ADVERTISEMENT

The EU More Popular? Don't Kid Yourself

The EU More Popular? Don't Kid Yourself

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The European Union’s popularity among its citizens has jumped to the highest level in a decade, just as trust in member states’ governments is dropping. That should be a message to national leaders who are unwilling to share power or democratic legitimacy.

Voters have become markedly more satisfied about the EU, according to the latest EU-commissioned Eurobarometer survey. About 45% see the bloc in a positive light and only 17% in a negative one, the highest net positive rating since 2009. A full 61% are optimistic about the union’s future, and 56% – the most in 15 years – feel their voice counts in the EU.

On a country-by-country level, the EU is doing remarkably well. In 23 of the 28 member states, perceptions of the bloc have improved in the last year; in 20, a majority of residents have a positive view of the union.

The EU More Popular? Don't Kid Yourself

Beyond this rosy picture, though, there are signs that the EU isn’t doing everything right. It’s well-known that the turmoil surrounding Brexit has made voters in other countries more appreciative of the EU’s benefits. But in the U.K. itself, the proportion of people with a positive view of the bloc has dropped to 38% from 43% in the last year – the steepest drop of any member state. The EU’s firmness in asserting the terms of any Brexit deal has clearly looked like arrogant inflexibility to many Britons. The European Commission hasn’t done enough to sell its arguments to the voters it would very much like to keep within the union.

Another sign of trouble is that immigration is still at the top of the list of voters’ main concerns, three years after Europe’s refugee crisis subsided. National debates have raged unabated, but nothing has happened at the EU level to calm them down. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said she will prioritize immigration reform, but she is no closer to a deal on redistributing refugees throughout the bloc than outgoing President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Juncker seems to have done little that has been noticed by voters. Among the benefits mentioned by Eurobarometer respondents, only one – “cheaper calls when using a mobile phone in another EU country” – emerged from his administration. Roaming charges were dropped in 2017, but the Commission first proposed the move in 2013, before he took the helm. He has made little progress on climate change, a subject which is, for the first time, voters’ biggest concern after immigration.

Perceptions of the EU are improving because the economic crisis has receded almost everywhere in Europe, because Brexit looks like an unattractive example to continentals, and because the U.S. has ceased to be the “shining city on the hill” under President Donald Trump. They aren’t improving because the EU is doing something particularly right – and they remain vulnerable to the slightest downturn in growth.

Had the survey been taken in July – after the election to the European Parliament – rather than before, it’s unlikely so many people would have said their votes matter in the EU. The energetic campaign resulted in the first ever increase in turnout at a European election – but then national leaders turned around and rejected the candidates for the Commission presidency who had contested the election. Instead, French President Emmanuel Macron pushed through von der Leyen’s nomination in backroom negotiations. Rather than set up an institutional battle, the European Parliament grudgingly approved her – but this process has been as undemocratic as any in the bloc’s recent history.

Essentially, national leaders have made sure they will remain the only decision-makers with democratic legitimacy in the EU. That, however, is clearly not what European citizens want – if only because, according to the Eurobarometer survey, they trust the EU more than their own leaders.

The national leaders are a diverse, fractious group. They have been able to agree on less and less among themselves in recent years. With the Commission headed by a president whose power derives almost exclusively from them and a fragmented parliament sidelined, the bloc’s culture of compromise and slow progress risks turning into a full-blown deadlock on every issue that could take the European project forward.

It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that voters want more democracy at the EU level – and more visible benefits to being part of the project.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Leonid Bershidsky is Bloomberg Opinion's Europe columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.