How Do Europeans Perceive The State Of The Economy?

The European Union Democracy Observatory (EUDO) has published the new Spotlight: “The Collateral Effects of the Economic Crisis towards the Europeanization of Public Attitudes about the Economy”.

Spotlight focuses its analyses on public opinion reactions to the most recent issues at stake in the European political agenda, showing how they affect Europeans. How are those issues perceived by European citizens? And, to what extent do they influence public attitudes toward the Union and its legitimacy? Those questions are at the core of the Spotlight project.

This Issue addresses the public opinion attitudes and perceptions in front of the current economic landscape.

While the outcome of the crisis remains uncertain most observers would agree that citizens remain key players and measuring public opinion in times of crisis becomes of utmost importance to decision makers.

Questions such as “What is the heritage of the crisis?”, “How do European citizens perceive the state of the economy after the crisis?” and “What are the effects of the second phase which brought the Greek, Irish, Spanish and Portuguese economies to the forefront of public attention” are most relevant and EUDO Spotlight tries to give an answer by analysing both negative and positive trends in future economic expectations and by measuring public opinion about national and European economies.

The Highlights of this issue are:

– Public expectations about the economic future of their own nations and of Europe as a whole has largely recovered, and the peak of the economic crisis is perceived to be over.

– There is a convergence in the expectations about the economic future of citizens’ own countries and of the EU as a whole.

– The Europeanization is more visible where countries and individuals have been much affected by the crisis, above all during its current second phase.

– The Europeanization of public awareness of interdependent economies also represents a notable opportunity for European institutions to enhance the legitimacy of their own actions.