Do Citizens Support Cohesion Policy? Measuring European support for redistribution within the EU and its correlates

Abstract

espanolA medida que la Union Europea ingresa en la proxima decada, sus lideres aparentemente luchan por mas integracion futura en lugar de menos, a pesar del reciente reves del Brexit y el surgimiento de los partidos populistas anti-UE. En su estado de la Union en 2018, Jean Claude Junker hizo hincapie en la "solidaridad europea". Una politica clave de "expresion de solidaridad" seria la Politica de Cohesion y los Fondos Estructurales, que son "el unico mecanismo redistributivo real y significativo en la UE..." (Fratesi 2017). A pesar de las opiniones de la elite, sorprendentemente sabemos poco sobre lo que piensan los ciudadanos de la UE sobre la logica detras de la Politica de Cohesion, de la redistribucion economica dentro de la UE. Como parte del proyecto PERCEIVE Horizon2020, llevamos a cabo una encuesta unica para investigar como se sienten los ciudadanos acerca de la integracion economica dentro de la Union, entrevistando a 17.200 ciudadanos. En este documento, mostramos como medimos el apoyo a la politica, los resultados y una serie de elementos relacionados. Nuestro analisis muestra la variacion en el apoyo de los ciudadanos a la politica de cohesion de la UE entre paises, como varia el apoyo entre los grupos demograficos, asi como la medida en la que el apoyo se correlaciona con factores utilitarios e ideologicos. Se discuten las implicaciones para futuros desarrollos de esta politica. EnglishAs the European Union enters into the next decade, its leaders seemingly strive towards more future integration rather than less, despite the recent setback of Brexit and the rise of anti-EU populist parties. In his state of the Union in 2018, Jean Claude Junker emphasized s ‘European solidarity’. One key policy ‘expression of solidary’ would be Cohesion Policy and the Structural Funds, which are “the only real, significant redistributive mechanism in the EU…” (Fratesi 2017). . Despite elite commentary, we know surprisingly little about what EU citizens think of the rationale behind the policy of Cohesion – e.g. economic redistribution within the EU. As part of the PERCEIVE Horizon2020 project, we launched a unique survey to investigate how citizens feel about economic integration within the Union, where 17,200 citizens were interviewed. In this paper, we show how we measure support for the policy, the results as well as a host of correlates. Our analysis shows the variation in citizens’ support for EU Cohesion policy between countries, how support varies between demographic groups, as well as the extent to which support is correlated with utilitarian and ideational factors as well as cue taking. Implications for future developments of this policy are discussed.