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The European Union (EU) enjoys a high level of approval in Germany. But how do people arrive at this judgment? In a representative survey, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung has shed light on the criteria by which the EU is judged. The results reveal an astonishing diversity. There are four typical views of the EU:
- Enthusiastic Europhiles are happy to see how Europe merges together. They would like to see ever closer ties between European countries. Germany should support its European partners regardless of advantages for itself. For the enthusiastic Europhiles these goals are realized in the current EU. They trust the EU’s politicians and believe that European unification is on the right track.
- Critical Europhiles take a different view on this last point. They are also in favor of European unification as an important goal in itself. In their view, the other EU member states deserve Germany's support. However, there are one or two reservations when assessing the EU in the current situation. There is less trust in the actors involved or there are doubts about the benefits for Germany. Overall, however, the critical Europhiles consider European unification to be fundamentally right and worthwhile.
- The unimpressed pragmatists are rather cautious in their assessment of the EU. They think European unification is a good thing, but whether Germany enjoys benefits is not so clear from the perspective of the unimpressed pragmatists. They are in doubt concerning the EU’s politicians. Overall they regard the EU as quite complicated and they consider their knowledge about the EU as limited.
- The weary populists support European unification in principle, but reject the EU in its current form. They have great doubts about the benefits for Germany, they are very distrustful of politicians at European level and the weary populists consider the EU to be too complicated. From their point of view, we should take care of important things – and the EU is not considered as one of them.
People in Germany apply different standards to the EU and they differ in their assessments of how things are currently going in the EU. Overall, a large majority believe that European unification is the right thing to do and very few people want Germany to leave the EU. The EU receives a great deal of approval in Germany – but for very different reasons.
Please note, to date the study is only available in German.
