End of the Year Issue
By Veronica Marcone and Barna Sólyom
October 30, 2022
On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom, then part of the European Union, held a referendum to vote on whether to leave the union. It resulted in a slight majority of the British population wishing to part ways with the continental collaboration, with precisely 51.89 percent of voters voting in favor of Brexit. The United Kingdom then officially separated from the union in 2020.
Since then, other union members have grown fond of Euroscepticism, prompting the formation of internal political parties intending to follow the in the kingdom’s footsteps. Unlike the states in America, countries in the European Union lack a robust cultural identity which may negatively affect member states’ sense of belonging. Will this identity deficit cause other countries to walk away from the union, or will the economic and political benefits of membership be enough to convince the current nations to stay and work on building even stronger ties?
According to Ankita Dutta, “The main reasons for the rise of Euroscepticism have been notions that integration weakens national sovereignty and the nation-state... The union is too bureaucratic and elite-driven... encourages high levels of migration... or is a neoliberal organization which benefits the business elite at the expense of the working class.” She explains that both sides of the political spectrum have reasons for their Euroscepticism, although it is more common among right-wing parties in union countries. The reasoning for such is based on the desire to preserve sovereignty and national identity.
Despite being one of the countries that benefit the most from being part of the union, Germany is experiencing rising support for the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland party. Robert Grimm explains that the party’s argument for opposition to the Eurozone is the mounting tensions rooted in the separation between donor and debtor countries that the common currency brought. Since the end of the Second World War, Germany has been working on achieving long-lasting peace and rebuilding the economy; the Euro, according to former Chancellor Angela Merkel, is a necessary tool for maintaining peace. So, while it has been claimed that the Euro's employment brought serious economic drawbacks, it is still a guarantor of peace.
Italy recently had elections that resulted in the victory of the center-right coalition, most of which have shared a somewhat anti-European stance in the past, which could move the country in a Eurosceptic direction. Nicolò Berti posits that an increasing number of Italians, especially following the pandemic, have seen the union as the cause of internal problems and that introducing the Euro in the country was detrimental to the economy. In 2020, the disapproval rate towards the union reached 42 percent, compared to just 26 percent two years prior.
According to the above chart, Italy has the highest disapproval rate. Still, since 2020, the trend has slowly declined from 47 percent to 34 percent Germany, instead, follows the trends of the combined union countries, which have a consistent rate of under 30 percent for the past five years.
The pandemic brought severe economic blows across the union, and this shared experience could have affected the trust people have in the union, both positively and negatively. The countries most affected by the pandemic could increasingly doubt the European project if they are not supported effectively. The more stable ones are tired of continuously offering their support to the former. This might cause the different country groups to gradually shift away from each other because of economic differences. According to the European Council on Foreign Relations, the pandemic's effect was mixed but tended towards a positive consolidating experience among the union's citizens.
As shown in the chart, no one surveyed felt less European than before the pandemic despite the fluctuating collaboration between countries and the closure of all borders.
It is then safe to conclude that, although right-wing parties have been spreading Euroscepticism among their citizens and proposing more nationalist stances, none of the member countries have had a dangerous increase in negative views of the union. The Anti-union propaganda brought around these countries has not reached an effective percentage to consider leaving as a viable option. As of now, all union countries will most likely not follow the steps of the Brits as citizens still believe that, despite many flaws, the union has brought more benefits than not within their country.