Nevertheless, and in spite of the continuous demands coming from the independentists, the EU has firmly backed the Spanish government, not showing any of support to the secessionist cause. In such context, we could ask ourselves whether this situation is affecting the attitudes of Catalan citizens on the EU. In other words: could this lack of European support undermine citizens’ perceptions of the EU? In this article, I will try to find a preliminary answer to this question, by analysing survey data coming from the last Public Opinion Barometer from the Catalan Opinion Studies Centre (CEO). [...]
The trend shown in the chart suggests that the response coming from the EU has significantly affected all population groups. On the one hand, trust in the EU strongly increases among those who believe that Catalonia should be part of Spain, something that is probably triggered by the perception of the EU backing their position. On the other hand, independentists go through a reverse process, where the lack of EU support for their aspirations may be driving the decline in trust shown in the data. [...]
Once again, we see a similar divergence. The starting point varies little among voting groups, with the exception of CUP voters (which is not surprising, the CUP being a leftist antisystem party), while the difference after the 1st of October is almost 5 points. The voters of constitutionalist parties feel more attached to the EU now than they did a year ago, while secessionists feel less attached. The most striking case is that of PDeCAT voters, who were the most attached to the EU in 2016, and whose decrease in attachment is the most pronounced. [...]
A complementary interpretation could build on Sanchez Cuenca’s explanation of the support of European integration. This is based on the idea that citizens tend to be more supportive of integration when they hold negative opinions of their national leaders in comparison to European ones. Following this line, we could say that Catalan nationalists supported the EU because they perceived the quality of the policies made in Brussels to be somehow superior to those made in Madrid. But this mechanism would break down at the moment when Brussels policies are no longer perceived as distinctly better than those coming out of Madrid.
No comments:
Post a Comment