Trust in the European Union in times of crisis: insights from the Covid-19 pandemic
More and more, crises affect multiple political systems across different societal domains (social, economic, health, political…), all at the same time. For this type of crisis, the term “transboundary crisis” was coined (Ansell et al. 2010), indicating that a crisis crosses both geographical and societal boundaries. The "transboundedness" of a crisis is often, at least partly, attributed to the increasing interconnectedness of political systems, with the European Union as a prime example. In recent years, the EU gained a significant role in crisis management because of crises that were, at least geographically, of transboundary nature. One only needs to think about the sovereign debt or Euro crisis (2009-2014), the migration crisis (2015), and, most notably, the Covid-19 pandemic (2020-2022).
At the same time, citizens’ political trust, understood as trust in political actors like governments, parliaments and courts, seems to be decreasing all over Europe (e.g., van der Meer and Zmerli 2017). This is considered a problem as high political trust is important for democratic political systems to function. Indeed, it is associated with, among others, higher voter turnout, public participation and rule compliance (e.g., Dalton 2004; Mariën and Hooghe 2011). Furthermore, as the Covid-19 pandemic has shown, it is also a crucial aspect for the success of crisis responses. High political trust is associated with compliance with protective measures like stay-at-home orders, following recommendations like regularly washing your hands, and vaccination uptake (e.g., Jennings et al. 2022; Parsons Leigh et al. 2020). Countries with high political trust even exhibited lower mortality rates in the beginning of the pandemic (Oksanen et al. 2020).
That is why much research studied the determinants of political trust during the onset of the pandemic. However, these studies primarily focus on citizens’ trust in the national level of government despite other research showing that all levels of government, from the local/municipal level to the supranational/EU level, were, in one way or another, involved in the management of the pandemic (e.g., Lynggaard et al. 2023). The EU, for example, organized the joint procurement of medical equipment and vaccines, developed the digital Covid-19 certificate, increased funding to deal with health threats, and provided economic support through loans and grants to make sure member states could pay unemployment fees or to support middle and small businesses (Brooks 2023).
Given this (increasing) involvement of the EU in crises, the question of how the pandemic affected citizens’ trust in the EU level might become more relevant as well. During the Euro crisis, which primarily was an economic crisis, researchers observed a decrease in trust in and support for the EU. This was mostly linked with the austerity measures that were imposed by the EU and corresponding blame attribution mechanisms. To study whether the same decrease occurs during a health crisis, we rely on a survey conducted in six long-term EU member states with a hypothetical scenario depicting a crisis similar to the Covid-19 pandemic and a crisis response – either a restrictive or a support measure.1
Trust in the EU in ‘normal’ and crisis times
The results of our survey indicate that the EU is, together with the national government, the least trusted level of government (figure 1). This confirms the existing literature that indicates that higher levels of government are often less trusted than lower, closer levels like the local and regional level. However, in Spain, we see that the EU is significantly more trusted than the national (and regional) government. Researchers attribute this to a compensation mechanism where the absence of trust at the national level, for example due to perceived corruption, is compensated by higher trust in the EU. Austrian citizens report the lowest level of trust in the EU, perhaps due to increasing euroscepticism – evident in the outcome of the recent elections and the victory of the Eurosceptic FPÖ – but also express less trust in general.
Figure 1
Credit: Jakob Frateur | All rights reservedWhen citizens are confronted with a health threat, their trust in the EU increases, both in hypothetical scenarios involving the EU taking restrictive measures beyond its competences – and in support measures, which the EU implemented during the pandemic. Across all countries, trust in the EU increased by approximately 0.5 points on a seven-point scale. This is a higher increase than that of trust observed at the local or regional level, where trust often remained unchanged or even decreased, reducing the disparity in trust between levels of government.
When examining country differences, we observe higher increases in Spain, France, and Belgium, and lower increases in the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany. It is perhaps no coincidence that these were also the countries that originally opposed the support package by the EU, often with the argument that they had to pay for the problems of other countries. As a result, we see a differentiation and growing disparity in trust in the EU among the observed Western European member states. Nevertheless, the general trends stay the same with Austrian citizens expressing the lowest trust in the EU’s ability to manage the crisis through economic support, and Spanish citizens the highest. Notably, in Spain, the EU is the most trusted level of government for implementing economic support measures, surpassing the national, regional, and local levels. This aligns with the previously mentioned compensation mechanism. In all other countries, however, despite the relative increase in trust, the EU remained the least trusted level of government.
Figure 3
Credit: Jakob Frateur | All rights reservedWhat can we learn from this?
In general, or in so-called “normal” times, it seems that the EU is not necessarily the least trusted government level. During health crises, citizens tend to trust the national level more in managing a crisis, while the EU becomes the least trusted. However, citizens still value the EU’s involvement during crises, as shown by the significant increase in trust when a crisis scenario arises. We also observed large differences between countries, with Austria standing out as having the lowest trust and Spain the highest. Furthermore, regarding support measures, a difference in trust increase was observed between countries that initially opposed EU recovery funds—such as Austria, the Netherlands, and Germany —and those that did not, including Belgium, Spain, and France. Debates at the EU level may thus be spill over to the national, indicating an increasing congruence of EU and national issues during times of crisis, as observed in other studies.
This short study shows that the EU can have some mandate to act in times of crisis, at least in terms of citizens’ trust. However, when looking at the sovereign debt crisis, citizens seemed to favor positive measures, such as economic support, over the austerity policies implemented during the Euro crisis, as reflected in the diverging trust dynamics in both cases. This should be taken into account. Indeed, the EU will, probably, become an even more relevant level of government to deal with crises. One only needs to consider the debates on migration, defense, and climate change to understand that these future challenges cannot be effectively addressed solely at the national level.
References
- Ansell, C., Boin, A., & Keller, A. (2010). Managing transboundary crises: identifying the building blocks of an effective response system. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 18(4), 195–207.
- Brooks, E., de Ruijter, A., Greer, S. L., et al. (2023). EU health policy in the aftermath of COVID-19: neofunctionalism and crisis-driven integration. Journal of European Public Policy, 30(4), 721–739.
- Dalton, R. (2004). Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices: The Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies. Oxford University Press.
- Jennings, W., Stoker, G., Valgarðsson, V., et al. (2022). How trust, mistrust and distrust shape the governance of the COVID-19 crisis. Journal of European Public Policy, 28(8), 1174–1196.
- Lynggaard, K., Jensen, M. D., & Kluth, M. (Eds.). (2023). Governments’ Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Europe. Palgrave McMillan.
- Marien, S., & Hooghe, M. (2011). Does political trust matter? An empirical investigation into the relation between political trust and support for law compliance. European Journal of Political Research, 50(2), 267–291.
- Oksanen, A., Kaakinen, M., Latikka, R., et al. (2020). Regulation and trust: 3 month follow-up study on Covid-19 mortality in 25 European countries. JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, 6(2).
- Parsons Leigh, J., Fiest, K., & Brundin-Mather, R. (2020). A national cross-sectional survey of public perceptions of the Covid-19 pandemic: self-reported beliefs, knowledge, and behaviors. PLoS ONE, 15(10).
- van der Meer, T., & Zmerli, S. (2017). Handbook on political trust. Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.
Jakob Frateur
Jakob Frateur is a doctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, where he is affiliated to both the Faculty of Law and the Department of Political Science. He currently works on the LEGITIMULT project. His interdisciplinary PhD research focuses on the determinants of citizens’ trust in different levels of government in times of crisis. His research interests revolve around multilevel (federal) systems, with specific attention for representation, intergovernmental interaction and trust dynamics between levels of government. The Belgian federal system in particular intrigues him as well.
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This blog is part of the LEGITIMULT project. The project has recevied funding from the European Union's Horizon 2021 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 101061550.
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