Abstract
The chapter provides descriptive empirical evidence on the development of citizens’ identification with Europe from Maastricht to the crisis. Drawing on survey data from the Eurobarometer, it tracks individual identification with Europe in the EU aggregate and at the member state level between 1992 and 2013. The empirical evidence shows that a collective European identity has developed in the EU public alongside national identities, leading to widespread multiple collective identities among EU citizens. Citizens’ identification with Europe slightly increases after the EU enlargement in 2004. Negative influences of the financial and economic crisis on feelings of European identity appear to accumulate over time, gradually weakening of citizens’ affective ties to the European community.
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Notes
- 1.
Conducted on behalf of the European Commission, the Eurobarometer surveys have been monitoring public opinion in the then current EC/EU member countries since 1973. Standard EB surveys are conducted at least twice a year, including attitudes towards European unification, institutions, and policies; measurements for general socio-political orientations; and respondent and household demographics. For more information on the EB and EB methodology, see www.ec.europa.eu/public_opinion. Primary data and related documentation were obtained from the GESIS Data Archive for the Social Sciences at www.gesis.org
- 2.
Approximately 1500 interviews in Germany with separate samples for East (500) and West (1000); 1300 in the UK with separate samples for Great Britain (1000) and Northern Ireland (300); and 500 in Cyprus, Luxemburg, and Malta.
- 3.
National pride is assessed by the following item: ‘Would you say you are very proud, fairly proud, not very proud, not at all proud to be [NATIONALITY]?’
- 4.
The exact question wording for attachment to the European Union is: People may feel different degrees of attachment to their town or village, to their region, to their country or the European Union. Please tell me how attached you feel to…the European Union. Very attached, fairly attached, not very attached, not at all attached.
- 5.
Attachment to one’s own country is assessed by the same item as attachment to Europe/the European Union. The exact question wording is ‘People may feel different degrees of attachment to their town or village, to their region, to their country or to Europe. Please tell me how attached you feel to…[COUNTRY]. Very attached, fairly attached, not very attached, not at all attached.’
- 6.
The descriptive analyses of the EU aggregate as well as sub-groups of EU member states (e.g. EU6, new CEE member states, Eurozone countries) employs population size weighting based on the Eurobarometer’s ‘European weights’, which adjust each national sample in proportion to its share in the total EU population (aged 15 and over) or within different groupings of EU member states. The European population size weights also include post-stratification weighting factors for each sample (minimum sex, age, region, size of locality).
- 7.
It should be underlined that EB 65.2 from March/May 2006 employed a split survey design; hence, we cannot compare respondents individually, but only aggregate response behaviour to the two attachment items.
- 8.
Eurozone member states in the years 2007 to 2013 include Austria, Belgium, Cyprus (from 2008), Estland (from 2011), Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta (from 2008), the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia (from 2009), Slovenia, and Spain.
- 9.
These are Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, and Spain. Apart from Italy, all of these countries received funding from one of the European financial assistance programmes and/or bilateral loans from Eurozone partners at some point between 2008 and 2013. Italy is included among the crisis countries as it has commonly been grouped together with Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain—the so-called ‘GIIPS’ group—based on these countries’ economic vulnerability in terms of e.g. debt-to-GDP rations, government bond yields, and current account and trade imbalances.
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Bergbauer, S. (2018). The Development of Citizens’ Identification with Europe from Maastricht to the Crisis. In: Explaining European Identity Formation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67708-8_4
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