Post-Maastricht Blues: The Transformation of Citizen Support for European Integration, 1973–2004

Abstract

Macroeconomic forces have influenced aggregate citizen support for European integration in the past, but no study analyzes historical data beyond the early 1990s. This gap is lamentable, because public support for integration has moved in precisely the opposite direction that past research would predict. We analyze data on support for the EU during the period 1973–2004 for eight long-term member states. Four conclusions emerge from the analysis. First, there has been considerable cross-national convergence in citizen support for integration. Second, although economic factors influence citizen support over the entire 1973–2004 period, these impacts are much weaker than reported in past research. Third, the effect of inflation and trade concentration essentially disappeared in the aftermath of the Maastricht Treaty. Fourth, citizen support for integration of specific policy areas, such as foreign policy, social security, and monetary policy, suggests that the precipitous decline in support that began in 1991 was a reaction to Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and its budgetary implications. We argue that the politics of European integration are now animated by distributive concerns as well as by evaluations of absolute economic performance. This argument has important implications for the study of European integration.