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom) Respondents were selected from an opt-in online panel and the interviews were conducted with the CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interview) method. In the first wave, after removing from the mass sample those interviews completed in less than 50% of the median response time (i.e., our cut-off quality threshold for speeders ) the mass sample reached the final number of 21,820 respondents (approximately 2,100 respondents per country). The second wave has sought to interview the same respondents of the first wave, totalling a final sample of 12,911 respondents 3. 2. Yes to economic solidarity but... outside the EU: citizens attitudes on European economic governance The outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008 has brought to light the relevance of the issue of supranational governance in the economic field. Indeed, since both national and supra- 3 Both surveys also include a small sample of business elite. This paper however focuses just on the citizens sample. Furthermore, the mass surveys were conducted in parallel with an elite survey, whose results are comparable (see Conti, Marangoni & Verzichelli forthcoming; Basile and Olmastroni forthcoming; Angelucci and Isernia forthcoming). 4
national actors influence economic policy outcomes, the question of the clarity of responsibility, as well as of the surrender of sovereignty upwards to the supranational institution seems to be crucial to address the developments of the crisis. Hence, attention should be given not only to people s evaluation of the economic outcomes but also to their stands on the institutional mechanisms by which those results could be induced. At the same time, the question of the ideal degree of mutual solidarity between the member states is now debated. The burden sharing issue, on this regard, tends to divide those who argue about the necessity the EU countries have to pool resources to fix the economic problems and imbalances generated by the crisis, from those who oppose such a perspective, and advocate the preservation of national sovereignty (i.e., the right, and duty, for each country to rely on its own resources to fix its economic problems.) The following analysis focuses on tools when dealing with economic problems and on the preferences of European public opinion regarding: (1) policy coordination, which assesses the position between, on one hand, giving the EU more authority over the economic and budgetary policies of the Member States and, on the other, retaining full powers in each national state; and (2) burden sharing, defined as EU s countries pooling resources to fix economic problems vis-à-vis relying on each national government. 4 4 The question wording was the following: The recent world economic crisis has produced high unemployment and low economic growth in a number of countries. Different policies have been suggested and we would like to know your view. For each of the following policy alternatives, please position yourself on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means that you fully support the policy at the left and 10 means that you fully support the policy at the right. If your views are somewhere in between, you can choose any number that best describes your position. EU economic policy coordination: Giving the European Union more authority over Member States economic and budgetary policies (10) vs. retain- 5
The answers to both questions have been compared over time from a repeated sample (i.e. the same individuals interviewed twice). This time span has featured key events, with potentially relevant consequences for economy, such as: the affirmative result for the British referendum about leaving the EU and the elections of the United States that brought Donald Trump to the White House. Data analysis Table 1 presents the data for the economic policy coordination item, where a higher value means higher support towards European Union coordination. The overall level of support is low (below the middle value of 5). It is comparatively higher in Spain, Germany, and France, while significantly lower in United Kingdom, Czech Republic. 5 Within time, changes occur in Italy, Netherlands, Poland, and United Kingdom, where support diminished, while it slightly increased in Germany and Spain. It is noticeable that only in the countries where approval of coordination measures was higher in 2016 (Germany and Spain), support increased in 2017, while for the rest of the sample there is no clear pattern: in some diminished, in others remained about the same. ing full powers for economic decision-making in each Member State (0). Burden sharing: Each country should rely on its own resources to fix its economic problems (0) vs. The European Union's countries should pool resources to fix economic problems (10). 5 In United Kingdom, pro-european attitudes of policy coordination are slightly higher (2.7) in 2017 when the average is based only on those who were thinking of all the EU Member States including UK, but it nevertheless implies a drop in time. 6
Table 1. Average positions of mass publics on economic policy coordination 2016 2017 (diff. 2017 2016) Czech Republic 2.6 2.6 0.0 France 4.2 4.2 0.0 Germany 4.2 4.3 0.1 Greece 3.5 3.5 0.0 Italy 4.3 4.0-0.3 Netherlands 3.7 3.2-0.5 Poland 3.6 3.8 0.2 Portugal 4.4 4.1-0.3 Spain 4.7 4.8 0.1 United Kingdom 2.8 2.6-0.2 Source: EUENGAGE 2016, 2017. Regarding burden sharing, there is wider variation between countries (Table 2) in comparison with the coordination mechanism. In 2016 Italy, Spain, and Portugal outstand as the members with the highest support for burden sharing (well above 6) while France, Czech Republic, and United Kingdom ranked as the lowest. Change in time is larger for burden sharing than for coordination and it is distributed in two directions. In Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, and United Kingdom 6 more people want to rely more on their national governments to fix economic problems, while in France, Poland, Portugal, and Spain people tend to prefer pooling resources among members of the EU. It is therefore clear that, with the exception of France, countries more hostile to burden sharing became even more so between in 2017. Other cases such as Italy show no change at all. 6 For this question the average support is higher (4.5) among those who answered thinking of the UK as a Member State both in 2016 and 2017. 7
Table 2. Average positions of mass publics on burden sharing 2016 2017 (diff. 2017 2016) Czech Republic 4.7 4.4-0.3 France 5.1 5.4 0.3 Germany 5.4 5.3-0.1 Greece 5.8 5.6-0.2 Italy 6.5 6.5 0.0 Netherlands 4.7 4.4-0.3 Poland 5.6 5.8 0.2 Portugal 6.5 6.6 0.1 Spain 6.6 6.9 0.3 United Kingdom 4.4 4.2-0.2 Source: EUENGAGE 2016, 2017. These data show that first, burden sharing is still a more supported solution than EU policy coordination, and, second, that changes between 2016 and 2017 have been modest. Another interesting finding is, however, that economic policy coordination and burdensharing tend to go hand in hand. To put it in another way, the countries where more people are willing to give higher power to the European Union for economic and budgetary coordination are also those countries where more people agree on pooling resources when facing economic problems (Figure 1). 7 Although some consequential events took place between 2016 and 2017, primarily the Brexit and the Trump election, public s reactions towards sovereignty and solidarity on economy 7 Across countries, both variables are highly correlated (Pearson s r = 0.84) and among individuals they present a more modest but still significant correlation (r = 0.34). Data from the 2017 wave. 8
remain more or less stable in the ten surveyed European countries. As in 2016, burden sharing is overall more accepted than policy coordination in 2017. Figure 1. Average positions of mass publics by country (2017) 10.0 7.5 Burden sharing 5.0 IT GR CZ NL UK PT SP PL FR DE 2.5 0.0 0.0 2.5 5.0 7.5 10.0 EU economic policy coordination Source: EUENGAGE 2017 EU citizens are ready to pool resources to fix economic problems but they are less keen on delegating policy competence to the EU. They are positively inclined toward efforts to pool re- 9
sources to face the main economic imbalances that affect Europe, but they are much less prone to delegate policy coordination to the EU. Thus, economic solidarity among Europeans is a more established principle than EU policy intervention, which is instead a more contested solution. 3. Within- and Cross-national divides over the EU Migration and Asylum Policy In order to face the unprecedented migration flows, the EU institutions have promoted the adoption of policy measures to ease the strain on those countries struggling with an exceptional number of arrivals. In particular, the European Agenda on Migration (EAM), presented in 2015, identifies four pillars for medium- and long-term actions to better manage migration (i.e., reducing incentives for illegal migration, securing the EU borders, stronger CEAS and possible revision of Dublin regulation, new policy on legal migration) and proposes a similar number of EU-wide measures of burden-sharing to address the current emergency: a) financial help to frontline member states; b) substantial and operative support to frontline countries through a relocation scheme and the hotspots approach; c) humanitarian assistance to migrants; d) EU initiatives in regions of origin and transit to prevent illegal migration from the onset. Although these measures of support to frontline countries, and in particular financial help and relocation measures, explicitly relate to burden-sharing approaches, the actual out- 10
comes of the EAM immediately unveiled deep divisions among EU members, thus making difficult to forge consensus on any concrete proposal of joint action that would imply a strengthening of supranational integration and a shift of competencies from the national to the European level (Falkner 2016). For instance, the temporary emergency relocation scheme, setting the target to relocate respectively 40,000 and 120,000 people in clear need of international protection from Italy and Greece to other member states, was approved only with a qualified majority in the Council, with the opposition of the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary. Poland sided with the majority, notwithstanding its outspoken opposition to quotas (Oomen & Rodrigues de Oliveira 2017). These divisions on policy parallel the uneven impact on EU member states of the migration crisis. Among the countries under examination in the EUENGAGE project, Germany, in the 2013-2016 period, has shown increasing trends of asylum applicants, refugees and thirdcountry nationals found to be illegally present in its territory as compared to the whole Union. By contrast, the United Kingdom has experienced a sharp fall in the relative number of non-eu migrants during the three years before Brexit (Figure 1). Although the agreement between the EU and Turkey, reached on 18 March 2016, has sharply reduced irregular arrivals in the Eastern Mediterranean, Greece maintains the second greatest gap between the share of illegal people found in the country and its share of EU population (+18.7%) after Germany (+21.6%). As for the difference between the share of refugees hosted in the country and the share of EU population, France and the Netherlands along with Germany have a positive score. Contrary to Germany and Italy, however, both countries display a negative trend in the 2013-2016 period. 11
Italy, which is the Mediterranean country to have experienced the greatest increase of arrivals (both in absolute and relative terms) between 2015 and 2016 (Figure 2), also witnesses a fluctuating but increasing share of asylum applicants in the last three years, with the country being the second most desired destination of the ten EU members under study (9.8%) after Germany (59.2%) in 2016. Poland and the Czech Republic stand out for their stable and lower shares of asylum seekers, refugees and illegal migrants than their share of EU population for the period 2008-2016. Finally, the share of non-eu nationals found to be illegally present in Spain and Portugal, two important destinations of migrants in the 1990s and 2000s, has markedly dropped between 2011 and 2012 as a consequence of the reduced number of individuals using the Western African route to reach Europe and bilateral readmission and police cooperation agreements signed with countries of origin and transit (Frontex 2017). Nonetheless, the absolute and relative number of arrivals to Spain has increased between 2015 and 2016, with the Western Mediterranean still representing an important route for illegal border crossings from North Africa (Figure 2). 12
Figure 2. Share of asylum applicants, non-eu national found to be illegally present in the country, refugees and EU-28 population (% EU-28) Sources: Authors elaboration of data from Eurostat and UNHCR, various years. The bickering among governments over an increasing EU sovereignty on migration and the adoption of burden-sharing measures to address the migration crisis reveals profound national divisions and conflicting interests across the EU. Are these divisions paralleled by similar splits in the European public? Or, rather, given the increasing concern for the crisis, people are willing to enhance the EU mandate to address it (Hatton 2016a, 2016b), regardless of the limitations on national sovereignty that a EU-driven solution would imply? 13
Figure 3. Share (%) and number of arrivals in the Mediterranean routes Source: Authors elaboration of data from IOM. In order to assess whether citizens support a EU-wide, solidarity-based approach to the migration crisis, answers to three different questions capturing both the general scope and two specific measures of the EAM were analysed. The first question (scope of policy action) concerns the appropriate level (national vs. European) at which decisions about migration should be made, asking respondents whether their country or the EU should decide the yearly number of immigrants to be hosted, thus posing mandatory rather than voluntary quotas. The other two questions focus on solidarity, asking respondents about their level of approval of two different burden-sharing measures included in the EAM: financial help to countries under pressure and a relocation scheme aimed at alleviating the burden on frontline and destination countries. All questions used a 0-10 point scale with 0 denoting a less pro-european (in the case of scope of policy action) or pro-solidarity (in the cases of financial help and relocation) option and 10 otherwise 8. 8 The question wording was the following: In recent years, several EU countries have been facing extensive immigration from non-eu countries. Different policies have been suggested and we would like to 14
Data Analysis Table 3 reports citizens attitudes towards the scope of policy governance dimension in 2016 and 2017. Table 3. Average positions of mass publics on scope of policy action 2016 2017 (diff. 2017 2016) Czech Republic 1,5 1,0-0,5 France 3,7 3,7 0,0 Germany 4,7 4,8 0,1 Greece 3,9 4,1 0,2 Italy 5,2 5,5 0,3 Netherlands 4,1 3,3-0,8 Poland 2,5 2,7 0,2 Portugal 4,1 4,3 0,2 Spain 5,0 5,4 0,4 United Kingdom 2,8 3,0 0,2 Source: EUENGAGE 2016, 2017 In 2016, cross-country differences emerge. A first group includes European Eastern countries (i.e. Czech Republic and Poland), plus the UK. In these countries, the general public is sceptical towards a migration policy decided at a European supranational level, and it tends to lean in favour of a national level of policy action. In a second group of countries there are France, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Greece, which express mild disagreement for a EU-wide know your view. For each of the following policy alternatives, please position yourself on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means that you fully support the policy on the left and 10 means that you fully support the policy on the right. If your views are somewhere in between, you can choose any number that best describes your position. Scope of Policy Action: COUNTRY should decide for itself how many immigrants to accept each year (0) vs. The European Union should decide how many immigrants should be accepted by each Member State each year (10). Financial Help: The costs of providing asylum should be shared among all the European Union's Member States (10) vs. Each country should bear the costs depending on how many asylum seekers it receives (0). Relocation: The country immigrants arrive in should be responsible for hosting them (0) vs. All the European Union's Member States should be responsible for the hosting of immigrants (10). 15
policy. Finally, on the opposite side of the continuum there are the frontline and destination countries (i.e. Germany, Italy and Spain), which are more likely to support the strengthening of the EU decision-making power than other member-states. Looking at the 2017 data, the pattern remains substantially stable, with some negligible variations. The only exception is represented by the Netherlands, where we find a declining trend in support towards the strengthening of the EU decision-making power. As a consequence, and differently from what has been observed in 2016, the Netherlands can be easily included among those countries displaying a low level of support for a European supranational level of decision making in migration policy (i.e. Czech Republic, Poland, and the UK). Moving to people s orientation towards burden-sharing measures, the first item under examination is that one referring to the financial help to countries under pressure (Table 4). It should be noted that the question explicitly mentions the asylum seekers, thus introducing the frame of people who are in condition of special need. Table 4. Average positions of mass publics on financial help 2016 2017 (diff. 2017 2016) Czech Republic 3,3 2,7-0,6 France 5,1 5,4 0,3 Germany 6,9 6,5-0,4 Greece 6,7 7,7 1,0 Italy 7 7,6 0,6 Netherlands 5,5 5,7 0,2 Poland 4,2 4,2 0,0 Portugal 5,9 6,6 0,7 Spain 6,3 7,3 1,0 United Kingdom 4,9 4,5-0,4 Source: EUENGAGE 2016, 2017 16
Looking at 2016 data, the general public in Czech Republic, Poland and the UK show more moderate stances than in the previous question, although they still tend to disagree with the idea that the costs of providing asylum should be shared among all the EU members. Again, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal display somewhat neutral positions. On the contrary, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Spain (the most exposed countries to migration flows) show once again the highest level of support for sharing the financial costs of providing asylum. One year later, mass positions on financial help to countries under pressure present some variations, although the pattern of preferences across countries remains substantially stable. In particular, over one year support for financial help has increased especially in those countries where it was already high (this is true in particular in Greece, Italy, and Spain). In this first group, the only exception is represented by Germany, where a slightly declining trend can be observed. Also, a declining trend emerges in those countries that leaned towards less prosolidarity stances in 2016 (i.e. Czech Republic and the United Kingdom). The second measure of burden-sharing concerns the relocation of migrants from countries of arrival (mainly Greece and Italy) to other EU members (Table 5). Admittedly, relocation schemes have been widely debated and have been a source of discord within EU institutions, with Eastern countries opposing these kinds of measures. EUENGAGE data of 2016 largely confirm the fractures among EU member states. As observed for the previous items, European Eastern countries (i.e. Czech Republic and Poland) and the UK firmly oppose relocation measures, although less sharply than in the item referring to the policy scope. However, we do 17
not find here a neutral group. Indeed, all the other countries support the idea that all EU members should be responsible for the hosting of migrants. Once again, the most exposed countries (in particular Greece and Portugal) are characterized by the highest levels of support for relocation measures. Table 5. Average positions of mass publics on relocation 2016 2017 (diff. 2017 2016) Czech Republic 3,8 3,2-0,6 France 5,7 6,0 0,3 Germany 6,8 6,7-0,1 Greece 7,3 8,2 0,9 Italy 7,9 8,6 0,7 Netherlands 6,2 5,9-0,3 Poland 4,4 4,2-0,2 Portugal 6,5 7,1 0,6 Spain 7,0 7,7 0,7 United Kingdom 5,1 4,2-0,9 Source: EUENGAGE 2016, 2017 This pattern is further confirmed and more sharply defined in 2017. In fact, the level of support for relocation measures has clearly declined in those countries where it was reported to be the lowest in 2016 (i.e. Czech Republic, UK, and, to a lesser extent, Poland); conversely, support for relocation of migrants has increased in the frontline and highly exposed countries, where the support for relocation of migrants and asylum seekers was already high in 2016 (i.e. Greece and Italy). Overall, these findings confirm that there are country-based divisions among European publics on the migration and asylum policy, drawing a line between destination/frontline countries on the one side and the least affected countries on the other. This thereby confirm the preva- 18
lence of utilitarian considerations in shaping citizens attitudes towards EU cooperation and responsibility-sharing on immigration. Figure 4 summarizes this information, comparing the position of citizens on the three different dimensions in the ten EUENGAGE countries in 2017. Figure 4. Average positions of mass publics on scope of policy action, financial help, and relocation Source: EUENGAGE 2017 The figure clearly shows that destination and frontline countries (such as Italy and Greece) are more likely than all the other countries to support the supranational level of governance and measures of burden-sharing among European member states. Conversely, the least affected countries are exactly those which lean towards less pro-solidarity stances. We can con- 19
clude that the same utilitarian considerations, that drive the political debate within the EU institutions, are likely to be mirrored also among the national publics. 4. The future of common foreign and security policy European Foreign and Security policy has recently come to the fore of political debate in Europe as a potential policy area in which European integration might be successfully pushed forward. The revamp started with the launch of the EU Global Strategy in 2016 and it was followed by several activities culminated on December, 11, 2017, with the formal approval of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) by the Foreign Affairs Council. Several reasons can account for the desire to strengthen European cooperation on the high politics of defence. Among them, strategic intra-eu considerations might have the pride of place and PESCO might be thought as an attempt to revamp a EU project tarnished by the not so flattening show over the last few years in addressing the economic and the migration crises. However, whether PESCO will be a success is highly dependent on the structural conditions that might favour or hamper the integration process in the defence policy area. Among these conditions, the role of public opinion and its potential disposition to the politicization of European defence might be decisive. 20
Data analysis To assess the positions of public opinion on security and defence issues two dimensions in the ten European countries surveyed by the EUENGAGE project are analysed: the Unilateralism vs. Multilateralism 9 dimension and the Inter-Governmental vs. Supranational 10 dimension, both in 2016 and 2017. Table 6 reports general public s position on the Unilateralism vs. Multilateralism dimension in the EUENGAGE countries in 2016 and 2017. Looking at the 2016 data, one main cleavage seems to emerge, with the public in the UK being less likely as compared to all the other countries to prefer a common European response to major security threats. In all the other countries, the support for a multilateral response appears more clearly defined, although some variations are worth to be mentioned. In particular, Southern countries (i.e. Spain, Italy, and Portugal) display the highest score on the multilateral dimension, as compared to all the other countries. One year later, mass positions on the Unilateralism vs. Multilateralism dimension do not show any sign of relevant variations, with one remarkable exception. In the UK, the support for 9 In recent years, the EU has been confronted with international security crises in the Ukraine and in Mediterranean countries (such as Libya and Syria). Different policies have been suggested and we would like to know your view. Each Member State should decide on its own when responding to major security crises VS EU Member States should have a common response to major security crises (0= National; 10=European). Note: In 2017 the question in the UK is slightly different: The UK should decide on its own when responding to major security threats vs. The UK and the EU Member States should have a common response to major security threats. 10 Some say that we should have one single EU Army. Others believe that every country should keep its own national army. Which of the following comes closest to your view?. Note: In 2017 the question in the UK is slightly different: Some say that we should have one single European Union Army, which would include the UK. Others believe that every country should keep its own national army. Which of the following comes closest to your view? 21
multilateralism has sharply decreased, with the public now clearly leaning towards unilateralism. On the contrary, a slightly increasing support for multilateralism is found in Czech Republic and Greece. Once again, Spain, Portugal, and Italy display the highest level of support for multilateralism. Table 6. National VS Multilateral response, 2016-2017 (0-10 scale; 0=National; 10=Common). 2016 2017 Diff. Czech Republic 5,8 6,3 0,5 France 6,6 6,5-0,1 Germany 6,7 6,6-0,1 Greece 6,2 6,6 0,4 Italy 7,2 7,4 0,2 Netherlands 6,4 6,1-0,3 Poland 6,7 7 0,3 Portugal 7,6 7,4-0,2 Spain 7,5 7,8 0,3 United Kingdom 5,6 4,6-1 Source: EUENGAGE 2016, 2017 Finally, public support for multilateralism in France and Germany (the two European countries that played out a crucial role in the negotiations about PESCO) is substantially stable and at a matching level both in 2016 and 2017. Moving to the Inter-Governmental vs. Supranational dimension, public positions are analysed by looking at the different distributions of mass preferences as proxied by the Army question. Once again, we report data collected in the ten EUENGAGE countries in 2016 and 2017. Table 7 reports this information. Table 7. Support for European & National Army, 2016-2017 (Cell entries are percentages). 22
National army European army Both national and European 2016 28 20 41 Germany 2017 27 24 42 Diff. -1 4 1 2016 28 13 44 Greece 2017 24 16 49 Diff. -4 3 5 2016 16 33 39 Spain 2017 16 34 37 Diff. 0 1-2 2016 24 22 50 France 2017 24 26 48 Diff. 0 4-2 2016 15 15 56 Italy 2017 26 32 35 Diff. 11 17-21 2016 34 15 46 Portugal 2017 30 14 52 Diff. -4-1 4 2016 55 6 34 UK 2017 55 8 33 Diff. 0 2-1 2016 24 13 59 Poland 2017 29 12 56 Diff. 5-1 -3 2016 29 19 46 Netherlands 2017 31 20 46 Diff. 2 1 0 2016 44 6 45 Czech Republic 2017 51 6 42 Diff. 7 0-3 Source: EUENGAGE 2016, 2017. 23
In line with what has been observed in Table 6, data show that the UK public is alone in its preferences for an exclusively national army. The absolute majority of British respondents (55% in 2016 and 2017), believes that it is better for the UK to have its own single army and only a tiny proportion of the respondents (6% and 8% respectively in 2016 and 2017) declares to be in favour of a single European army. Not dissimilarly, a high proportion of respondents in Czech Republic is more positively oriented towards a national army (44% and 51% in 2016 and 2017), as compared to a small group of individuals (6% both in 2016 and 2017) who believe that a single European army would be preferable. A relatively low proportion of individuals supporting the European solution is also apparent in Poland and in Portugal, where preferences are distributed either in favour of the national solution or the both national and European solution. On the contrary, the highest levels of support for a single European army and for a supranational defence policy, are found in Spain (33% and 34% in 2016 and 2017), France (22% and 26% in 2016 and 2017), Germany (20% and 24% in 2016 and 2017), and, more recently, Italy (15% and 32% in 2016 and 2017). Looking at variations in mass positions on the Army question between 2016 and 2017, no relevant changes can be detected. The only exception in this case is represented by the Italian public. In 2016, 15% of the Italian respondents declared to be in favour of a single national army; in 2017, the proportion increased up to 26%. A similar pattern is found for the single European army option. In 2016, 15% of the respondents supported a single European army; this 24
figure grew up by 17 percentage points in the following year. Conversely, a declining trend is apparent for the both national and European solution between 2016 and 2017. These data might suggest that a polarization process has taken place over the last years among the Italian public, widening the gap between fully nationalists and supra-nationalists in the defence policy area. To conclude, the analysis of public preferences on European defence policy in ten European countries between 2016 and 2017 has shown interesting findings concerning the two main dimensions of: Unilateralism vs. Multilateralism dimension and the Inter-Governmental vs. Supra-National dimension. As for the former dimension, despite minor variations across countries, evidence of a persistent cleavage between the UK and other European members in considered timeframe was found. Between 2016 and 2017, British public has become progressively more unilateralist as compared to all the other countries, where a robust support for multilateralism emerged. Not differently, looking at the Inter-Governmental vs. Supra-National dimension, most of the respondents in the UK are supportive of a single national army and only a small group declares to be in favour of a single European army. Also, in the UK we found the highest proportion of Inter-Governmentalists as compared to all the other European countries surveyed by the EUENGAGE project. In trying to tentatively combine and synthesize these data, EUENGAGE countries can be classified on a bi-dimensional space (Figure 5). At one pole there are those countries where masses are relatively more supportive of multilateral and supranational solutions to security 25
crises (i.e. France, Germany, Spain, Italy and, to some extent, the Netherlands); at the other extreme there are those countries where the public tend to lean towards unilateralism and inter-governmentalism (i.e. the UK); finally, there are those countries in which the public lean towards multilateralism but in which only a small proportion of citizens is fully supportive of a supra-national dimension of defence policy (i.e. Poland, Czech Republic, Portugal, and Greece). Overall, these differences might represent a serious obstacle in the long path towards European integration in defence and security policy and they might prevent PESCO from being a success. In particular, different policy preferences among masses might constrain political elites to slow down ambitions and undermine the project as whole. 26
Figure 5. Support for a European Union Army (0-100%) and Multilateralism (0-10) Source: EUENGAGE 2017. 5. Concluding Remarks Over 60 years after its creation, the European Union faces a critical juncture nowadays and it ought to decide where it wants to head to. On the other hand, the magnitude of the financial, migration, and security crises seems to support the argument that they can be effectively 27
addressed only by strengthening the cooperation at EU level and the mutual solidarity among its members. On the other hand, however, a closer union and a strengthened cooperation are difficult to be built on fragile political bases determined by low popular legitimacy. Within this framework, EUENGAGE survey data show that strengthened policy cooperation on economy, migration, and security is still seen with a certain suspicion among citizens. Similarly, cross-country divides emerge on the willingness to share the burden of the current crises. Interesting more cooperative attitudes are shown by those countries that find themselves in the eye of the storm of multiple crises and are more in need of other s support. Such a complex situation certainly places a significant premium on the need to address popular doubts about future steps towards an even closer Union. References Angelucci D. and Isernia P. (under review) Could the European Foreign and Security Policy be Politicised? How, Why and With What Consequences. Basile, L. and Olmastroni F. (under review) Sharing the burden in a free riders land: The EU Migration and Asylum Policy in the Views of Public Opinion and Politicians. Conti, N. Marangoni F. and Verzichelli, L. (under review) EU people and elites under economic duress. The Fickleness of Policy Preferences after the Crisis. Falkner 2016 Falkner, G 2016, The EU s current crisis and its policy effects: research design and comparative findings, Journal of European Integration, vol.38, no.3, 219-235. Frontex (2017), Risk Analysis for 2017, Frontex, Warsaw, Poland. Hatton, T.J. (2016 ). Refugees and Asylum Seekers, the Crisis in Europe and the Future of Poli- 28
cy, CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP11271, viewed 28 October 2017, <https://ssrn.com/abstract=2780379>. Hatton, TJ 2016b. Immigration, public opinion and the recession in Europe, Economic Policy, vol.31, no.86, 205-246. Laffan, B. (2016). Europe s union in crisis: tested and contested. West European Politics, 39(5), 915-932. Lang, I.G. (2013). Is There Solidarity on Asylum and Migration in the EU?, Croatian Yearbook of European Law and Policy, 9(1), 1-14. Oomen, B and Rodrigues de Oliveira, R. (2017). Relocation and its Numbers Which Role for the Courts?, EU Migration Law Blog, viewed 28 October 2017, <http://eumigrationlawblog.eu/relocation-and-its-numbers-which-role-for-the-courts>. 29