Citizens’ Trust in the EU: The impact of the constitutional and the Eurozone crises

Abstract

Trust in political institutions is vital to the normal functioning of the political system. The EU is a political system in the making, thus the levels of trust in EU institutions and in the EU as a whole could be an important indicator of the ‘health’ of this emerging polity. Trust is influenced by the social, economic and social environment, which means that periods of crisis could have an impact on trust. In this paper, we analyse the levels of trust during two different EU crises – the rejection of the constitutional treaty and the current Eurozone crisis. The purpose of the analysis is to establish how different types of crises, with different degrees of salience for Europeans and with different outcomes in terms of problem-solving efficiency, affect trust in the EU and confidence in its future.