24 May 2019

Politico: Fear will save the EU

Fear is a strong motivator. Populists have been successful in leveraging voters’ fears — of immigrants, of change, of the other — into votes. Now it’s time for pro-Europeans to leverage a Continent’s anxiety and come up with convincing solutions.

They won’t be starting from scratch. There’s still a strong pro-European base on the Continent: Two-thirds of Europeans have positive feelings toward the EU, according to the poll, organized by the European Council on Foreign Relations and YouGov. [...]

Majorities in 11 of the 14 countries polled — including France (58 percent), Germany (51 percent), Italy (58 percent), the Netherlands (52 percent), Poland (58 percent), Romania (58 percent) and Slovakia (66 percent) — believe that the EU could collapse in the next 20 years. Spain was one of the lowest scoring countries, with some 40 percent of respondents fearing disintegration. [...]

Asked what they would miss the most, people said they worry about being able to trade freely (38 percent), travel freely (37 percent), and live and work freely (35 percent) across Europe. They also expressed concern about a lack of cooperation on security and defense (28 percent) and the loss of the bloc as a counter to superpowers like the United States and China (25 percent). Only 8 percent said they do not believe they would lose much if the EU were to cease to exist

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