central and eastern european attitudes in the face of union ||

Central and Eastern European Attitudes in the Face of UnionSimona GuerraISBN: 9781137319487DOI: 10.1057/9781137319487Palgrave Macmillan

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10.1057/9781137319487 - Central and Eastern European Attitudes in the Face of Union, Simona Guerra

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Central and Eastern European Attitudesin the Face of Union


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Central and EasternEuropean Attitudesin the Face of UnionSimona GuerraLecturer, University of Leicester, UK


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© Simona Guerra 2013

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of thispublication may be made without written permission.

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmittedsave with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of theCopyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licencepermitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publicationmay be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this workin accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published 2013 byPALGRAVE MACMILLAN

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A nonno


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Contents

List of Tables and Figures viii

Acknowledgements xi

List of Abbreviations xii

1 Introduction: Europe and Europeans 1

2 Patterns of Support for, and Opposition to, EuropeanIntegration as a Candidate Country 22

3 Patterns of Support for, and Opposition to, EuropeanIntegration after Accession 53

4 Voting for or against Europe 83

5 Information on the EU: Poland and Centraland Eastern Europe 101

6 Euroscepticism and the Next Enlargements 121

7 Conclusion 139

Appendix 153

Bibliography 163

Index 177

vii


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Tables and Figures

Tables

2.1 1990: Are things going in the right direction? 232.2 Support for EU integration in Croatia (2000–2005) 262.3 Support for the EU before accession 322.4 When joining the EU 332.5 Interest in the EU 332.6 1994–1997: Comparing DV and IVs, mean, standard

deviation, and coefficient of variation 352.7 1998–2001: Comparing DV and IVs, mean, standard

deviation, and coefficient of variation 382.8 EU integration and conditions of living 402.9 2002–2004: Comparing DV and IVs, mean, standard

deviation, and coefficient of variation 432.10 Before accession (1994–2004) 462.11 Binary regression analysis (2001 PNES) 482.12 Multinomial logistic regression analysis (2001 PNES) 50

3.1 Willingness to vote in the Constitutional Treatyreferendum 58

3.2 Voting in the Constitutional Treaty referendum 603.3 2004–2006 data. DV and IVs: Mean, standard deviation,

and coefficient of variation 633.4 Binary logistic regression analysis 2005 PNES 683.5 Multivariate regression analysis 2005 PNES 703.6 Multivariate regression analysis 2005 PNES 713.7 Multivariate regression analysis 2005 PNES 723.8 Levels of trust in Poland (2010) 773.9 Levels of trust in Bulgaria (2010) 77

3.10 Levels of trust in Croatia (2010) 773.11 Levels of trust in Ukraine (2010) 78

4.1 EU accession referendum: Turnout and ‘Yes’ votes 864.2 Eurogaps: Turnout at the national and European

elections, and EU accession referendum 894.3 Binary regression analysis on the 2004 EES – Assessment

on the past economic situation 93

viii


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List of Tables and Figures ix

4.4 Binary regression analysis on the 2004 EES – Assessmenton the future economic situation 94

4.5 Testing the ‘legacy’: Binary regression analysis on the2004 Polish EES 95

5.1 Religion and the EU 1095.2 FG1 attitudes towards the EU before accession 1125.3 FG2 attitudes towards the EU before accession 1125.4 FG1 attitudes towards the EU after accession 1125.5 FG2 attitudes towards the EU after accession 1135.6 FG1 self-perceived assessment of level of information 1135.7 FG2 self-perceived assessment of level of information 1147.1 Case study: Research hypotheses and findings (using

binary logistic regression analysis, 2001 PNES and2005 PNES) 140

7.2 Comparative analysis: Research hypotheses and findings(using binary logistic regression analysis, 2004 EES) 145

A.1 Residential category (Warsaw) 153A.2 Residential category (Zielona Góra) 153A.3 By regions (Warsaw) 154A.4 By regions (Zielona Góra) 154A.5 Poland 157A.6 Bulgaria 157A.7 Czechoslovakia 157A.8 Czech Republic 158A.9 Slovakia 158

A.10 Estonia 158A.11 Hungary 159A.12 Latvia 159A.13 Lithuania 159A.14 Romania 160A.15 Slovenia 160A.16 Cross-tabulation voting today in a referendum∗EU is

good for Poland 160A.17 Coefficients and multicollinearity diagnostics 161A.18 Trust and distrust (Poland) 161A.19 Attitudes towards EU membership in Croatia (2003

European Value Survey) 161

Figures

2.1 Positive image of the EC/EU in CEE before accession 25


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x List of Tables and Figures

2.2 CEE citizens’ perceptions on the direction of the country 282.3 Personal financial situation in the next 12 months 292.4 Country economic situation in the next 12 months 302.5 Attitudes towards the EU in Poland (1994–2004) 443.1 Polish attitudes towards EU integration (1994–2010) 623.2 Benefit from EU membership (2008) 794.1 Voting ‘For’ in the accession referendum 85


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Acknowledgements

This book draws on my doctoral and postdoctoral research. The SussexEuropean Institute at the University of Sussex and my DPhil super-visors, Aleks Szczerbiak and Alan Mayhew, deserve all my gratitude.I am also indebted to all those colleagues and professors who con-tributed their comments, suggestions, and encouragement during mydoctoral years, in particular Paul Taggart and Paul Webb. Special thanksto Lucia Quaglia for her invaluable support and advice. I feel verylucky that I could visit as researcher the European University Instituteand could benefit from the excellence of the intellectual environmentand resources, while I could study and later work next to Mark Franklinand Cees van der Eijk, whose work and research inspire my researchinterest and questions, as the title of the book may suggest.

In the United Kingdom, Clare McManus and, in Poland, MikołajCzesnik and Radosław Markowski are gratefully acknowledged for afundamental part of my research: the Polish national data sets. I amindebted to the University Association for Contemporary EuropeanStudies (UACES) and the European Commission for the UACES Stu-dentship that allowed my fieldwork in Poland, and the School of Politicsand International Relations at the University of Nottingham for thefunding to support my fieldwork. Paul Heywood and Lauren McLarenare thankfully acknowledged for their support when I prepared myproposal and Richard Whitaker and Ben Clements for reading and com-menting on some sections of my work; thanks to Amber Stone-Galileeand Andrew Baird at Palgrave Macmillan, who supported and assistedme during the writing process. The most special thanks go to my family.Any failings or omissions are mine.

xi


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Abbreviations

AWS Akcja Wyborcza Solidarnosc (Solidarity Electoral Action)CAP Common Agriculture PolicyCBOS Centrum Badanii Opinii Społecznej (Public Opinion

Research Centre)CCEB Candidate Countries EurobarometerCEE Central and Eastern EuropeCEEB Central and Eastern EurobarometerCEORG Central European Opinion Research GroupCEPOL European Police CollegeCT Constitutional TreatyCVVM Centrum pro výzkum verejného mínéní (Public Opinion

Research Centre)EB EurobarometerEC European CommunityEP European ParliamentEU European UnionFIDESZ Fidesz – Magyar Polgári Szövetség (Fidesz – Hungarian Civic

Union)GRECO Council of Europe Group of States against CorruptionISP Instytut Spraw Publicznych (Institute of Public Affairs)LPR Liga Polskich Rodzin (League of Polish Families)MEP Member of the European ParliamentNAFTA North American Free Trade AgreementNATO North Atlantic Treaty OrganizationOLAF European Anti-Fraud OfficePHARE Pologne Hongrie: Aide à la reconstruction économique

(Poland and Hungary: Assistance for the Reconstructionof the Economy)

PiS Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc (Law and Justice)PNES Polish National Election StudyPO Platforma Obywatelska (Civic Platform)PRM Partidul România Mare (Great Romania Party)PSL Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe (Polish Peasant Party)SLD Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej (Democratic Left Alliance)

xii


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List of Abbreviations xiii

SRP Samoobrona (Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej) (Self-Defence (of thePolish Republic))

TARKI Társadalomkutatási (Social Research Centre)TEU Treaty on European UnionUKIE Urzad Komitetu Integracji Europejskiej (Office of the

Committee for European Integration)UP Unia Pracy (Labour Union)UW Unia Wolnosci (Freedom Union)


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1Introduction: Europe andEuropeans

After the Danish rejection of the Treaty on European Union (EU) (1992),the legitimizing relationship between public opinion and Europeanintegration acquired more salience, as the ‘readiness of European politi-cal elites to use’ referendums provoked uncertain developments aroundthe EU project (Taggart and Szczerbiak, 2005). As the ‘permissive con-sensus’ was not assured, mass attitudes became ‘both a measure and adeterminant of the process of European integration’ (Gabel, 1998a, p. 9).EU politics was no longer an elite-driven process, and the role of publicopinion became a determinant in shaping its agenda. The question ofwhat determines public support for the EU has been widely examined,focusing on the domestic context (Anderson 1998; Gabel, 1998a), polit-ical parties (Ray, 2003a, b), and perceived cultural threats (Carey, 2002;McLaren, 2006). Further contributions to the study of public supportfor the EU stressed the importance of cultural factors, where one of the‘most vital . . . elements is religion’ (Nelsen et al., 2001, p. 192; Nelsenet al., 2011).

Public opinion is now crucial to the relationship between memberstates and the EU. It has a strong dual relationship with domestic pol-itics, on the one hand affected by and on the other hand affectingdomestic politics, particularly through political parties. At the sametime, domestic politics is also influenced by, and impinges on, the qual-ity of the relations with the EU, depending on the nature of publicsupport for membership or opposition to it.

Public opinion therefore had and still has important implications interms of the manner of member states’ initial forays into EU mem-bership as well as the type of member state they would eventuallybecome. EU citizens’ political choices generally ‘shape and constrainthe process of European integration’ (Gabel, 1998a, p. 333), and this

1


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2 Central and Eastern European Attitudes in the Face of Union

makes the relationship between the EU and its citizens, particularly innew member states, as fundamental as setting the basis of a long-termrelationship.

With the fall of Communism in the 1990s, overwhelming support forthe EU spread in all the former Communist countries of Central andEastern Europe. While political elites were looking at the stabilizing fac-tors of joining both NATO and the EU, public opinion was all for EUintegration. The ‘return to Europe’ signalled a new beginning in the his-tory of these countries and became a ‘leitmotif’ towards integration inmany candidate countries, in particular Poland (Szczerbiak, 2002a). TheEU was regarded as the source of political and economic help, far fromthe Soviet shade, and able to improve the social sphere significantly.

Most of the studies on public support for European integration in for-mer Communist countries focus on public opinion before accession orcarry out comparative analyses of EU member states’ after accession.Rachel Cichowski (2000) has indicated new avenues of research on theway these determinants can change over time. This book addresses thequestion of the manner in which the determinants of public supportfor, and opposition to, the EU have changed in Poland and other formerCommunist countries before and after accession. The fifth enlargementof the EU presented researchers with a number of new cases wheneight former Communist countries joined the Union. Since then, twofurther Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, Bulgaria andRomania, have become EU member states, Croatia has joined in July2013, and other countries – such as the former Yugoslav Republic ofMacedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia – have been granted the status ofEU candidate countries by the European Council. The EU is planning toenlarge further to the Western Balkans, when Albania and Bosnia andHerzegovina are ready to join the EU, and possibly Kosovo. As LiesbetHooghe (2007) has argued, European integration has become a morecontentious domestic issue and citizens are now much more directlyinvolved in the EU political process. The attitudes of the citizens of thesecandidate countries will determine the successful completion of thetransition to membership, given that they might hold accession referen-dums, while citizens of member states could also ‘constrain’ the processof further integration, through referendums or through the expressionof disaffection and Euroscepticism in European Parliament (EP) elec-tions. Thus, analyses of attitudes towards EU integration also respondto current salient issues on the EU political process. It is fundamentalto understand why citizens can oppose further integration when vot-ing in EU referendums and how they take their choices when voting


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Introduction: Europe and Europeans 3

‘on Europe’, as it would be misleading to study citizens’ vote withoutunderstanding the determinants of these choices.

This book measures citizens’ evaluations towards the domestic situa-tion in order to explain their attitude towards EU integration and theirpolitical behaviour in EP elections and referendums. Support for EUintegration, in fact, does not necessarily correlate with willingness tovote in EP elections or voting ‘for’ in case of European referendums.Another variable, examined with people’s knowledge on the EU andfocus groups, is studied and represents an important factor when choos-ing to vote. This project contends that the relative economic povertyof post-Communist countries is the main factor to affect patterns ofsupport. An affective dimension termed as ‘unconditional support’ andcollective (economic) benefits are the two factors impacting on publicsupport for EU integration before accession. After accession, individualbenefits can become more salient, possibly affecting long-term pat-terns of behaviour. Further, a comparative analysis of attitudes towardsEuropean elections points to levels of disengagement with politics andhighlights the role of information, while addressing the characteristicsof the post-Communist case study.

This chapter introduces the question of what determines public sup-port for the EU. Firstly, it introduces the idea of Europe and debates thelegitimacy of the EU, explaining why analysing citizens’ views of the EUis important. The cultural dimension of Europe and the religious rootswill be highlighted in the examination of the emergence of Euroscepti-cism and of populist parties and social actors in the run-up to accession,in Chapter 6. Secondly, it addresses the study of public opinion on Euro-pean integration as the subject of extensive research in the literatureon comparative European politics and contemporary European studies.Thirdly, reflective of the post-Communist case and the situation in acandidate country before accession, this analysis selects and explains itsframework.

Finally, the analysis considers both the peculiarities of the CEE frame-works, where support is expected to be higher because of the relativeeconomic poverty of the Communist past, and the similarities withWestern member states.

Europe and the EU

The idea of Europe is a controversial one, made up of different –mythological, geographical, historical, political, and cultural –dimensions. Europe as a term could not be found in the Bible,


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nevertheless ‘Europe became a Christian notion’ (Wilson and van derDussen, 1993, p. 19), particularly under the threat of Islam and in itsopposition. The mythological dimension has its roots in Greece andhas provided inspiration for writers around the story of the abduc-tion of Europa, the daughter of Phoenix, king of Phoenicians, by theCretan God Zeus (Mikkeli, 1998, pp. 3–5). The notion was mainly geo-graphical, coinciding with the Hellenic world. Later, the Roman Empireembraced a vague and composite aggregation of peoples, but becamethe centre of Western civilization after defeating Macedonia (197 BC).Subsequently, when the Arabs moved up to Northern Africa and Spain,and the Carolingian ruler Charles Martel, Duke and Prince of the Franks(737–743), defeated the Muslims under the symbols of the crucifix andthe crescent in battle, Europe added its cultural dimension around Chris-tianity. With time and the threat from different borders and differenttribes, such as Germanic in the north, Viking at the south, Magyarsin the east, and Islam still persisting in the southern border, Europestrengthened its historical dimension. Charlemagne proclaimed himselfas the ‘father of Europe’ (rex, pater Europae) and ‘Christianity providedthe western monarchies with a powerful myth of legitimation’ (Delanty,1995, p. 26). Already in the seventh century, in fact, it could have beenpossible to attach to the notion of Europe ‘an emotional charge’, linkedto the ninth chapter of the Genesis and Noah’s sons, where ‘Europe wasthe continent of Japheth and his descendants, the continents of Greeksand Christians’ (Mikkeli, 1998, pp. 14–15).

With the arrival of fifteenth century and the fall of Constantino-ple under Mohammed II (1453), Christianity felt threatened and thePapacy created a defence of the ‘Respublica christiana’ against Islam,where Europe and ‘Respublica christiana’ became ‘interchangeable syn-onyms’ (Wilson and van der Dussen, 1993, p. 35). It was the Turkishthreat and the humanist culture developing in the sixteenth centurythat further structured the idea of Europe upon the one of Christen-dom. Schisms and heresies divided the unitary Latin Christian Europe,and the idea of Europe and Christianity lost their overlapping iden-tity, though ‘idealists’ still referred to a unique sentiment of culturalidentification between Europe and Christendom. As Denys Hay under-lines, the ‘chief monument of this attempt . . . to “institutionalize” thenotion of Europe came . . . with the Abbé de Saint-Pierre’, the author ofthe Mémoires pour render la paix perpetuelle en Europe (1957, pp. 119–120). The idea of the Holy Alliance, bringing together the Russian Tzar,Alexander I, the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm III, and the Emperorof Austria, Franz I, in 1815 drew back to the idea of Europe of the Mid-dle Ages, and the idea of peace preserved ‘in the same Christian nation’


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by God, the ‘Divine Saviour’. However, in the late nineteenth century,Greece came to symbolize civilization, with reference to the Atheniandemocracies. Democrats and liberals contrasted Greece to Rome, andthe roots of Europe went back to the Hellenic world.

Nationalisms emerged and, with the First World War, Europe wentinto ‘degeneration and decline’ (Wilson and van der Dussen, 1993, pp.74–78). Europe and its idea assumed different forms and dimensionsdepending on the thinkers who designed their own idea of Europe(Friedrich Naumann, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Richard Coudenove-Kalergi, and Aristide Briand). Europe as a concept and idea stretched itspolitical and geographical dimensions, but always represented a unionfor peace, after the struggles of the First World War. The emergence ofNazism and Fascism stopped any realization of a pan-European federa-tion and led to the idea behind the European Coal and Steel Community(1950), which was both political and economic.

Nevertheless, from the outside, the Community could also be per-ceived through a cultural dimension, as the six founding fathers covereda similar geographical Europe to the one of Charlemagne, with thereturn of a common ‘Judeo-Christian tradition’ (Asad, 1993, p. 217). Thelack of legitimacy and the debate on the democratic deficit has animatedthe last 20 years of European integration. When the ConstitutionalTreaty attempted to return to the EU’s roots in 2003, religion becamea salient debate; and religion, as Nelsen et al. (2001) showed, and as thisbook illustrates, can become an important issue when both Europe and,specifically, the EU are debated at the domestic level, particularly in theEurosceptic rhetoric.

This book’s approach is based on domestic evaluations and an affec-tive dimension. The framework adopted combines frameworks of anal-ysis applied to both Western and Eastern cases and demonstrates howit can be explanatory in each case and why it is important to studyhow determinants of public support for, and opposition to, Europeanintegration are critical in the current European political process.

Public support: Western models

The Treaty of Maastricht created the first big debate on the wayEuropean citizens could structure their attitudes towards Europeanintegration and vote in European referendums. The debate betweenMark Franklin and Palle Svensson examined the role of political par-ties and the government in the June 1992 referendum. Karen Siuneand Svensson (1993) underlined that when political parties agreed onsupport of the European issue, they could positively influence public


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opinion. On the contrary, politicians’ difficulties in explaining thethemes of the Treaty provoked more independent and less influencedbehaviours of citizens from the parties they identified with. Recentresearch on media effects and European integration pointed to a dif-ferent direction, as ‘[C]onsensus among political elites seems to havea numbing effect’ (Peter, 2007, p. 141) – although that seems to beless valid in the case of very salient elections, such as the EU accessionreferendum.

Franklin et al. (1995, p. 101) suggested that people’s attitude towardsreferendums depended on ‘the popularity of the government in power’.After a further article by Svensson (2002), Franklin (2002) refined histhesis, distinguishing between low salience and high salience referen-dums; in the future, the European issue would acquire more salience,and European member states would have a similar attitude to the Danishcase where the opinion of the government could have less impact. Later,Sarah Binzer Hobolt’s analysis (2009) stresses the salience of framesand to what extent elites matter, mediated by political awareness andpartisans affiliations.

The eastward enlargement produced a large amount of information inthe new member states. Particularly in the run-up to accession, citizenswere bombarded with information on the EU. However, as this analysisshows (Chapter 5), information did not follow the momentum of acces-sion, and the 2004 EP elections may have resulted in low turnout partlydue to the lack of salience – as Franklin (2002) underlines – and lack ofinformation.

Further, former Communist countries developed a deep distrusttowards the institutions and political parties at the national level. Itis unlikely that parties can cue citizens, in particular when these feelstrongly about the issue(s) at hand. The old Communist ‘nomenklatura’left the heritage of the division between ‘us’ (the people) and ‘them’(the institutions, as the government, or the members of parliament). Itis more likely that public opinion can force political elites not to portraythemselves as too Eurosceptic, if they do not want to become too unpop-ular across Euroenthusiastic citizens, indicating a bottom-up approach(Steenbergen et al., 2007).

The Polish case shows that citizens’ consistent Euroenthusiasm canguide political elites; supporting the EU and building good relationshipswith the EU can represent a political and electoral advantage for politicalelites. In Poland, after accession, opinion polls and elections illustratedless and less support for Eurosceptic political parties and the incumbentgovernment (2005–2007) (Kochanowicz, 2005). In 2007, Self-Defence


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(Self-Defence of the Polish Republic, Samoobrona Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej:SRP) (1.54 per cent) and the League of Polish Families (Liga PolskichRodzin: LPR) (1.28 per cent) were the losers of the Polish pre-term elec-tion (Guerra and Bil, 2009). Thus, Poland presented an interesting caseof mismatch between public attitudes towards the EU and political elitecue. That is the reason why support for political parties is studied withan in-depth qualitative analysis, despite Leonard Ray’s (2003a, b) inter-esting findings. In comparative perspective, Ray found that politicalparties did ‘affect public opinion about European integration’ (2003b,p. 987); furthermore when the issue was salient, (i) parties had a strongerimpact, (ii) party unity (as already confirmed by previous studies) furtherstrengthened it, (iii) political closeness was another important variable,and (iv) interaction and variations in party positions were significant aswell. Finally, he observed that an elite’s consensus was important, andif the parties aggregated, they could shift a part of public opinion and‘[might] act to discourage policy voting’ (2003b, p. 990).

However, these models were applied to Western member states and,as aforementioned, political parties can represent a misleading inde-pendent variable in Central and Eastern Europe. In particular, Polandshowed very high rates of volatility and high levels of distrust towardspoliticians (Chapter 2).

Sylvia Kritzinger (2003) offered the most similar model to the onethat this book’s analysis is going to test. Through her comparative frame-work, Kritzinger focused on four Western member states (Germany, Italy,France, and the United Kingdom) and measured the impact of nationalfactors and the EU factor on attitudes towards EU integration. Start-ing from the previous literature, it was possible to assume that citizensgathered information on the EU by means of ‘shortcuts’ and ‘awareness(could) be achieved as a result of continuous EU media coverage’, sonot to rely on national factors. On the other hand, public support forthe EU could be shaped by ‘particular economic, political, historical andcultural context’ (2003, p. 222), in line with Matthew Gabel’s analysis(1998a). However, this situation could be linked to the salience of theEU issue, where the lack of salience and contentious issues over the EUcould play a role on public attitudes.

Christopher Anderson (1998) partially reinforced Franklin’s thesis andaffirmed that people could not have a definite and particular idea onthe European integration issue, so when asked for their opinion theyused domestic proxies, i.e. evaluations of the domestic situation. Furtherpositive factors were seen in positive economic conditions, positive pro-portion between costs and benefits, and satisfaction of the democratic


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performance of the government. Anderson showed that when citizenslacked information, they used rational proxies. Nevertheless, it was notthe performance of the government that influenced their support forthe EU, but their general satisfaction with democracy.

Gabel (1998a, b) further focused on domestic, mainly economic, andaffective dimensions. His analytical assumptions were rather similar tothe ones of this book. Public opinion played an important ‘role in deter-mining the scope and speed of integration’ and represented ‘a measureand a determinant of the process of integration’ itself (1998a, p. 3).Based on the work by David Easton (1965), A System Analysis of PoliticalLife, his model defined two different dimensions for the level of support.The first one was the ‘utilitarian’; the second was the ‘affective’ (1998a,p. 16). The utilitarian changed according to the benefits and was shapedby the governing authorities and political dimension. For these reasons,it was, to a certain extent, unstable. The affective (interlinked to the util-itarian) embraced abstract values and commitments to an ideal, and wasmore stable. Further, following on Ronald Inglehart’s (1970) ‘cognitivemobilization’, he found that when political awareness reached high lev-els of knowledge, it was possible for citizens to imagine a ‘supranationalpolitical community’ (1998a, p. 95). Consequently, the higher the levelof cognitive mobilization, the more positive the evaluation of member-ship, and (according to Gabel’s study) the lower the utilitarian aspect(even if to a very small extent).

This book selects an analysis on domestic proxies, as it is assumedthat these are important in case of the ‘lack of knowledge’ on the EU –as is possible prior to accession. In addition, as this analysis focuses oncandidate countries, the affective dimension can only be dependent ona low level of knowledge on the EU. The literature suggests, throughInglehart’s study (1970), the importance of a mobilizing force. In Cen-tral and Eastern Europe, the ‘return to Europe’ was an attractive slogan(Szczerbiak, 2002a), as the EU could overlap – in citizens’ minds – withEurope and represented the political return to the geographical loca-tion they always maintained. This analysis contends that the legacy ofthe Communist past could play a major role and the ‘return to Europe’could represent (instead of a high level of knowledge, but with the sameimpact) a mobilizing force in the form of ‘unconditional support’ (seeChapter 2 for its definition), and as such could explain the use andsignificance of the ‘European factor’ in the analysis before accession.

In addition, this analysis brings in the study carried out by KrzysztofJasiewicz (2004) and uses people’s evaluations of the general situa-tion in the country. In fact, Jasiewicz realized that neither particular


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socio-demographic factors nor ideological determinants ‘simply anddirectly’ determined voting behaviour:

The sum of such assessments amounts to a generalized view on theperformance not only of the current government, but also of thepolitical system, and the economy as a whole. Once established, thisview generates a ‘definition of the situation’ in the individual’s mindthat leads, in turn, to a specific act at the polls. In the Polish context,such assessments tend to become good predictors of voting behav-ior in their own right, regardless of the demographic or ideologicalfactors hidden behind them.

(2004, p. 40)

This is further supported by Gabel’s analysis with Guy Whitten (1997).The comparison between objective (at the regional level) and subjectiveeconomic evaluations and how they impacted on support for Euro-pean integration show that the subjective national assessment was moreimportant than the personal economic situation (1997, p. 91). Also, sub-jective evaluations of the economic situation generally could provide anindicator of public support. Their findings are relevant to the increasinguse of referendums and are close to the framework adopted in this book,as they stress that both at the national and personal levels subjectiveevaluations are the determinants of public support. This also respondsto Lauren McLaren’s contention in her book, as the utilitarian modelwould require ‘a great deal of information’ that clearly the ‘ordinaryEuropean’ (McLaren, 2006, p. 17) cannot have. This book contends thatthe utilitarian model here selected, based on people’s perceptions, is themost explanatory in the post-Communist case, because of the relativepoverty of the Communist regime. It is assumed that citizens in for-mer Communist countries would perceive high national benefits beforeaccession and personal gains after accession, not based on ‘a great dealof information’, but a subjective perception of the domestic situation, inparticular of the economic situation. The utilitarian proxy, in fact, canbe refined in order to distinguish between a ‘personal utilitarian proxy’and a more general ‘collective benefits factor’. The former answers to theevaluation of the material situation of the household, directly concern-ing the ‘individual economic level’; the latter deals with the evaluationof the economic situation and has to be interpreted within a ‘collectivenational context’.

Furthermore, McLaren’s analysis (2006), as most of the previous stud-ies here presented, is based on the Eurobarometer and Central and


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Eastern Eurobarometer (CEEB) data sets. This book also tackles a sub-question on methodology. It contends that the depth and continuity ofnational election studies and European Election Studies (EES) can pro-vide more focused analyses on attitudes towards European integrationwhile remaining flexible to comparisons.

This analysis uses the question whether accession could be ‘good orbad’ for the country (Poland) in order to operationalize and test the‘European factor’. The framework is suggested by the affective dimen-sion of Gabel’s study (1998a), Anderson’s domestic proxies (1998), andKritzinger’s analysis (2003). These studies on Western member statesconfirm the necessity of studying and building a theoretical frameworkfor the new EU member states; some analyses adapted these frameworks,but did not compare how determinants changed. These are presented inthe following section.

Central and Eastern European frameworks

The debate on the relationship between public support and Europeanintegration moved eastward, when the accession negotiations openedcompletely dissimilar perspectives to the ordinary optimistic ones. Thedual process of democratization and Europeanization within the CEEcountries was becoming the centre of academic studies.

As Heather Grabbe (2001) underlined, the negotiations built struc-tures, which affected primarily the development of governance. At thesame time, the pressure fell on both the elite and citizens. However,while the former improved their knowledge and positions, the latterreceived the burden of the transformation process. The administrativeand legislative procedures did not create any public debate that couldimpact on the alleged ‘democratic deficit’ of the enlarged EU. As shewrote, the ‘danger for democracy . . . (was) that only the top layer ofcentral state officials (would) have become “Europeanised”, while thepublic (could) remain “excluded from European integration” ’ (p. 1029).If this were the case, according to the Western models, the CEE citizens’attitudes towards the EU should be dependent on domestic proxies,partisanship, or utilitarian aspects.

Relying on the Western models, prior to membership, RachelCichowski (2000) pointed to levels of uncertainty as an important fea-ture in CEE countries. That should not be considered as a sign ofisolationism, since people’s ideas are still in the process of configuration.Her analysis found a basis to the economic and democratic approach,while the free-market variable was less significant. The analysis on


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the occupational level overlapped with Jack Bielasiak’s findings (2002);however, the negative perceptions of farmers were valid only for thepre-accession process and were reversed after membership began. Theanalysis showed, in line with previous research, that favourable Euro-pean parties had a determinant impact on people’s attitudes. Themultivariate analysis suggested that the economic perceptions were nota strong variable, while in the CEE countries the value and process ofdemocratization and the opening to a free market played a major role(the more they were satisfied, the higher their support) – but in Poland.

In most of the studies, the idea of the EU is not recognized as a pos-sible cognitive mobilization variable, while the free-market and humanrights variables are. International goods or the free market have the sameimpact on the negotiation and democratization process, as the perspec-tives of travelling and studying abroad more easily have. That is whythis analysis is not going to consider a specific variable for the free mar-ket, but only a general economic variable (evaluation of the economicperformance).

Joshua Tucker, Alexander Pacek, and Adam Berinsky (2002) focusedtheir study on the winners and losers of the transition, and how theirattitudes could be interpreted. Their economic variable depended on theway citizens’ economic conditions changed after the transition, sincethey believed that predicting the future would have been a rather unre-alistic anticipation. Following the previous theoretical frameworks, theauthors especially referred to Gabel, stressing a winner–loser cleavage(one of their independent variables, together with the economic), butthey recognized the unfeasibility of the use of Western models. Sim-ilar to Mitchell Orenstein (2001) and Herbert Kitschelt (1995), theyunderlined that parties could not have a significant impact on citizens’attitudes because of political fluctuations, and, they stressed, subsequentmarginalization of political parties (the Polish case is a good example).

While studying the economic variable, they returned to the signif-icance of the ‘retrospective’ and ‘prospective’ economic evaluation,indicating that they found the retrospective variable quite useful. Thatconfirmed the interpretation and expectations of this analysis. Theperception variable of this study also relies on prospective economicevaluations, since people had already improved their economic condi-tions after the fall of Communism. It is expected that citizens could havealready structured the perception of their possible future conditions, andthis analysis is based on the people’s perceptions and expectations.

Tucker, Pacek, and Berinsky’s results were rather similar to Cichowski’sfindings (2000). In the pre-accession, the pace of the transition had an


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impact on citizens’ support for the EU with winners and losers. Tuckeret al. understood that for ‘citizens of East Central Europe, member-ship in the EU (was) more than simply an international issue’ (2002,p. 570); the impact of the reforms impacted on citizens’ attitudes. Thisanalysis shares the view that the level of support depended on the‘consequences’ of the reforms. For that reason, it uses the economic vari-ables. After accession, the high level of farmers’ support reflected the EUinvestment of direct funds in Poland – farmers were the main opponentsbefore the accession (see Chapter 2).

The study by Thomas Christin (2005) proposed a model for all theCEE countries before accession. As in the previous types of analysis, heused the Eurobarometer data and divided his investigations on two lev-els: individual and national. Again, the attitudes towards free-marketeconomy and the social division between winners and losers were con-sidered as independent variables. This analysis agrees with Christin’sgeneral hypothesis, considering people’s evaluation of the situation inthe country as independent variable. Similar to Jasiewicz, Christin workson people’s perceptions and subjective evaluations. On the contrary,when speaking about the average citizen, assuming he has a low level ofinformation, again, these types of analysis do not consider the EU itselfas a factor of mobilization, but both the free-market economy and thedefence of human rights as possible independent variables. This analy-sis suggests considering the EU’s mobilizing force also before accession,particularly in the case of post-Communist states (as EU factor). In addi-tion, this study is not examining hypotheses concerning the defenceof human rights and the progress of democratization: the research isbased on perceptions and evaluations on the direction of the country –to which support, as suggested by Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca (2000) at theaggregate level, is expected to be negatively linked.

Further articles have strengthened the framework adopted here,which has emerged from the literature on both Western and Cen-tral and Eastern frameworks. In choosing this framework, this studyhas discarded the post-industrial cognitive mobilization (as working onpost-Communist countries), and political parties, as they can be a mis-leading indicator. ‘Mistrust’ for political parties is caused by the ‘negativeconnotations of “the party” generated by forty years of Communistparty rule’ (Szczerbiak, 2006a, p. 116), the high volatility and mismatchbetween political parties and public opinion on the EU confirm Tucker’sobservation, it was implausible that people could take party cues forsuch a fundamental issue as membership (Tucker et al., 2002). Iden-tity issues are not a problem in Poland, they view the EU mainly asan economic organization, secondly as a political organization, a very


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small percentage as a cultural one (Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej,CBOS, 2004, 05/2004), and that is common to most of the countries inthe area, with a few noticeable exceptions. Also, at the moment of acces-sion, identity or cultural issues – as in the Eurosceptic populist rhetoric –were not salient.

Framework of analysis

The framework of analysis was selected in the context of the Polish caseand the situation in any of the candidate countries before accession.

Anderson stressed that citizens could be sensitive to their collectiveeconomic circumstances, as well as those at the individual level (1998,quoted in Hooghe and Marks, 2004, p. 1). With Yuliya Tverdova (2004),he wrote that at the basis of people’s evaluation there was a collectiveand individual cost–benefit calculus, those who thought they or theircountry would benefit were more likely to say they would vote for EUmembership in a referendum (2004, pp. 190–191). Anetta Caplanova,Marta Orvinska, and John Hudson (2004) further underlined that whilepoliticians spoke of ‘the tide of history’, people actually needed to per-ceive benefit from the Union (2004, p. 285). Finally on the Polish case,Jasiewicz (2004) indicated people’s evaluations on the economic andpolitical situation as the general perceptions on the situation in thecountry.

This has all had an impact on the framework of analysis. Arthur Lupia(with Matsusaka, 2004, p. 468), writing of shortcuts, asserted that peopletook decisions on the basis of the rule of thumb or heuristics they adopt,as cognitive shortcuts. This research follows Anderson’s interpretationof ‘proxies’, ‘as a more neutral term’, compared to ‘shortcuts’ – but stillthe same – distinguishing this factor from the socio-psychological useof the term ‘heuristics’. The latter, in fact, is used when ‘people lackthe capacity or motivation’, whereas the former simply refers to ‘lack ofrelevant information’ (Anderson, 1998, pp. 574–575). The perceptions,as indicated by Jasiewicz, are likely to be the key to understanding, asthe basis of their proxies – or shortcuts, as in Kritzinger (2003) – in orderto decide on their vote – as in this book the dependent variable is alwaysthe answer to the question on ‘how would you vote’.

Although Anderson posits the question,

how can mass publics be simultaneously ignorant about integra-tion and act in a self-interested rational fashion when it comes toeconomic benefits to be secured from the integration process?

(1998, p. 573)


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Perceptions based on the direction of the country (Jasiewicz, 2004)and evaluations of the domestic situation, while using a few impor-tant socio-demographic variables, can answer the interest of thisstudy. Jasiewicz (2004) indicated the perceptions as basis of analysis,Chichowski (2000) pointed to further avenues of research (change overtime), Anderson (1998), Tverdova and Anderson (2004), and Caplanovaet al. (2004) agreed that the cost–benefit calculus can indicate cit-izens’ attitudes. On the other hand, Gabel’s study (1998a) positedthe analysis on both the utilitarian and the affective dimension, andKritzinger (2003) operationalized both national and European factors.The strength of the idea of a ‘return to Europe’ in post-Communistcountries led to a similarity in the study by Inglehart on cognitive mobi-lization. The ‘European factor’ could move post-Communist citizens toa supportive attitude towards EU accession and still be significant afteraccession, due to the distance between citizens and national institutions(similar to Sánchez-Cuenca, 2000).

Previous research on attitudes towards the EU mainly used questionson ‘the image of the EU’ or whether ‘membership was a good thingfor the country’. The focus of this research is on the determinants ofpeople’s attitudes, and it examines how people would vote in case of areferendum on accession. This research assumes that citizens can havea positive image, but still vote against the EU, or vice versa. Beforeaccession, Eurobarometer data showed that the positive image of theEU in Poland was not as high as expected from national data sets (seeTable A.5 in Appendix). The focus of this study is that which moves peo-ple to vote for membership and to support EU referendums on furtherdevelopments of EU politics. Questions such as ‘would you say that yourimpressions of the aims and activities of the European Union are gener-ally positive, neutral, or negative?’ and on the ‘image of the EU’ do notanswer the focus of this study.

These assumptions are confirmed by looking at Poland’s positiveimage of the EU and the analysis of the 2005 PNES (Polish NationalElection Study). In the table on the image of the EU in Poland (seeTable A.5), the drop in those perceiving a positive image of the EU isregistered in 1994 (37 per cent, from 48 per cent in 1993). This wouldnot have been so fundamental to voters’ decision if a vote on EU acces-sion had been taken at the time. In fact, CBOS data report that it wasin June 1994, when levels of those supporting the EU and EU integra-tion (willing to vote favourably in a referendum on accession) attained77 per cent (see Chapter 2). Further, in the 2001 PNES, the percentages ofthose responding positively and negatively in a referendum on accession


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did not match those responding positively and negatively, respectively,on the benefits of accession. Eight hundred fifty-four respondents wouldhave voted in favour of accession. Among them, 757 thought that acces-sion was good for Poland, whereas 11 per cent thought the EU was goingto be ‘bad’ or gave another answer. Similarly, 381 respondents werethinking of voting against accession, and almost 78 per cent assertedthat membership was bad for Poland, but almost 25 per cent (85 respon-dents) replied it was good for Poland or gave another answer. Althoughthere may be a correlation between the two variables, it is possibleto assume that there was a significant share of the population which,despite a negative attitude in a referendum, still thought that joiningthe EU ‘was good for the country’ (see Table A.16). This is relevant tothis study, aiming to give evidence that distinguishing a personal andcollective dimension of the utilitarian proxy is important in this fieldof research. Therefore, this is important in the choice of the ‘Europeanfactor’ (as independent variable of this study), as it is not always relatedto support for the EU (‘voting yes in case of a referendum’).

As a consequence, the analysis gives evidence that three questionsaround the EU – on the ‘image of the EU’, on whether the ‘EU was goodor bad for the country’, and ‘how would you vote if a referendum wereheld now’ – which may look tautological, can provide different out-comes, responding to the necessity of thinking about the choice of thedependent variable, in similar types of analysis. A study of the supportfor the EU can be carried out on ‘the image of the EU’ or on the possible‘vote on EU integration’. The former describes more closely the generalattitude towards the EU institutions; the latter is closer to the willing-ness of being part of the EU, and the expected vote in a referendum –before the impact of domestic issues. Voting (in a referendum) is thedependent variable of this analysis. The following are the main researchquestions:

(Q1) What drives public support for EU integration before and afteraccession in Poland? (This question is examined in comparativeperspective).

Focus groups will attempt to answer the second question.

(Q2) How do citizens perceive the EU after accession, and what are thesources of information they use?

Before accession, lack of information is a perceived issue that emergesfrom focus group research (Kucia, 1999). This analysis finds that citizens


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still perceive they lack salient information on the EU, as results in Euro-barometer surveys, while the press underlines that ‘[T]he quality ofmedia coverage of the EU in new member states is abysmal’ (Szlanko,2008).

The length of membership, civic initiatives, and politicians’ active roleare likely to be fundamental to partly fill the gap between citizens andthe EU. Although the quality of information does not seem to fill thecurrent ‘Eurogap’ (the turnout gap) between Western and CEE memberstates, positive conclusions can still be drawn in the long term, as youngEuropeans are interested in engaging with the EU political process.

For the Polish case study, before accession, the dependent variableat the aggregate level is represented by the CBOS question ‘how wouldyou vote, if today there were a referendum?’ At the individual level, thisanalysis uses the same question from the 2001 Polish National ElectionStudy. After accession, CBOS slightly changes the question at the aggre-gate level as they ask for the attitude towards EU integration; however, itremains the same at the individual level (2005 PNES), with the question‘how would you vote if a referendum on EU were held now?’ Under-standing why citizens can oppose further integration and how they taketheir choices when voting ‘on Europe’ responds to current salient issueson the EU politics process. As a consequence, it is fundamental to under-stand why citizens can oppose further integration and how they taketheir choices when voting ‘on Europe’. Therefore, the analysis offersan original study on a dependent variable that can respond to currentproblems emerging from the EU political situation, the increasing voterrejection, and the low turnout.

The period studied ranges from the entry into force of the AssociationAgreements in 1994 up to the first 6 years of Polish membership of theEU in 2010. After comparing different sources (PNES, Polish NationalElectoral Studies, CBOS, the Polish Public Opinion Research Centre,Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej, OBOP, the Polish Centre of Pub-lic Opinion Research, Osodek Badania Opinii Publicznej, CEEB, Centraland Eastern Eurobarometer, CCEB, Candidate Countries Eurobarome-ter), this research extensively uses data from the national data sets, PNESand CBOS. Further, this study cross-checks these surveys with studiesconducted by other agencies and uses the European Election Survey datato test the same model in comparative perspective (selecting the mostsimilar independent variables).

The independent variables comprise some of the variables applied toWestern European countries, always at the level of people’s perceptions,economic situation, and political situation (as provided by CBOS):


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• Economic situation (‘how do you generally evaluate the economicsituation in Poland?’);

• Attitude towards the government (‘how would you describe your atti-tude to the present government?’) (the question is examined only inthe CBOS data and will not be examined at the individual level, as itis not in the PNES);

• Political situation (‘how do you generally evaluate the politicalsituation in Poland?’);

• Direction of the country (‘is the situation in our country heading inthe right or wrong direction?’), current perceptions;

• Future perspective (‘how do you think will the situation in Polandchange for better or worse during the next year?’), future perceptions;

• Personal situation (‘what is the present standard of living of you andyour family’).

First, the analysis tracks the changes at the aggregate level. Second, theresearch develops the analysis at the individual level, using similar vari-ables. It further adds the ‘European factor’, asking whether the ‘EU isgood or bad for the country’ at the individual level analysis – as thisvariable is available only in the 2001 PNES. The same type of analysis isapplied in the comparative case.

This analysis assumes that the dependent variable is shaped, beforeand after accession, in two distinctive ways, with the strong impact ofthe EU benefits and the economic variable before accession, and still theEU benefits, with some differences on the domestic proxies after joiningthe EU. In addition, after accession, the research aims to verify whetherPolish public opinion begins to develop in a similar way to that of theWestern European countries, even if this is arguably only to occur in thelong term.

Further, this research is interested in the study of domestic proxies,and religion, as an interesting variable (see Chapter 2). All the previ-ous studies on Poland considered ‘religion’ as the variable answering to‘church attendance’. On the contrary, this analysis uses an original vari-able, on whether people are ‘believers or devout believers’ or ‘agnosticand atheist’. The following are the hypotheses:

H1 (before accession): The more devout believer the citizen beforeaccession, the lower the level of support for the EU.

H1 (after accession): The more devout believer the citizen afteraccession, the higher the level of support for the EU.


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Before accession, the trends at the aggregate level reported the high-est levels of scepticism among those going to church once or severaltimes a week (Guerra, 2012). Although Catholicism is generally pos-itively related to support, in the case of Poland, the role played byreligion created a deviant case, as the Polish value defeated the foreigndomination, particularly Communism. It is important to look at the per-ceived credible actors using religion as a cleavage towards attitudes forthe EU before accession. That is further studied in the case of the cur-rent, and upcoming, candidate countries in the Western Balkans, wherenationalism and more conservative values can be used by some of thechurches (as examined in Chapters 2, 3, and 6). Finally, the domesticproxies follow these expectations:

H2: The worse the evaluation of the political situation, the higher thelevel of support for the EU.

Similarly,

H3: The worse the evaluation of the economic situation, the higherthe level of support for the EU.

and

H4: The worse the evaluation of the economic situation of thehousehold, the higher the level of support for the EU.

It is expected that due to the high levels of distrust for the politicalelites and the negative perceptions towards the domestic situation, inline with the findings of Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca (2000) at the aggre-gate level, the domestic proxies can become an important factor in thelevel of support for the EU – both before and after accession. Higher lev-els of trust for the EU and joining the EU could improve the domesticsituation and be a significant variable on the level of support. Polish cit-izens and citizens from post-Communist countries (Klingemann et al.,2006) usually had (and have) very negative evaluations towards thedomestic context, the government, and political parties. On the con-trary, they always generally showed high levels of support for the EU.For the same reason, this research also examines the direction of thecountry, expecting the following:

H5 (before accession): The worse the perceived direction of thecountry before accession, the higher the level of support for the EU.


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H5 (after accession): The better the perceived direction of thecountry after accession, the higher the level of support for the EU.

The EU can be seen as the institution constraining the country toimprove the domestic political and economic situations, or at least pro-viding the framework where the new democracies from Central andEastern Europe can stabilize and consolidate to catch up with Westerncountries. In addition, the direction of the country is likely to representthe easiest proxy to be followed. If the economic and political evalua-tions may partly ask for an opinion on an issue that citizens can perceiveas distant, the idea that the country is going towards the right or wrongdirection is not difficult to evaluate.

H6: The higher the perception that the EU was a good thing for thecountry, the higher the level of support for the EU.

The mobilizing force of the EU is tested before accession and, if sig-nificant, can show how a positive idea of the EU is interwoven withthe benefits if both impact on citizens’ attitudes. Citizens in formerCommunist countries cannot directly know the EU, but their past expe-rience under the Soviet regime strengthens the importance of the EUfactor. It is expected that only in the long term will the CEE countries’attitudes towards the EU develop according to the models applied toWestern Europe. The idea of the ‘return to Europe’ and the feeling ofbelonging to Europe can represent a strong ‘European factor’, mobiliz-ing support before accession, but still significant after accession bothin the short and long term. Whereas previous analyses use conceptssuch as market economy and human rights, this research does not agreewith these latter issues, as the ordinary citizen can feel that she/he doesnot know about the market economy or human rights. Therefore, asdetailed in the following two chapters, this study uses the ‘EU factor’as a mobilizing force and is operationalized using the answer to thequestion whether the EU was going to be ‘good or bad’ for the coun-try. People in Central and Eastern Europe looked at the other side ofthe wall under Communism, and they structured their own idea ofEurope. Without any form of higher education, ‘unconditional support’is just based on people’s perception that joining the EU will bene-fit the country anyway, as also confirmed by focus group participants(Chapter 5).


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Structure of the book

This chapter has introduced the question of what determines public sup-port for the EU. Firstly, it introduces the idea of Europe and debates onattitudes towards the EU, explaining why analysing citizens’ views of theEU is important. Secondly, it has addressed the study of public opinionon European integration as the subject of extensive research in the lit-erature on comparative European politics and contemporary Europeanstudies. Thirdly, reflective of the post-Communist case and the situationin a candidate country before accession, it has explained the selection,and the underlying reasons, of its framework of analysis.

Chapter 2 presents the context and the analysis of support for andopposition to European integration before accession. First, it introducesthe context and illustrates patterns of support from 1991 to 2004 inpost-Communist countries. Second, it examines in depth the case studyof Poland. Finally, this chapter explains patterns and changes follow-ing the path to EU accession. The case study of Poland, examinedwith qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis, offers impor-tant observations for the comparative case, where economic perceptionsbecome an important factor in all the post-Communist countries beforeaccession.

Chapter 3 is symmetrical to the previous one. It offers both anin-depth analysis of the Polish case and a comparative analysis. Thisanalysis compares and contrasts determinants of attitudes and showsthat where the EU brought benefits, the EU is highly supported; wherethe EU had not a huge impact at the economic level, support is muchlower. The chapter explores and explains patterns of support for, andopposition to, European integration across the post-Communist EUmember states, highlighting the role of national and personal benefits.

Chapter 4 analyses public support for the EU and voting in EPelections and EU referendums. In fact, support does not necessarily cor-relate with a positive attitude towards voting for the EU, particularlyin post-Communist EU member states. This section addresses the rea-sons behind voting for and against Europe and also why citizens donot go to the ballot, underlying the ‘Eurogap’, at turnout level, betweenWestern and Central and Eastern member states. Similar to Westerncountries, European elections in Central and Eastern Europe are likelyto be debated at the domestic level. However, low turnout is qualita-tively different. This analysis underlines and distinguishes the qualityof disaffection that can be detected in a post-Communist environmentand compares it to the Western case. Although there are common


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characteristics between Western and post-Communist cases, this chapteraddresses the qualitative differences.

Chapter 5 explores whether citizens are interested in the EU and ifthey feel they are receiving the information they expect in the run-upto European elections. Accession referendums, as shown in the previ-ous chapter, could not represent an impossible obstacle, both for theamount of information generally provided and for the mobilizing forceof the referendum itself, which is a positive note in view of furtherenlargements and accession referendums. On the contrary, informa-tion plays an important role for further elections and referendums. Thatcan impact on an already fragile relationship between citizens and poli-tics and bring enduring legacies on political culture in post-Communistcountries.

Chapter 6 draws upon the findings of the previous chapters of thebook and presents a theme that the in-depth examination of the Pol-ish case brought to light: after the opening of the negotiation processand the long period of waiting, it is easier for populist parties to chan-nel citizens’ dissatisfaction, particularly pointing to Euroscepticism. Inparticular, political apathy, as studied in Chapter 4, provides populistparties with an easy foot in the door in a not yet stable institutional-ized party system, as the post-Communist case. Further, in Chapter 5the analysis argues that information matters and citizens of the new EUmember states feel they cannot take ‘informed’ choices. All these threeissues represent the basis of a debate on Euroscepticism; this chapterexamines its strategic and ideological dimensions in the perspective offurther enlargements.

This book provides a clear answer to the question ‘what determinessupport for, and opposition to, European integration before and afteraccession in post-Communist countries’ and how determinants of sup-port in Central and Eastern and Western Europe differ. It is the firststudy to compare determinants of support and opposition to the EUbefore and after accession, and it is the first in-depth analysis on thelargest post-Communist state that joined the EU in 2004 in comparativeperspective, among the CEE countries and the Western member states.Debating on its findings, it points to the theoretical framework that canbe employed in order to understand attitudes and political changes inall the post-Communist area, and the next enlargements towards theWestern Balkans.


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2Patterns of Support for,and Opposition to, EuropeanIntegration as a Candidate Country

How public support for the EU is structured in the short term in Polandmay offer insight into the way in which it will develop in all the CEEstates. In addition, findings can suggest patterns of support well beyondthis comparative perspective and be applied to the EU member statesand current candidate countries. This study contends that the Polishstudy can be examined in the comparative framework of CEE, appliedto the EU28, and beyond.

It is possible to counterpose the argument that there are great dissim-ilarities in the CEE countries. Slovenia can be analysed as economicallyclose to Italy or Austria, while the Baltic states can offer different casesfrom the Visegrad countries, which present diverse cases also as an areastudy. However, they all have in common the experience of Commu-nism until 1989–1991: although they can be defined as different typesof Communism, Communism was a ‘universalist’ ideology (Batt, 2003,p. 6). The ‘suppression’ of civil society has touched the regimes of CEEmore deeply than the ones of Mediterranean Europe and Latin America(Rose, 1998, p. 280, quoting Linz and Stepan, 1996). The changes andthe transformation processes were undergone at the same time, posingthe same tasks in view of accession, provoking deep dissatisfaction, andin 1995 a large share of the population still approved the Communistregime and disliked the new (29 per cent in Hungary and 22 per cent inSlovakia, according to the New Democracies Barometer IV 1995) (Rose,1998, p. 289). That unveiled the costs of the transformations that over-lapped with the screening of the EU institutions and the reports on theCommission’s avis.

This chapter firstly applies a comparative study to all the CEEcountries, using the Eurobarometer studies. Secondly, it presents the

22


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Attitudes Towards the EU Prior to Accession 23

main findings of the Polish case in a comparative perspective. Thecomparative analysis follows the Polish case study. The overview at theaggregate level and the analysis at the individual level allow preliminaryconclusions. For former Communist countries, the EU represented thelogical and only organization they could join. In some cases, it was alsoan opportunity to be relocated in a geographical space – Europe – fromwhich they were excluded after the Second World War.

The fifth enlargement offers a unique case study, in which countriesunderwent more than ten years of changes and transformations, andcitizens often perceived them as the effect of the nearing accession.Nevertheless the case of the eight CEE countries that joined in May2004, and Bulgaria and Romania, also discloses the reasons for, andthe nature of the framing of attitudes outside their own case towards,the enlargement to the Western Balkans. Before accession, the EU rep-resented hopes and fears, with drops in the levels of public supportafter the long waiting and the opening of the negotiation process. Thischapter draws the conclusions on the case study and the comparativecase and suggests implications for the former Communist and currentcandidate countries.

The Communist past and EU accession in Centraland Eastern Europe

Poland signed the Association Agreements in December 1991, togetherwith Hungary. Within the end of the year 1992, the Agreements werealso finalized with Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Slovenia, andthe Baltic states. Since 1991, the CEEB surveyed public opinion in theformer Communist countries that were going to join the EU in theshort and long term. In 1990 citizens in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, andPoland perceived that ‘in general things in the country were goingin the right direction’. Still, overall, one-third asserted the opposite(Table 2.1).

Table 2.1 1990: Are things going in the right direction?

Country In the right direction In the wrong direction DK

Bulgaria 38 34 28Czechoslovakia 53 26 21Poland 43 30 27

Source: CEEB 1.


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Generally, citizens of Central and Eastern Europe had ‘heard of theEC’ (70 per cent in Bulgaria, 75 per cent in Poland, 84 per cent inCzechoslovakia, 86 per cent in Eastern Germany, and 87 per cent inHungary), but they also perceived that they did not have much infor-mation on the EU: about two-thirds felt ‘not very informed’ in Bulgaria,Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland (CEEB 1, 1991, pp. 43–48). Infor-mation was important in the Polish case. The high levels of support inthe early 1990s did not correspond to the actual informed level of sup-port of the late 1990s, and in the run-up to accession. Between 1994and 1997, the European Community (EC) was not yet linked to thecosts of transformation and standardization, and in Poland CBOS reg-istered high levels of support with high percentages willing to join theEU immediately or within five years (see Table 2.4). However, the CEEB 5survey reports a slight drop in the share of those having a positive imageof the EU already in March 1995. The Agreements, in fact, did not com-pletely respond to the candidates’ requirements. By the end of 1991 withMaastricht, the Community had a more ‘inward’ attitude, and the tradeagreements, already signed, aimed to protect those sectors which weremore sensitive for the EC, but notably important also in Central andEastern Europe, such as in the fields of coal and steel, textiles, and agri-culture (Baun, 1999, pp. 273–274; Guerra, 2002, p. 4; Mayhew, 1998,p. 23). The general image of the EC in Eastern Europe was ‘positive’(42 per cent in the Pologne Hongrie Aide à la reconstruction économique(PHARE) countries), but between 1994 and 1995 CEEB surveys registereddecreasing trends, particularly in Slovakia (−7 per cent) and Lithuania(−11 per cent). Overall, there was a more balanced positive and neutralattitude in all the CEE countries. As in Poland, a ‘Euroneutral category’did emerge in the CEE states.

Looking comparatively at Figure 2.1, all the countries that joined inMay 2004 show a decrease in those having a positive image of theEU with the passing of time. The EU mainly represented ‘benefits’,not only in the Polish case but in the entire region. In Slovakia, cit-izens ‘expect[ed] that integration [would] bring along more benefitsthan costs’ (Mihailova, 2006, p. 197). The trend highlights that the EUnever had a negative image for the citizens of the former Communistcountries. The highest share of opponents was registered in Estonia (24per cent in 2002) and the Czech Republic (26 per cent in 2003). How-ever, data indicate increasing numbers among the undecided, more thana proper opposition to the EU. In the CEEB 2 (1992, p. 23), citizensof Central and Eastern Europe mainly felt they were ‘ill informed’ (67per cent). Nevertheless, they still had a positive image of the EC (49per cent), with a turning point emerging between 1993 and 1995.


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Image of the EU in CEE before accession

Bulgaria Czechoslovakia Czech RepublicEstonia Hungary Latvia LithuaniaPoland Romania Slovakia Slovenia

Figure 2.1 Positive image of the EC/EU in CEE before accessionSources: CEEBs and CCEBs.

The relationship between the candidate countries and the EU isto be investigated, particularly the reasons and sources of a possibledecrease in the level of public support towards European integrationafter the opening of the negotiation process and before accession – thatwas the case in Poland, but in all the candidate countries that joinedthe EU in 2004 more respondents have had a negative image of theEU since 2001. Similarly, Croatia chose the path towards EU acces-sion in 2001, and Euroscepticism, unexpectedly, has been on the rise(Table 2.2).

Decreasing levels of support for European integration are likely to takeplace in the waiting for accession, in particular after the opening ofthe negotiation, when reforms can materialize the costs (as happenedin comparative perspective in 1996 and in Poland after March 1998,before viewing increasing levels of support in the run-up to accession).Significantly, in Croatia, as generally in the candidate countries, more


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Table 2.2 Support for EU integration in Croatia (2000–2005)

(2000.2) (2000.3) (2001) (2002.1) (2002.2) (2003.1) (2003.2) (2003.3) (2004) (2005)

For 78 78 76 77 76–79 76 74 72 51 42Against 8 / / 13 8–14 13 13 20 39 48Undecided 14 / / 10 15–7 11 13 7 10 10

Percentages were rounded.Source: Ministarstvo Vanjskih Poslova i Europskih Integracija (Croatian Minister of ForeignAffairs and European Integration).

citizens are concerned on economic problems and ‘a partial lossof national independence’ Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs(Ministarstvo vanjskih i europskih poslova: MVPEI) data). In 2009 (EB 72,2009), only 24 per cent of Croats thought membership was a good thing,while 37 per cent asserted it was a bad thing for the country. More cit-izens (+3 per cent) perceived they did not know about benefits fromaccession compared to the previous survey, and 36 per cent respondedCroatia would benefit, while the majority, 52 per cent, thought thecountry was not going to benefit (EB 72, 2009). Trends were similarto Polish attitudes in 2000 and 2004, as the following section willillustrate.

In fact, in 1999, the Polish discontent and concern towards acces-sion were not uncommon: in the Visegrad Triangle (Czech Republic,Poland, and Hungary); 38 per cent was the average percentage of thosecitizens perceiving ‘more losses than gains’ (21 per cent asserted ‘moregains than losses’) since the changes which took place in 1989. Hun-garians were the most negative (45 per cent perceived more losses),while 42 per cent of the Czechs responded that the situation was ‘thesame’. Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the change of thepolitical and economic situations had not been ‘worthwhile’ for morethan half the Czechs (55 per cent) and almost half the Hungarians (46per cent).

Among the three, Poles were the most satisfied (67 per cent assertedit had been ‘worthwhile’), while Hungarians were the most negative –on their material (66 per cent had smaller opportunities compared tobefore 1989) and personal situation (49 per cent) – and pessimistic onthe situation of the job market. At the economic level, Hungarians hada more positive evaluation of the past system (Socialism), but appre-ciated the possibility of having a voice in public life and evaluatedpositively the changes in the political sphere (41 per cent). More sat-isfaction with the economic situation was spread among the Czechs,


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while Poles supported the historical perspective, but perceived thattheir own personal economic situation had deteriorated (CBOS, 1999,BS/199/99).

A previous comparative study by Krzysztof Zagórski gives further evi-dence that the economic factor is salient in Poland and the CzechRepublic. However, in the Polish case it is the idea that membershipwill bring general benefits, whereas in the Czech case personal benefitshave a stronger significance: the analysis ‘indicates stronger orientationof Czechs on private concerns and stronger orientation of Poles on pub-lic concerns in forming their attitudes to the European Union’ (Zagórski,2003, p. 64).

The variable on religious attitudes is likely to represent an importantindependent variable in the Polish case. Looking at Inglehart’s map onCEE values in global perspective, the Czech Republic is close to the areaof Protestant Europe, while Poland is in the Catholic Europe. This studysuggests that religious attitudes can impact on the role (and type) of eco-nomic benefits, well beyond the post-Communist case, where Catholiccountries can be more sensitive to general economic benefit, and secu-lar or protestant countries are more oriented to personal benefit. Also,this study is going to illustrate, such as in previous analyses, that ‘ide-als’ are significant in moving support for the EU. The ‘unconditionalsupport’ – represented in this study by the ‘European factor’ linkedto the ‘general economic’ variable – bringing benefits to the acces-sion country played a role on stances towards the EU. Rohrschneiderand Whitefield (2006, p. 245) underlined that these ‘ideals’ were moreimportant than ‘instruments’.

This book contends that ‘unconditional support’ and economic bene-fits can overlap. Attitudes towards the EU are likely to be dependent onthe past history and values of each country, and the civic culture of eachcountry can differently structure an idea of the EU. Polish citizens arevery religious and feel close to the geographical space of Europe: theycould overlap the idea of general benefits with the ‘European factor’ (asthis and the following chapters show). The more secular Czech Republicalready felt that it was ‘in’ Europe, and that it was distant from ‘East’Europe. At first, Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus (1992–1997) distanced hiscountry from the ‘return to power’ of the Communist parties in Poland,Lithuania, and Hungary, and always presented the Czech Republic as dif-ferent compared to the other Visegrad states – asserting that the groupwas ‘a superficial invention of the West’. The Czech Republic always hada more realist attitude towards accession (Novak and Lebeda, 2004). Inaddition, the ‘ten years of transformation’ made citizens more realist


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(Mansfeldova, 2006, p. 117), and we can expect a more personalist ideatowards benefits from EU accession.

Unfortunately the comparative CEEB and CCEB surveys do not offerthe same questions and independent variables that this book used forits case study; however, they can still offer an overview on citizens’attitudes prior to accession.

Figure 2.2 reports on the perception that the country was going in theright direction (‘present perceptions’ variable): all the countries followeda similar trend with only the exception of the Czech Republic. Particu-larly, the Czech Republic and Hungary were the most negative in 1998,possibly due to the relationship of the personal economic benefits, andbeing more sensitive to social costs. On the contrary, the economic suc-cess of Estonia in the late 1990s impacted upon more positive attitudestowards the future of the country, while Poland looked as if it was moredependent on the social costs of the economic transformations.

Bulgaria Czech Republic Estonia

Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland

Romania Slovakia Slovenia

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Direction of the country – right

Figure 2.2 CEE citizens’ perceptions on the direction of the countrySource: CEEBs.


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Personal situation will get better – next

Figure 2.3 Personal financial situation in the next 12 monthsSources: CEEBs and CCEBs.

When respondents were asked about the future of their own (house-hold) financial situation and the economic situation in the country,results follow a more pessimistic trend.

Figure 2.3 illustrates that at first there was a widespread general per-ception that things were going in the right direction with perceivedbenefits at the family level. With the pace of the reforms and thelength before membership, all the candidate countries – Romania andBulgaria do not deviate in this case – clustered around lower percentages.Perceptions of benefits at country level did not differ.

As time passed, perceptions that the economic situation wouldimprove at the country level decreased (Figure 2.4). Decreasing positiveperceptions seemed to be common to all the candidate countries, whereonly Lithuania shows the opposite trend (in both questions reported inFigures 2.3 and 2.4) in the long term. In 2003 when asked about benefits,however, the CEE countries averaged 43 per cent in their reply on the


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Country situation will get better – next


Hungary Latvia Lithuania PolandRomania Slovakia Slovenia

Figure 2.4 Country economic situation in the next 12 monthsSources: CCEEBs and CEEBs.

prospective economic benefits at the personal level, whereas at countrylevel, the average was 63 per cent.

Patterns of attitudes towards EU integration in former Communistcountries are likely to be dependent on the same determinants and fol-low similar trends. Further factors – and the analysis suggests religion –can play a role on other independent variables (utilitarian proxy), as thePolish case shows.

Overall, the higher levels of support of the early 1990s representedthe Euroenthusiast citizens and also suggested a ‘Euroneutral’ categorythat did not move to more sceptic attitudes when an increase in theshare of votes for Eurosceptic parties or a drop in the levels of supportwas registered. By ‘Euroneutral’, this analysis describes a would-be pro-EU attitude, that is likely to be in favour of EU integration, but haslittle knowledge of the EU and is not interested in seeking it out (seeChapter 6). Looking at the figures, as fears increased nearing accession,it is possible to suggest a Euroneutral category (Szczerbiak, 2001). There-fore, while the literature has focused on the study of levels of support,


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and reasons for Euroscepticism, this analysis highlights a Euroneutralcategory. EU integration was going to benefit the country and eventhough perceptions for the future were less and less positive, it wasworth supporting the EU, or at least unavoidable. The Euroenthusiastcategory was mobilized by ‘unconditional support’, but when the pro-cess of the triple transition provoked social costs, these could impacton that share of the Euroenthusiast category which could be defined asEuroneutral. At this stage, the lack of information, knowledge on theEU and the impact of EU integration, was fundamental, and that is animportant finding for the current and next candidate countries, and alsoin the case of member states, as the focus groups indicate (Chapter 5). Inthe following section, the Polish case can illustrate the trends and rea-sons underlying decreasing levels of public support for the EU. Poland,in fact, plays a key role among the post-Communist countries and oftenrepresents a ‘magnifier of developments in the region’ (de Lange andGuerra, 2009, p. 529).

Converging Poles: from ‘unconditional support’to the European choice

This section first describes the Euroenthusiasm of the first four yearsafter the entry into force of the Association Agreements (1994–1997).Despite the low levels of interest in the EU, the absence of any contra-dictory issue in the political debates helped to reinforce the idea that theEU was good for the country. The public level of support was steadilyhigh, and Poles perceived that the country was moving ‘towards theright direction’. Second, it gives details of the reasons for the declinein the high percentages of support for the EU between 1998 and 2001.Poland joined NATO, but EU membership was still requiring painstak-ing transformations. More numerous percentages of people opposedintegration and felt it ‘beneficial’ to join the EU ‘as late as possible’,reversing the optimistic expectations for a future referendum. Third,it explains the reason for the slow increase in support of EU member-ship before the accession referendum and its subsequent overwhelmingsuccess. Notwithstanding the growing fears of second-class member-ship and price inflation, the majority of political parties campaigned infavour of integration. However, a high percentage of people still opposedintegration in comparison to ten years before, and Poland joined the EUnot as a Euroenthusiast country, but for pragmatic reasons. The deduc-tive approach of the ten years prior to accession helped to define theterms as ‘unconditional support’ (1994–1997), ‘the impact of change’


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Table 2.3 Support for the EU before accession

If areferendum,. . .

June1994

May1995

May1996

April1997

May1998

May1999

May2000

May2001

May2002

May2003

April2004

Supporting 77 72 80 72 66 55 59 55 62 66 64Opposing 6 9 7 11 19 26 25 28 22 18 29Undecided 17 19 13 18 15 19 16 17 16 16 7

The question was ‘how would you vote, if today there were a referendum?’Source: CBOS.

(1998–2001), and ‘the European choice’ (2002–2004). Bringing togetherthe analyses, the results suggest that the political and economic vari-ables are likely to impact on people’s perceptions, closely linked tosupport for the EU. A similar model will be quantitatively tested in thefollowing section. The same independent variables (without the Euro-pean factor, tested in the statistical analysis) will be studied in the threeperiods, before the final general analysis.

As Table 2.3 shows, support for accession was initially high andstable, with a sudden decline in 1999. Percentages in favour of inte-gration returned to higher values before the referendum, even thoughthe number of opponents did not decrease.

In February 1994, the Association Agreements, signed in December1991, entered into force and the main aims of Polish political elites,NATO and EU memberships, were nearing. If NATO membership wasmore relevant for the elites (CEEB 8, 1998, pp. 80–81), the latter wasimmediately perceived by the large majority of citizens as the best choicethe country could take. Overall, even if there was a risk that it might turnout to be a second-class membership, it would provide a better future forthe younger generation, it would greatly improve in the long term, andany other choice was highly undesirable or impossible, such as Russianlinks, North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) membership, orintra-regional cooperations.

The idea of joining the EU was not yet linked to potential costs, andeven if Poles were not so much interested in membership, they over-whelmingly supported European integration. Asked in 1994, how theywould vote in a referendum on the accession of Poland in the EU at thetime, three quarters said they would vote in favour of accession, whileless than one-tenth were against EU membership (Table 2.3). Polishopinion polls found that farmers and unskilled workers were the mainopponents to integration, while the upper classes, businessmen, and


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those employed in the private sector were recognized among the mostsupportive. Politically the Freedom Union (Unia Wolnosci: UW) voterswere the most in favour of integration (91 per cent) (CBOS, 1997, 09/97).

At the same time, Polish public opinion was divided on the timing ofaccession, mainly between those who wanted a very fast accession andthose who thought of following all the steps towards integration, whena five-year timetable seemed to be the right choice (Table 2.4).

Membership was not considered in terms of the complexities of stan-dardization towards EU norms, but probably as the solution to theprocess of democratization and economic transformation, since thebroad majority referred to an immediate or rapid integration withthe EU. Interest in EU institutions and their activity and policies didnot gain the attention of the respondents (Table 2.5).

Therefore, in 1997 support did not depend upon a clear knowledgeof the EU, also Poles did not know the process undertaken towards EUmembership, and were not very interested in EU politics. The percentageof people saying they were interested may correspond to the percentageof the ‘core’ supporting membership, as is explained in the followingsection. That may further explain, as Szczerbiak (2001, p. 108) under-lines, the following drop of the years 1998–1999. As the CBOS surveysof April 2003 demonstrate, ‘supporters of integration feel much better

Table 2.4 When joining the EU

When joining the EC June 1994 May 1995 May 1996 August 1997

Just now 33 27 35 34In five years’ time 34 36 37 34In ten years’ time 11 11 8 6Later 3 5 3 3Never 2 4 3 2Difficult to say 16 17 14 20

Source: CBOS.

Table 2.5 Interest in the EU

How interested are you . . . March 1994 May 1995 May 1996

Very/A little 31 35 45Not very/Completely not 65 62 51Difficult to say 4 3 4

Source: CBOS.


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informed than opponents’ (CBOS, 2003, 04/2003), and are usually inter-ested. As a consequence, it is possible to assert that among the 72–80per cent of supporters, those who ‘definitely’ would have voted ‘Yes’,or showed any interest, may be found in a lower percentage, around35–45 per cent (‘very’/‘a little interested’), corresponding to that ‘core’of people supporting integration (CBOS, 2003, 04/2003). Without anyconcrete belief or trust in the EU, the unconditional hopes of the remain-ing 25–30 per cent were crushed by the costs of the negotiation process(CBOS, 2003, 04/2003). At that time, Polish citizens seemed to have arather abstract idea, without referring to any of the costs and benefitscategories, because they did not have the tools (information, knowl-edge) to comprehend the difficulties of the negotiation process (notyet begun) and were not interested in receiving more information thanwhat they already had (51–65 per cent). Furthermore, there was no con-tradictory issue in the political debate; as already underlined, politicalelites overwhelmingly supported membership and in the Sejm there wasno openly Eurosceptic political party yet.

As Table 2.6 shows, at least in these first four years, political and eco-nomic evaluations could only be non-linearly linked to the EU level ofsupport. Looking at the dispersion of the values, the level of supportwas the most stable variable. The positive assessment of the standardof living and the economic and political situations were the ones reg-istering the lowest mean (with future perception) and a wider spreadaround the mean. Generally the spread seemed to be higher for the neg-ative assessments, as if the positive percentages were lower, but morestable. Between 1994 and 1997, the level of support seemed to be ratherfirm and the level of opponents, even if increasing, did not seem toindicate any growing trend in the percentages. Only the present percep-tions for the situation in the country had a positive trend, which couldhave impacted on the level of support – also compared with the decreas-ing values of the negative present perceptions. In perspective that couldhave impacted on the drop registered in the following three years (seeTable 2.3).

However, political parties are not likely to cue citizens on the EU; Polesfelt distant from politics. In 1997 Poles showed much less interest in pol-itics, despite the parliamentary elections that rewarded the AWS (AkcjaWyborcza Solidarnosc, Solidarity Electoral Action) party, representing‘freedom and family’. Through a broad overview on the surveys carriedout by CBOS, Poles’ support for the EU did not seem to be positivelyinfluenced by economic and political changes. The level of support, infact, remained rather stable and impressively high. Difficulties linked


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Table 2.6 1994–1997: Comparing DV and IVs, mean, standard deviation, andcoefficient of variation

June1994

May1995

May1996

April1997

Mean SD cv

EU support 77 72 80 72 75.25 3.95 0.05Present perception 28 29 38 43 34.5 7.23 0.21Good economic situation 9 11 16 17 13.25 3.86 0.29Supporting government 45 44 38 39 41.5 3.51 0.08Good political situation 9 6 15 12 10.5 3.87 0.37Good standard of living 14 17 25 30 21.5 7.33 0.34Future perception 22 18 23 20 20.75 2.22 0.11EU opposition 6 9 7 11 8.25 2.22 0.27Present perception 53 54 41 38 46.5 8.19 0.18Bad economic situation 53 46 36 37 43 8.04 0.19Opposing government 33 22 23 26 26 4.97 0.19Bad political situation 34 45 28 32 34.75 7.27 0.21Bad standard of living 33 25 23 18 24.75 6.24 0.25Future perception 24 23 18 17 20.5 3.51 0.17

Source: CBOS. cv stands for coefficient of variation; it is obtained by dividing the standarddeviation over the mean, and it is useful to compare different patterns of data. SD: standarddeviation.

to economic reforms and distrust towards political elites could, how-ever, only suggest a negative correlation. The CBOS data indicate that inthese first years the European factor had a higher impact in the form of‘unconditional support’ (1994–1997). As previously shown, at the ques-tion ‘when should Poland join the EU’, within five years was the mostsupported period of time (see Table 2.4), without any concrete analy-sis of the length of the transformation process. Public opinion supportwas, in fact, made up by a core of people belonging to the youngergeneration, having a higher education, working as businessmen andself-employed, and usually drawn politically to the Solidarnosc ElectoralAction party (AWS party) and the Freedom Union (UW). The majorityof the population was at the beginning attracted by Western, and morespecifically European, perspectives after decades of Communist regime.The idea of accession has always been linked to positive perceptions ofthe future, and with the first positive evaluations of the transformationprocess, Poles benefited from the preliminary advantages that will beassociated with the costs of the reforms only in the following years(1998–2001).

At the end of the 1990s, Poland was almost reaching its goals (NATOand EU memberships), while support for the EU suddenly dropped


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and the percentage of opponents increased. Titles such as ‘Europhobia’appeared in the newspapers, with questions and attempts to answerwhat was an unexpected phenomenon (Andrzejewski and Szoszkiewicz,1999; Surdykowski, 1998). At the question on the way they would casttheir vote in a possible referendum, Table 2.3 gives evidence of a growingnumber in the undecided column, and those opposing roughly doubledbetween 1997 (12 per cent) and 2001 (25 per cent).

The growing scepticism was illustrated in the surveys on the pacetowards membership: a decreasing number of people wished to join ‘assoon as possible’ (50 per cent in April 1998, 42 per cent in May 1999),while a rising percentage of respondents felt accession would be benefi-cial if it were ‘as late as possible’ (23 per cent in April 1998, 32 per centin May 1999) (CBOS, 1999, 07/99). The reasons may be explained bythe fact that the country was living the reforms: the AWS governmentintroduced new policies for health care, education and administrationsystems, and social insurance, and that may have had an impact on theopinion of the pace towards membership.

Opponents could be found among the Polish Peasant Party (PolskieStronnictwo Ludowe: PSL), mainly representative of rural interests: only49 per cent of PSL potential voters claimed to support membership inSeptember 1998 (while the percentage of opponents was 34 per cent),and two years later, the percentage against rose to 50 per cent, with35 per cent in favour of EU integration (CBOS, 1998, BS/124/98; 2000,BS/137/2000). After the turmoil of the 2001 parliamentary election,the strongest opposition had to be found within voters of the LPR. InNovember 2001, 28 per cent of LPR voters declared themselves in favourof EU integration, and 58 per cent opposed membership (CBOS, 2001,BS/155/2001).

Since this data is taken from the surveys, ‘how would you vote, iftoday there were a referendum on Poland joining the European Union’,it is also possible to argue, to a small extent (the survey was not carriedout before an actual referendum), as Aleks Szczerbiak and Paul Taggartunderline in the case of the 2003 accession referendum (2004a, p. 575),that between 1998 and 2001, the presence of more Eurosceptic partiesbrought to the centre of the political arena more contested debates, andpeople’s preferences became more strongly defined, as in the case offarmers.

However, in December 2001, the Prime Minister, Leszek Miller, intro-duced a proposal for a shorter transition period to the selling of the landto foreigners. Still, Polish citizens did not seem to be influenced by that:in fact even if it was one of the most sensitive issues, the sudden drop


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in the numbers of support reversed. About 60 per cent declared them-selves in favour of integration, and this supported the assumption thatpatterns of support were less likely to follow political cues in Poland,and post-Communist countries.

As in previous years, people with a higher education and income,working as businessmen, white-collar workers or self-employed, werethe ones favouring accession while farmers comprised the percentageleast favourable. Finally, a high percentage of Poles thought that thegovernment was too compliant in the negotiation process (44 per cent),and that is an issue, which was sensitive not only at the time but alsoafter the 2002 Copenhagen Summit when it was used by political par-ties for their campaigns. Again, through a first study, it seems impossiblethat support for the EU could be positively linked to economic or polit-ical facts, whereas it can be negatively related. Support for the EU is stillvery high in comparison with positive economic evaluations, typicallynegative for the average Polish citizen. The opening of accession negoti-ations and the implementation of government reforms are likely to havecaused scepticism and anxiety, as if unconditional support was shatteredby the impact of change. Only the ‘core’ of people supporting the EU,around 45 per cent, did not change their attitude, while 25–30 per centwere likely to be more volatile, because the EU was not known and, asa consequence, they could be more sensitive to alternations along theaffective dimension (see Gabel, 1998a). The new government, elected inSeptember 1997, received the first negative feedback as early as March1998. The AWS electorate felt that the party was not carrying out itspromises, and nearly half the respondents on a survey on the evalu-ation of the government were disappointed (CBOS, 1997, 06/97). Thereforms implemented by Jerzy Buzek were considered unsatisfactory inFebruary 1999 (CBOS, 1999, 02/99). In January 2001, after two years, 62per cent thought that the situation was getting worse in healthcare, 37per cent in education, and 28 per cent in the pension system and localadministration (CBOS, 2001, 02/2001).

The convergence of negative evaluations also involved economicperceptions. The government, considered as without confidence, wasincreasingly judged negatively, and the same decline was registeredin the economic evaluations (see Table 2.7). Jacek Kucharczyk rec-ognized that ‘[a]s the general amount of information on the acces-sion process increased, more and more people realized the costs ofmembership’, defining later ‘[t]he nature of any political debate . . . issuch that it involves both a calculation of interests and outbursts ofemotions’ (2001). However, in 1999, just after the first drop, Lena


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August1998

May1999

May2000

July2001

Mean SD cv

EU support 63 55 59 53 57.5 4.43 0.08Present perception 39 34 25 13 27.75 11.41 0.41Good economic situation 18 12 9 5 11 5.48 0.50Supporting government 37 32 22 16 26.75 9.5 0.36Good political situation 13 13 9 4 9.75 4.27 0.44Good standard of living 25 25 22 20 23 2.45 0.11Future perception 19 16 12 10 14.25 4.03 0.28EU opposition 19 26 25 25 23.75 3.20 0.13Present perception 43 53 62 77 58.75 14.43 0.25Bad economic situation 43 47 60 71 55.25 12.76 0.23Opposing government 23 32 44 52 37.75 12.82 0.34Bad political situation 26 34 44 64 42 16.41 0.39Bad standard of living 21 23 26 27 24.25 2.75 0.11Future perception 21 35 36 37 32.25 7.54 0.23

Source: CBOS.

Kolarska-Bobinska argued that ‘[u]nfortunately, in Poland no one isaware of the aim of society and there is no point in the change, which isin front of us’ (1999). As seen before, it does not seem to be information,in the form of detailed information about the EU and the negotiationprocess which impacts on public opinion, but rather a general knowl-edge of the impact of the reforms on domestic policies and people’sperceptions of these reforms. The impact of change (1998–2001), thatcould have affected Polish lives as far back as 1994, had a higher inci-dence after 1988 with the euphoria of better perspectives for the future(1994, Association Agreements; 1997, Luxembourg group, opening ofthe negotiations, increasing positive present perceptions). Poles, for thefirst time, particularly those who did not have clear ideas on member-ship, began to consider the accession under the cost–benefit perspective.The impact of the reforms and the disaffection from the governmenttogether with a higher percentage in the unemployment rate may haveaffected the level of support for the EU.

Table 2.7 shows that positive attitudes towards EU integration holdthe most stable value in this term. Opposition was almost four timeshigher compared to the previous four years and seemed to follow thenegative trend of future perceptions. Further, it is clear that in theseyears all the domestic proxies comprehended in this analysis – with theexception of the evaluation of the standard of living – decreased their


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positive values, but the negative percentages increased highly. Since theevaluation of the economic situation of the household (personal utili-tarian proxy) was rather stable, it could not correlate with the drop inthe level of support for the EU. Perceptions of the situation in the coun-try were likely to play a main role. The convergence of changes mighthave impacted on the attitude of public opinion. The government eval-uation and the evaluation of the economic performance were likely tobe the most important independent variables among the opponents tothe EU for this term.

The highest dispersion was present in the positive evaluations ofthe domestic situation: on present perception (direction of the coun-try, cv = 0.41), economic situation (cv = 0.50), and political situation(cv = 0.44). Certainties and better perspectives clashed with the currenteconomic and political situation. The negative evaluations were less dis-persed in comparison with the positive (even if far from support for theEU). Polish attitudes to the EU seemed to primarily depend on the ideathat the ‘EU was good for Poland’, but also on a non-linear relationshipwith the national proxies – which are tested carrying out the statisticalanalysis at the individual level in the following section.

However, despite the negative perceptions, the sudden decline beganto regress: the terribly negative general atmosphere in the country pro-voked the ‘unexpected political earthquake’ (Szczerbiak, 2002b) of 2001with the return of the Left Democratic Alliance (Sojusz Lewicy Demokraty-czej: SLD) to the government. The necessity of an alliance with the PSLimmediately signalled the first weakness of the government coalition,SLD-UP-PSL, which had to lead the country towards membership. Inaddition, the negative situation in the country, the emergence of newparties in the Sejm (LPR), and the electoral success for Eurosceptic parties(PSL, SRP) provoked unstable hopes for the future. The interest in publicopinion and Polish party politics found in these years a soil for gloomypredictions, but ‘the European choice’ (2002–May 1st, 2004) removedany concern.

Between January and February 2002, there was a slight decrease insupport, from 69 per cent to 65 per cent, the highest change wasamong opponents, from 18 per cent to 24 per cent, among thosedeclaring their intention to vote. The hopes for the new government,elected in September, were ruined in December, and the general opin-ion (65 per cent) was that the country ‘was heading in a wrongdirection’; the voters of SRP (38 per cent) and the LPR (53 per cent)were the hard (Eurosceptic) opponents to EU integration (CBOS, 2002,BS/211/2002).


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Generally, public opinion was aware that prices would have to beincreased (energy: 52 per cent, land: 63 per cent, and food: 47 per cent)(CBOS, 2002, 01/2002), but personally thought that the EU meant a‘better future for young people’ (53 per cent) (CBOS, 2002, 07–08/2002).Nonetheless the common pessimism of the beginning of 2004 impactedon the expectations of future personal improvements. One-third of Polesthought that integration would have brought gains to the country (33per cent) in April 1998, and more than half answered that accessionwould have a positive impact on the citizens’ living conditions in June1994 (57 per cent), while the growing scepticism impacted on the lastterm of the analysis (Table 2.8).

The idea, spreading in the country, was that Poland was going tobecome a ‘second-class’ member state (Kolarska-Bobinska, 2002). Beforethe accession referendum, there was a steady decline in support forthe government and, the Prime Minister, Leszek Miller, attained thesame levels of dissatisfaction as such towards the previous government(37–44 per cent for Jerzy Buzek, 35–43 per cent for Leszek Miller inMarch 2003) (CBOS, 2000, BS/14/2000; 2003, BS/114/2003). Supportfor the political and economic situation was still rather low, and thoseopposing membership were still among those indicated as the weakgroups of society. It is possible that their perception of the current situ-ation in the country and negative future perception impacted on themin the run-up to accession, as the most sensitive part of society. More-over, supporters felt interested, and the percentage of people supportingaccession was comfortably higher than 50 per cent. It was as if Poleshad already decided on the accession referendum. However, concernsstemmed from the possibility of not achieving the necessary turnout.Poland had traditional low turnout at the referendums and parliamen-tary elections: in May 1997 it was 42.9 per cent for the ratificationof the national Constitution referendum (Szczerbiak, 2003, p. 7), and46.3 per cent for the 2001 parliamentary elections. A referendum law

Table 2.8 EU integration and conditions of living

Effect on theconditions of living

February 2002 February 2003 February 2004

Rather positive 42 38 28No effect 12 14 13Rather negative 23 26 39Difficult to say 24 22 20

Source: CBOS.


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establishing ratification, even if the turnout were lower than 50 per cent(having the approval of two-thirds of the Sejm), was written and passed,while the decision was taken to hold the referendum over two days, asin Lithuania and Slovakia, in a bid to avoid the same turnout as Hungary(46 per cent).

The idea of a possible failure of the referendum also spread because ofthe recent success of Eurosceptic parties: SRP and the League of PolishFamilies. Andrzej Lepper and SRP gained their first small success at thebeginning of the 1990s, but it was only in 1999 that he struck publicopinion, leading farmers’ blockades (Szczerbiak, 2002a, p. 14). From itstrade union base, the party slowly succeeded in gaining the votes of allthose citizens who feared the loss of jobs and productivity because ofEU quotas. On the other side, the LPR stressed the new possible loss ofsovereignty and presented itself as the defender of the Polish values. Itspolitical and social views against the liberal Europe of euthanasia, abor-tion, and gay marriages (see FitzGibbon and Guerra, 2010) were linkedto the occasion that Poles had to get rid of the Miller’s minority andweak government, since, the Prime Minister, Leszek Miller promised toresign in case of a failure.

Also, the Catholic ‘Eurosceptic’ radio broadcast station of FatherRydzyk, Radio Maryja, could have had a great impact on the Catholicvotes. The Pope’s message to Poles, in Rome to celebrate his birth-day and the 25th year of Papacy, three weeks before the referendum,on 19 May 2003, closed the election campaign and impacted on thealready cautious stances of the radio. Finally, the pro-EU camp imme-diately appeared as the strongest. The majority of the political cues(SLD, UP (Unia Pracy, Labour Union), PO (Platforma Obywatelska, CivicPlatform)) agreed that membership was the right choice, and the pres-ident, Aleksander Kwasniewski, personally campaigned throughout thecountry to support the European issue, and the governing parties, SLD-UP, even if not representing any longer the majority, were two of themain actors of the Yes-campaign. Also civic organizations cooperated toinvolve local movements and famous people in a network, ‘Civic Initia-tive Yes in the Referendum’ (Inicjatywa Obywatelska Tak w Referendum).In the end the pro-EU campaign was led by the majority of the polit-ical parties, the social and cultural key actors supported it, and thePope, John Paul II, closed the possible harsh anti-EU campaign of theextreme Catholic side, making it impossible for them to oppose theirmoral guide.

The outcome of the 2003 accession referendum reflected the opin-ion polls. The optimistic expectation of a 75 per cent of Yes-votes wasexceeded, with an overwhelming 77.45 per cent of the result. Among


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those who did not vote, 28 per cent said that their vote would havenot changed the reality of integration, 17 per cent because they didnot trust politicians and were not convinced that it was the rightchoice, 4 per cent because they never voted (CBOS, 2003, 07/2003). AsSzczerbiak underlined, the campaign did not change Poles’ opinions,the EU was their civilizational choice, the national patriotic duty (2003,pp. 8–10). As already stressed, their unconditional support did notconcretely change in the years; Poles had clear in their mind thatthe European choice was the only right choice, or at least the ‘mostjustified’.

There was correspondence between political parties and votes, wherethe most positive outcomes came from the SLD and PO electorate (91.7per cent and 90.3 per cent), and the less enthusiastic from the LPR (only36 per cent voted ‘Yes’). As expected, from national surveys, Westernregions showed more favourable results – Opolskie (at the border withthe Czech Republic) was the region with the highest number of support-ers (84.9 per cent), and Eastern regions had lower levels of Yes-votes andhigher levels of No-votes – Lubelskie (at the border with Ukraine andBelarus) had the highest percentage of opponents (36.7 per cent).

Between 2002 and 2004, as always, support for the EU was the moststable variable, as Table 2.9 illustrates. On the contrary, opposition hada higher dispersion. Looking at the table, it is possible to guess that inthe run-up to accession Poles decided to support the EU, and less andless people opposed the process of integration. The domestic proxies,as in the previous two terms, registered higher dispersions with distantvalues from the level of support. However, positive present perceptionincreased as if the European choice was the right choice (direction) forthe country. In this case, data can suggest that the ‘European factor’ islikely to be more important than any other variable, and support cancorrelate with perceptions.

Accession took place in a pragmatic country: most Poles supportedthe EU, in a smaller percentage than at the opening of the dialoguewith the European institutions (64 per cent), ten years earlier. More peo-ple opposed membership (29 per cent), but above all citizens felt theEU would not have brought wealth and less unemployment, and 46per cent of people thought poverty would have grown (CBOS, 2004,04/2004).

Poland as a country chose the EU as its ‘return to Europe’, becauseits history belonged to Europe and the EU represented the political andeconomic help necessary to fulfil the transformation process. The EUenabled the country to enhance its international role and protect its


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June2002

April2003

January2004

Mean SD cv

EU support 55 59 61 58.33 3.06 0.05Present perception 17 15 25 19 4.32 0.23Good economic situation 3 3 6 4 1.73 0.43Supporting government 30 16 16 20.67 6.60 0.32Good political situation 6 3 4 4.33 1.53 0.53Good standard of living 20 21 22 21 1 0.05Future perception 11 9 13 11 2 0.18EU opposition 18 17 9 14.67 4.93 0.33Present perception 72 75 63 70 6.94 0.10Bad economic situation 74 77 62 71 7.94 0.11Opposing government 33 43 48 41.33 7.64 0.18Bad political situation 51 68 60 59.67 8.50 0.14Bad standard living 25 27 24 25.33 1.53 0.06Future perception 38 39 36 37.67 1.53 0.04

Source: CBOS.

Eastern borders. Poles enthusiastically supported EU integration, pos-sibly thinking of a fast and painless procedure. At the beginning theidea was not held on a concrete perception of a future perspective. Thechanges already implemented after the fall of the Communist regimeallowed people to build their perception on further social and economicimprovements. It is possible to indicate a ‘core’ in the society, in busi-nessmen, upper classes, student categories, dwellers of urban centres,and young and middle-aged, as well as among the electorate of the UW,first, SLD and PO later, which according to a cross-check in the anal-ysis could be quantified around a 35–45 per cent of the society. Theywere usually interested in the EU issue, and asked for more informa-tion. A smaller part of the society, according to this analysis’ estimates,around 25–30 per cent, just perceived a positive impact on their livesand for the country, as the surveys show. 61 per cent believed in theEU’s positive impact on the standard of living in May 1996, only 37per cent in May 2000 – but still the EU was worth the support, becauseit was ‘good for the country’.

The negotiation process began at the end of March 1998, and thefirst difficulties became the centre of the domestic debates fuelled bynew Eurosceptic parties, the Polish Agreement in 1999, and the LPRin the 2001 elections. Therefore, the transformation process, together


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with the reforms necessary for the transition and EU accession couldprovoke such a varying attitude (Szczerbiak 2002a, c). A more dialecticinformation and a convergence of negative economic (raising unem-ployment rate) and political perceptions involving the current gov-ernment (domestic reforms) led by Jerzy Buzek cast doubts on futureperspectives and EU benefits, and affected those sectors of society (25–30 per cent of the people), who were uncertain or fearful of the impact ofchange. The idea that Poland was not gaining a ‘full membership’ andthe possibility of a later accession not only provoked political debatesbut reflected on the percentages both of supporters, strongly declining,and opponents, constantly increasing. In the run-up to the 2003 refer-endum, the new government led by Leszek Miller did not help improvethe mood in the country, as support for his government dramaticallydeclined after a few months. It is feasible that a temporary conver-gence of negative perceptions, political evaluations, and the idea thatthe country was changing for worse in the following year may haveaffected public opinion (Figure 2.5).

Starting in 1994, there appeared three important moments in thedevelopment of support for the EU in Poland: (i) in 1994 the high levelof support and the very low percentages of opposition, while the unde-cided had higher values (in June 1994, 77 per cent supported, 6 per centopposed, 17 per cent were the undecided); (ii) the drop of 1998 and1999, when not only support collapsed but the number of opponentsreached almost 30 per cent (in May 1999 55 per cent supported, 26per cent opposed, 19 per cent were undecided, later in March 2001, 30per cent of Poles opposed membership); (iii) the slow increasing trend in

77

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66

55

5955

6266

64

6 9 7 11

19 26 25 2822 18 29

17 19 13 18

15 19 16 17 16 16 70

102030405060708090

VI-1994 V-1995 V-1996 IV-1997 V-1998 V-1999 V-2000 V-2001 V-2002 V-2003 IV-2004

Attitudes towards EU Integration 1994–2004

Supporting Opposing Undecided

Figure 2.5 Attitudes towards the EU in Poland (1994–2004)Source: CBOS.


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the level of support in the run-up to accession, with still a good share ofopponents (31 per cent in February 2004) and less and less undecided.

Table 2.10 measures the variables in the period of interest in orderto control whether support was the most stable considering the tenyears together. The most striking figures are the numbers of opponents,steadily increasing from 1994 to 2001. The mean in the shares of oppo-nents was 8.25 between 1994 and 1997, but increased to 23.75 in thesecond time period under examination (and 14.67 in the run-up toaccession).

This further strengthens the findings of the following section, on the‘affective’ and ‘utilitarian’ dimensions of support; before accession the‘affective’ is less stable, as dependent on the process of transformationstaking place in the country. In April 2003, just one year before acces-sion and a few months before the accession referendum, they were threetimes the share of those opposing membership in June 1994. Their val-ues, as those concerning the positive evaluation of the political andeconomic situations, were those undergoing a wide variation (cv = 0.49for those opposing integration). Doubts, concerns, anxiety increasedwith the years. As underlined, integration was at first perceived as aquick and less demanding process. The transformation costs possiblyimpacted on both these variables.

The results of the overview at the aggregate level show that all thepositive evaluations seem to be distant from the level of support. Thepositive assessments of the political and economic situations are dra-matically low. The evaluation of the domestic context is always highlynegative. The hopes of the first period (1994–1997) could be reflectedin the growing numbers of those respondents answering that ‘the situa-tion in the country was heading in the right direction’. Entry into forceof the Association Agreement was viewed as an indication Poland wason the right path towards a possible future membership. Since 1998 thenegative present perceptions decreased as well, as previously explained,the idea was that integration was the right and only choice, and supportimmediately spread in the country.

The ‘EU factor’ in this first term could be the strongest variable. Eventhough at the aggregate level it could not be operationalized with theuse of an independent variable, results can show the salience of the ‘EUfactor’. More visibly from 1999, support for the EU decreased and thenumber of opponents to integration reached their peak in May 1999(26 per cent). Positive present and future perception followed the samedecreasing path, while particularly the idea that the country ‘was head-ing in the wrong direction’ was popular (53 per cent in May 1999, 77


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46

Table 2.10 Before accession (1994–2004)

June1994

May1995

May1996

April1997

August1998

May1999

May2000

August2001

July2002

April2003

January2004

Mean SD cv

EU support 77 72 80 72 63 55 59 53 55 59 61 64.18 9.46 0.15Present perception 28 29 38 43 39 34 25 13 17 15 25 27.82 10.08 0.32Good economic

situation9 11 16 17 18 12 9 5 3 3 6 9.91 5.43 0.55

Supportinggovernment

45 44 38 39 37 32 22 16 30 16 16 30.45 11.26 0.37

Good politicalsituation

9 6 15 12 13 13 9 4 6 3 4 8.55 4.23 0.50

Good standard ofliving

14 17 25 30 25 25 22 20 20 21 22 21.91 4.35 0.20

Future perception 22 18 23 20 19 16 12 10 11 9 13 15.73 4.98 0.32EU opposition 6 9 7 11 19 26 25 25 18 17 9 15.64 7.61 0.49Present perception 53 54 41 38 43 53 62 77 72 75 63 57.36 13.65 0.24Bad economic

situation53 46 36 37 43 47 60 71 74 77 62 55.09 14.67 0.27

Opposinggovernment

33 22 23 26 23 32 44 52 33 43 48 34.45 10.75 0.31

Bad politicalsituation

34 45 28 32 26 34 44 64 51 68 60 44.18 14.85 0.34

Bad standard ofliving

33 25 23 18 21 23 26 27 25 27 24 24.73 3.82 0.15

Future perception 24 23 18 17 21 35 36 37 38 39 36 29.45 8.76 0.30

Mean, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation for the dependent and independent variables.Source: CBOS.


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per cent in July 2001). Trust towards a better future collapsed, only 9per cent thought that ‘the situation in Poland would have changedfor the better in the following year’ in April 2003, 13 months beforeaccession – helping the positive perceptions after accession. The nega-tive evaluations of the economic situation have the closest trend of thefluctuations in the level of support of these years, to be further tested inthe following section.

In the last period (2001–2004), a slight decrease for the level of sup-port of the EU is registered since 2002, followed by a tiny drop inthose opposing the EU membership. Overall, support for the EU seemsto be explained by the strength of the ‘European factor’, and a non-linear relationship with the domestic economic situation, in case ofparticular negative situations. The perceptions could be linked, whenthe convergence of negative situations merged together as in 1998 and1999. The perception that the situation may deteriorate, because of theconvergence of negative political and economic situations, seems totemporarily impact on those sectors of society which are more sensitiveto the process of enlargement and do not have any concrete informationon the EU issue, as the trend in the surveys on support and oppositionshows (see Table 2.1). The statistical analysis at the individual level usescitizens’ evaluations and can provide the explanations on which factorsare determinant.

The statistical analysis is run on the 2001 PNES data; as seen, between1998 and 2001 Poland registered the first decrease in the level of sup-port for the EU, and the 2001 PNES can provide the explanation of theimpact of national or European factors on Polish attitudes. For the studyat the individual level, the dependent variable from the 2001 PNES datasurvey is represented by the question ‘refeu187’, S94, ‘suppose – votingtoday in a referendum on joining the EU’, and uses the most similarvariables to the previous analysis for the independent variables.

Support for the EU can be explained by both the national and Euro-pean levels. The national level estimates that citizens do not haveenough information on the EU and so they can be driven by thedomestic situation or proxies (Anderson, 1998; Franklin et al., 1995).The analysis follows Anderson’s interpretation of ‘proxies’, as aforemen-tioned, indicating ‘lack of relevant information’ (1998, pp. 574–575)and perception (Jasiewicz, 2004) (Table 2.11).

The results show that the European and the national economic fac-tors are significant. The coefficients (.000) for ‘the EU is a good thingfor Poland’ and the evaluation of the economic situation (as ‘neithergood nor bad’ and ‘good/very good’) (.002) are significantly related to


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Table 2.11 Binary regression analysis (2001PNES)

Variable B (SE)

Age −.175 (.237)Religion −.553 (.409)

National factor:Political −.158 (.245)Economic 1.108∗∗ (.351)Material household .089 (.236)

European factor:EU is good 4.382∗∗∗ (.240)Direction country .341 (.277)

Regions (former Russian)Regions (former Austrian) −.196 (.348)Regions (former Prussian) −.243 (.309)Regions (regained) .538∗ (.477)

∗Significant at the .10 level; ∗∗Significant at the .05level; ∗∗∗Significant at the .01 level.−2 log likelihood = 559.027; Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 =. 681; Cases correctly classified = 90.7; n = 905.Note: In bold: Base value.

support for the EU. Therefore, it is possible to confirm the impossiblerelationship of a negative (the B coefficient is positive) evaluation of thedomestic situation and a consequent support for the EU at the individ-ual level. Polish citizens can evaluate positively the national economicsituation or consider it (the most numerous group) as neither good norbad and support the EU. Their attitude towards the EU is linked to theeconomic situation, but, it does not show any particular personal util-itarian stance. The main impact still derives from the perception thatjoining the EU is good for the country, confirming the expectations, andthe perception of a positive or neither good nor bad domestic economicsituation, not fully confirming the expectations at the domestic level.

The operationalization of both the general economic situation andthe economic situation of the household gives evidence that the per-sonal utilitarian proxy is not important in Poland before accession;Clare McManus-Czubinska et al. (2004) had the opposite outcome, butusing a different type of analysis and independent variables. On thecontrary, these results are similar to the expectations and the findingsof Radosław Markowski and Joshua Tucker (2004), but having a posi-tive evaluation of the economic situation of the country increases the


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odds of a favourable vote on EU accession. The relationship with theevaluation of the economic situation of the household is not significant(.705).

In addition, it is worth to note the lack of impact of the religious vari-able. Although Catholic believers are generally positive towards the EU,before accession in Poland the gloomy narrative used by political (LPR)and religious (Father Tadeusz Rydzyk) actors were successful in blockingthe usual enthusiasm of Catholic countries. Further, it is interesting tonote the difference in the B values across the values of the last inde-pendent variable of the study. The territories regained after the SecondWorld War have the only positive B value (and Western regions are usu-ally more positive towards EU integration). Finally, the domestic proxyof the direction of the country has a linear relationship, even if it is notsignificant, not respecting the expectation of the research.

Overall, it is possible to assert that Polish support prior to accession isunrelated to socio-demographic variables (that is in line with the find-ings of the study carried out by Markowski and Tucker, 2004, on the2003 accession referendum) and with almost all the domestic proxies.The economic variable is the only exception; linked through a depen-dent relationship (neither good nor bad and good/very good are linearlylinked to support). The ‘European factor’, indicating the perception thatthe EU is good for the country, increases the odds of support.

When the analysis applies a multinomial logistic regression, the ‘Euro-pean factor’ further strengthens its significance. Before accession the lowturnout in previous national referendums and fears of a similar turnoutas in Hungary led to a new referendum law on the approval of theSejm also in the case of a turnout lower than 50 per cent. Therefore,the multivariate analysis can explain whether the political evaluationsor the ‘European factor’ could impact on a passive attitude of publicopinion; or as some commentators suggested, that non-voting was astrategic attitude, although this analysis contends that this explanationis weak, the new referendum law and the very high levels of supportfor the EU in Poland cannot explain the non-vote as a strategic vote(Table 2.12).

The table suggests that before accession those voting against and will-ing not to vote were particularly moved by the idea that the EU was notgood for the country, as the EU factor is significant in both cases. Noother variable moves the unwillingness of respondents to go to votein the case of an EU referendum for accession, while the economicdomestic variable, as in the previous analysis, is significant for thosewho responded they would have voted against (.001).


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Table 2.12 Multinomial logistic regression analysis (2001 PNES)

Variable Against Would not

B (SE) B (SE)

Age .067 (.225) .424 (.339)Religion .563 (.392) .195 (.536)

National factor:Political .150 (.233) −.233 (.341)

National factor:Economic −1.064∗∗∗ (.335) −.340 (.471)Material household −.052 (.225) −.293 (.326)

European factor:EU is good −4.347∗∗∗ (.234) −3.137∗∗ (.333)Direction country −.327 (.266) −.269 (.392)Regions −.145 (.089) .009 (.127)

∗Significant at the .10 level; ∗∗Significant at the .05 level; ∗∗∗Significant atthe .01 level.‘For’ is the reference category.

The statistical analysis gives evidence of the practicability of themodel. Prior to accession, in Poland it would have been possible toexpect a higher impact of the variables within the national context,because of the lack of information or experience as a member state. Onthe contrary, the most significant result is provided by the Europeanvariable; therefore the perception that integration was positive for thecountry was the main reason to generally support the EU, correspond-ing to the analysis at the aggregate level in the previous section. That isin line with the idea that factual knowledge can rely on unconditionalsupport, as a mobilizing factor. In fact, although citizens of the candi-date country can evaluate membership ‘on the basis of collective andindividual cost-benefit calculi’ (Tverdova and Anderson, 2004), they arestill trusting something they do not know yet.

Polish support prior to accession is independent of the socio-demographic variables and with almost all the domestic variables. The‘European factor’ has a positive relationship with support. Among thedomestic proxies, the economic variable seems important, but it is dif-ficult to define if it is a positive relationship. Before accession, beingdissatisfied or uncertain towards the economic situation and a form ofunconditional support – based on country benefits – increased the oddsof the Yes-votes.


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Conclusion

This analysis can further refine previous studies on affective and util-itarian dimensions of European support. As underlined between 1999and 2001, Polish attitudes towards the EU suddenly dropped from thehigh numbers of the previous years. Public support appeared unstableand a future accession referendum caused concern to political analysts.According to the Western frameworks, the ‘utilitarian’ dimension ofpublic support is to a certain extent unstable, because it is dependentupon governing authorities and the political situation. On the otherhand, the affective is stable, because it embraces abstract values andcommitment to an idea (Gabel, 1998a, p. 16).

This book, in the particular case of Poland prior to accession, reversesthese assumptions. Poles are rather negatively stable on their assessmentof the domestic political and economic situation, due to the Communistlegacy. However, as seen, the idea that membership was beneficial forthe country still steered citizens’ support in 2001.

That can be explained by the different understanding of the EU inmember states and in post-Communist countries prior to accession. Asdescribed for Poland and in the comparative framework, their uncon-ditional support did not embrace any particular comprehension of theEU activities, institutions, or future benefits. It was a general idea, partlydriven by their past history, cultural links, and perceived future benefits.As such, it could be more sensitive to the impact of external factors, inthis case the first closest relationship with the EU, and reforms at thedomestic level. Therefore, the affective was to a certain extent unstable,while the utilitarian was quite stable. On the contrary, after accessionpublic support likely follows Gabel’s analysis, where the ‘utilitarian eval-uations have an increasing impact on support for integration as affectiveallegiances weaken’ (Gabel, 1998a, p. 31). That is likely to be valid in allthe post-Communist candidate countries, where the economic variableis a significant factor before and after accession.

The EU was likely to have a cultural dimension in most of the eightnew member states before joining in 2004. In the case of Poland, itwas the return to the place where it had always belonged (Bobinski,2001). Returning to Europe, forgetting the tragic past, joining the West-ern EU15, and bridging closer links to the United States could mobilizetheir attitude more than any proxy. This analysis suggests the studyof CEE member states, taking into consideration this form of uncon-ditional support outside the economic (Rohrschneider and Whitefield,


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2006a) and political processes of integration. Citizens can use different‘shortcuts’ due to their historical cultural traditions and perceptions.

This analysis contends that even though the fact that public percep-tions can be critical to be anticipated (Gabel and Whitten, 1997), theutilitarian proxy became more salient after Maastricht; and, in the post-Communist countries, membership was supported mainly because theEU was bringing benefits, and perceptions and an affective dimensioncan explain citizens’ attitudes.

Chapter 3 applies the same analysis after accession and determineswhether (and how) determinants change, answering the main questionof this analysis.


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3Patterns of Support for, andOpposition to, EuropeanIntegration after Accession

This chapter explores the attitude of Polish public opinion towardsEuropean integration after accession (2004–2012) in comparative per-spective. In particular, it explores in detail the first three years and theapparent Eurosceptic outcome of European elections and referendums.The very low turnout at the 2004 EP election, the debates on the Consti-tutional Treaty, and the reasons behind a deceptive supporting attitudetowards a possible referendum before the French and Dutch rejectionsare illustrated, explaining the rationale of the consequent drop in sup-port. The idea of a ‘second-class’ membership seemed to impact onPolish public opinion. As the national parliamentary and presidentialelections moved the country rightwards, the chapter gives details ofthe difficulties around the debate on the Constitutional Treaty amongpolitical elites. However, despite gloomy expectations, the relationshipbetween political cues and public opinion could lead to less Euroscepticconclusions.

Similarly, in seven out of the ten new member states that joinedthe EU in 2004 and 2007, attitudes towards the EU were positive andthe majority of citizens thought membership was a good thing for thecountry (67 per cent in Poland and Romania, 66 per cent in Estonia,64 per cent in Slovakia). As before accession, countries that generallyhad lower levels of support for EU integration in the region, the CzechRepublic, Hungary, and Latvia, confirmed that accession was not per-ceived as a good thing (only 46 in Slovakia and 37 per cent in Hungaryand Latvia).

This chapter outlines how and why Polish public support for the EUreached the high levels attained almost ten years earlier. Despite the lowturnout in the Polish EP election (20.87 per cent), and the growing suc-cess of Eurosceptic political parties, surveys illustrated that 71 per cent of

53


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Poles supported the EU in May 2004: aware that the gloomy predictionswere not going to be realized, some of the opponents moved towardsa more supportive attitude. By February 2005, 77 per cent of Polishcitizens supported the EU, when perceptions for the future were alsogenerally more positive.

This chapter explains why Euroscepticism could resurface again afteraccession and gives details of the reasons for a possible increase ofEuroscepticism in Poland since accession and reasons for an ‘undeclin-ing’ support at the aggregate level. The results suggest that the ‘religion’variable (and therefore, Catholicism) is significant after accession at theindividual level. In addition benefits impacted on the levels of support,and this time the evaluation of the personal economic situation is deter-minant, as well as the collective economic domestic factor. Particularlyimportant to note, the personal utilitarian proxy becomes more salientin the prospective model.

This analysis finds that there are common characteristics withthe study before accession and peculiarities, which bring the Polishcase closer to the results on the established member states. Socio-demographic variables are more important after accession, and Catholi-cism is an important determinant of public support. Although citizensdid not perceive special benefits at the aggregate level, the individual-level analysis shows that particularly within future perspectives, theperceptions on the economic situation of the household can frame atti-tudes towards the EU, where the more negative the perceptions, thehigher the level of support for the EU. Therefore, not only did Polandjoin the EU in 2004, but Poles started framing their attitudes similarlyto the old member states. In Catholic countries religion is a positivedeterminant, and similarly to Poland, the utilitarian proxy can explainattitudes towards the EU; finally, perspective individual perceptions arelikely to be determinant not only in this specific case, but, as this chapteraddresses, to the entire post-Communist region.

After accession: between Euroenthusiasmand Euroneutrality

Domestic discontent and fears and anxiety (CBOS, 2004, BS/92/2004)towards membership guided the final stage of the Polish path to the EU.High expectations of EU membership could lead to forecasts of negativePolish attitudes after accession. This increasingly common pessimismtowards accession impacted upon the perceptions of future living con-ditions (this was linked to the common idea that membership would


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Attitudes Towards the EU after Accession 55

have caused price increases). Poles expected price growth in almost allsectors: food (92 per cent), energy (86 per cent), land (81 per cent),public transport (74 per cent), but only 24 per cent expected a rise inwages. In March 2004, they were increasingly fearing the impact ofintegration (39 per cent) and the upcoming EU membership (CBOS,2004, 03/2004). After one year as a member state, prices increasedand 29 per cent of respondents in a CBOS survey asserted that pricegrowth, particularly food prices, was due to integration (CBOS, 2005, BS/115/2005). The expectation and realization that EU membership wouldcause price growth and the high prices experienced in 2005 created thecorrelation.

Debates could focus also on the Budget Round (2007–2013). The Sum-mit under the Luxembourg Presidency (16–17 June 2005) in Brussels didnot find any agreement. The idea of ‘second-class’ membership, arisingin 2002, had more concrete assumptions after accession: the EU wastransforming because of the latest enlargement, and not favourably forPoland. Before accession, however, from Copenhagen and beyond, thefinancial provisions seemed unable to answer Polish hopes: ‘benefits forfarmers’ and ‘the possibility of working abroad’ (which were consid-ered the benefits of membership) were not yet fully realized and wereunlikely to be so realized in the immediate future.

Poland joined in May 2004 and by June the EP election signalled thedefeat of the party, the Democratic Left Alliance, which had proveda central force behind Polish EU membership. Further, despite thefavourable outcome of the 2003 accession referendum (77.45 per centvoted in favour for accession), by 2004 turnout had fallen to only20.87 per cent and this was accompanied by the success of Euroscep-tic political parties. The ‘hard’ Eurosceptic party of the League ofPolish Families was the second most popular party in this election(15.92 per cent, +8.05 per cent in comparison with the 2001 generalelection), followed by the ‘soft’ Eurosceptic Kaczynski twin brothers’Law and Justice (12.67 per cent, +3.17 per cent). The Democratic LeftAlliance was slowly losing its electorate, and the Polish domestic sit-uation became more Eurosceptic. Immediately after accession the lowattendance and the high percentage of votes for Eurosceptic parties didnot seem to be positive signals, both within and outside Poland.

Szczerbiak (2004) explains the election low turnout with factors suchas the Miller-Belka government alternation, the overall perceived non-relevance of the elections to the general public, and the precedingreligious day of Corpus Christi, which may have encouraged people tostay away from home and therefore not to vote, whereas the recent vote


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for the EU accession also may have contributed to the absence of votersin the June elections.

This analysis further contends that the key factor was the extreme lowsalience of the elections for the general public coupled with limited pub-lic interest in the European institutions themselves. As a consequencemost Poles scarcely knew of the elections, and above all did not knowwho had to actually vote for the Members of the European Parliament(MEPs). In a survey conducted by the Institute of Public Affairs (InstytutSpraw Publicznych: ISP) of Warsaw and the CBOS two months after theEP elections, respondents were asked ‘Who voted for the elections ofthe MEPs at the European Parliament?’ and only 48 per cent of respon-dents answered that they were elected by general election, the othersanswered by senators or the president, and 20 per cent of respondentsdid not know the answer (Fałkowski and Kucharczyk, 2005, p. 8).

An indicator can be drawn through the survey on the willingness tovote in national and EP elections: in almost all the candidate countriesthe percentage of those willing to vote in the national parliamentaryelections exceeded the share of those eager to vote for the EP elections(or had the same number of respondents, as in the case of Latvia). OnlySlovenians and Poles answered that they were more willing to vote inthe EP elections. In the case of Poland, 31 per cent of Polish citizenswould have voted for the European and 28 per cent for the national elec-tions (CCEB 2004.1, 2004, p. 116). A list of regional candidates in theelection would have encouraged the average Polish citizens more thantheir counterparts in the candidate countries (40 per cent) as well as inthe case of a campaign mainly focused on employment (71 per cent),agriculture (57 per cent), and issues specific to Poland (42 per cent)(CCEB 2004.1, 2004, pp. 123–124).

Despite a high-average ‘perceived’ level of knowledge (CCEB 2003.2,2003, p. 44; CCEB 2004.1, 2004, pp. 33–36), it is the ‘actual’ level ofknowledge, impacting on public opinion. Although people are awareof knowing, their misleading idea can impact on the attitude towardsthe EU. Citizens were inclined to assert that the EP elections were‘really important’ (74 per cent), so probably the overflow of infor-mation both on the accession referendum and the alternation in thegovernment office gave less salience to a topic that would have beenotherwise important (CCEB 2004.1, 2004, pp. 109–110). As Szczerbiak(2004) underlined, these elections could not be read as a backlash: farfrom that, Poles still showed an interest in the EU, yet they felt they didnot know the candidates and the campaign had not been well prepared(25 per cent). In particular, their critical attitude towards the current


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political situation was perceived by the respondents as a sufficient rea-son to protest, not taking part in this democratic procedure (43 per cent)(CBOS, 2004, BS/114/2004).

Comments on a post-accession Eurosceptic Poland were far from real-ity. The success of more critical or Eurosceptic parties was due to theirelectorates’ higher attendance (72 per cent among the Prawo i Sprawiedli-wosc (PiS) and 59 per cent among the LPR). Although a high number ofSLD voters answered that they took part in the EP election (64 per cent)(CBOS, 2004, BS/114/2004), the parallel analysis of the political situ-ation in the country – the close parliamentary election (2005) – andthe answers provided to the CBOS survey on the reasons for not votingcan suggest a more ‘faithful’ attitude of the PiS and LPR electorate com-pared to the SLD voters. Further, the election was taken very close tothe accession day; it was possible that fears linked to membership werestill important for some categories of people, increasing the percentageof votes of the LPR, more concerned with the protection of Poland andPolish values.

Poland was moving towards the 2005 political and presidential elec-tions, and it voted as a consequence of that. Disaffection for theincumbent government (SLD-UP) was high and more critical attitudescould have emerged. The low level of salience of this particular election –because of the political situation (see also Chapter 4) – citizens’ morecritical attitudes, the confusion over available information, the idea thatcandidates were not known (regional candidates, debating on issuesdeeply related to Poland in the campaign would have helped) impactednot only on the turnout but also on the high ‘apparent’ increase ofsupport for Eurosceptic political parties.

However, Poland was still Euroenthusiast. Surveys carried out inAugust, three months after accession, confirmed the positive trend:the shift was present both among supporters and opponents. Also sur-veys on the Constitution took advantage of the positive perceptionstowards membership. After the signing of the Constitutional Treaty inRome on the 29 October, a comfortable majority of Poles were will-ing ‘to take part’ in the referendum and to vote favourably. Yet, Polishnewspapers began to underline the lack of the Christian roots in thetext (Bielecki, 2003), as did a section of the political elite, and thedebate moved forward to the difficult ‘Nice political chapter’. In June2004 the ‘compromise’ gave Poland less votes within the Council thanin the welcomed Treaty, and there was no reference to Christianity inthe preamble (Słojewska, 2004). Nonetheless, surveys showed a positivetendency (Table 3.1).


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Table 3.1 Willingness to vote in the Constitutional Treaty referendum

If a referendum . . .? July2004

November2004

February2005

April2005

May2005

June2005

Definitely yes 42 42 42 34 38 33Rather yes 22 22 24 24 23 21Rather no 14 13 10 15 12 16Definitely no 13 13 12 14 15 15Difficult to say 9 10 12 13 12 14

Source: CBOS.

The reasons for support can be read in the current decrease in rel-evance of the Treaty in comparison to the previous, often polemic,information available between June 2003 and a couple of months afterthe signing in Rome. EU membership was lived without fears and theassociation between the EU and its Constitution resulted in a possiblepositive outcome in the polls. Perceptions towards the year 2005 weremore optimistic than the year before and in February 2005 while sup-port for the EU remained outstandingly high (77 per cent), the level ofopposition further dropped to 14 per cent. The shares of people ‘quiteinterested’ and ‘completely uninterested’ in the adoption of the Con-stitutional Treaty were equal (32 per cent of respondents), but therewas a small increase in the willingness to vote (66 per cent) since theprevious survey. The willingness to vote for the adoption decreasedslightly also among those willing to vote against the ratification (CBOS,2005, 02/2005). A drop in both the surveys appeared in April, whenrespondents also admitted that their knowledge on the issue was ‘defi-nitely’ (42 per cent) and ‘rather’ (26 per cent) ‘insufficient’ (CBOS, 2005,04/2005).

Information, as in the case of the EP election, could impact on theturnout of the possible Polish Constitutional referendum: in July 2004,21 per cent of respondents did not know, in a CBOS survey, on how tovote to ratify the Constitution – through a general referendum or thevote of the parliament – and 22 per cent thought the Constitution hadto pass the approval of the Sejm (CBOS, 2004, BS/123/2004). As seen inChapter 2, the knowledge on the EU is likely to have sustained supportfor the EU itself. Thus, it can be deduced that also in this case the level ofknowledge had an impact on the intention to go to vote and the type ofvote, as also the focus groups will show (Chapter 5). However, growingdoubts could have been forecast, if, in November 2004, similar highnumbers of respondents among supporters, opponents, and undecided


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towards the EU answered it was ‘difficult to say’ how they would havevoted in a possible referendum (20 per cent, 33 per cent, and 34 per cent)(CBOS, 2004, BS/181/2004).

The interest of surveys focused on the reasons for both the posi-tive and negative answers. As expected, those supporting the EU foundit was a fairly justified reason to generally support the Constitution(47 per cent) as well. Others (23 per cent) feared implications for thecountry in case of the rejection (the position of Poland within the EUhas always been an important issue for citizens); some (15 per cent)thought the Constitutional Treaty could give ‘good regulation forPoland’, and 12 per cent thought that it could ‘improve the function-ing of the EU’. Those opposing were somewhat opposing the EU aswell (14 per cent), but the majority thought that the text contained‘bad regulation’ for the country (44 per cent), 25 per cent answeredthere were no references to ‘Christian roots’, and 13 per cent ‘did notlike the model of EU in the Constitution’ (CBOS, 2005, 04/2005). It isimportant to underline that in a previous survey, on support for the EUand willingness to vote favourably in the referendum, the percentageof those voting ‘Yes’ in the referendum was high in those supportingmembership (74 per cent), but it was significant among the undecided(45 per cent), with some support from those against EU membership(18 per cent) (CBOS, 2004, BS/181/2004).

Ratification could become a hostage of the political struggles, whilePolish think tanks supported a debate specifically on the Treaty(Kolarska-Bobinska and Kucharczyk, 2005). As Svensson (2002) stated,debates before referendums could create an ever-growing involvementprocess for citizens. That is particularly essential in CEE countries, wheredecades of Communism have provoked the atomization of civil society.All the debates proved to be rather futile in the wake of the French andDutch rejections (55 per cent against in France and 61.6 per cent in theNetherlands) that provided relief in Poland. Political elites could havebecome largely unpopular to discredit the Constitutional Treaty amongthe possible general support of Polish citizens. Public opinion felt saferwatching founding EU member states’ discontent and possible debatesas an EU member state. If Poland was worrying about rejecting theEU Constitution, because of the consequences for the country withinthe EU, after the French ‘No’, in particular, Poland felt safe. However,more sophisticated worries could still arise, ‘Jan Rokita, the PO leader,[worried] that if Poland [voted] Yes in a referendum, that could weakenWarsaw’s hand in future renegotiations, where those who said No [were]likely to be listened to more closely’ (Cienski and Andress, 2005). That


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could be important not only for the position in the EU but in the shortterm for the future debates on the budget round.

After the failed referendums, public opinion was perfectly split intothree; 35 per cent found it difficult to express any opinion on whetherthe Polish referendum could have any impact on the ‘future of the Con-stitution’ (CBOS, 2005, 06/2005). All that resulted was a small decreasein the intention to vote and a greater shift in the way those willingto vote would have voted, where the ‘best-educated persons [were] themost sceptical about the Constitution’. Those most definitely oppos-ing (and willing to vote ‘No’) were among the most religious (attendingmass more than once a week): 41 per cent would have voted against;and among those reflecting their political views in the right-wing polit-ical parties, the percentage was still high, halting at 37 per cent. Ingeneral, the trend in the surveys on the willingness to vote in a pos-sible Constitutional Treaty referendum reflected the early enthusiasmafter accession, the stable positive attitude in the spring and the ‘soft’impact of the French and Dutch. Reactions after the two ‘No’ votes weredeeper than expected; the two referendums provoked a ‘strong’ impacton both those willing to vote for the ratification and those assertingtheir rejection.

As previously listed, the fear of negative consequences for Polandwithin the EU was one of the main reasons for the positive vote of23 per cent of the respondents in a survey carried out in April, evenif the sample was rather small for a country like Poland (n = 361). Witha reasonable dispersion in the percentage, the impact of the two neg-ative referendums possibly caused a shift in the share of answers. AsTable 3.2 shows, public opinion could worry no longer, founding mem-ber states, particularly France, relevant in all the policies undertakenwithin the EU, had already said ‘No’, and it was a safe laissez-passez tofreely express any opinion.

Table 3.2 Voting in the Constitutional Treaty referendum

How wouldyou vote?

July2004

November2004

February2005

April2005

May2005

June2005

For . . . 56 68 64 56 60 44Against . . . 22 11 7 15 14 24Difficult . . . 22 21 29 29 26 33

Note: This table considers just those responding ‘definitely + rather yes’ to the previous ques-tion on the willingness to vote in case of a referendum (Table 3.1).Source: CBOS.


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The first two years as a member state also featured two importantdomestic political events: the parliamentary and presidential electionsin 2005 (Markowski, 2006; Millard, 2006; Szczerbiak, 2005, 2006b).Before the elections, growing support for Eurosceptic political par-ties (PiS and SRP) produced comments on a possible post-accessionEurosceptic Poland. Yet, that did not impact on the level of supportfor the EU: at the beginning of 2006, support was always higher than70 per cent, and 74 per cent of Polish citizens supported EU integrationin March. When the enthusiasm of accession calmed down, the gen-eral interest of the press and political debates focused on the domesticevents.

Nevertheless, in the first years after accession, membership was imme-diately perceived as a good thing for those having a higher educationand income (CBOS, 2004, 07/2004). As before accession ‘the higherone’s status, the greater one’s support’ (Hausner et al., 2000, pp. 41–64).Most importantly after 18 months, Polish farmers realized that an openmarket was widening the demand for their products, they were gainingfrom price growth, and direct payments were not remote (UKIE, 2005).Overall, the Polish supporting attitude was strengthened by the per-ceived ‘civilizational and cultural’ impact of the EU and improvement ofthe standard of life, knowledge, and education (CBOS, 2005, 06/2005).As before accession, when generally public support considered member-ship as beneficial for the country, after accession, at the aggregate level,support is still likely to be perceived as related to benefits for Poland.Those supporting the EU realized more benefits at the Polish level thanpersonally, as those opposing perceived less costs for Poland than intheir personal life. Unexpectedly, at the end of the first year, those per-ceiving benefits for Poland since accession belonged to the categories ofthose with higher (68 per cent) and secondary (56 per cent) education,those with a monthly income above 1,200 złoty (61 per cent), and man-agers and intellectuals (73 per cent) (CBOS, 2005, BS/115/2005). For thefirst time in June and August 2004, support for the EU was almost thesame in the entrepreneurs’ and farmers’ categories, as the greatest shiftchanged among farmers’ attitudes, the level of support passed from thelowest 25 per cent to a convinced 76 per cent. Instead of the flows offoreign goods, there was an increasing demand for agricultural products(ISP, 2006, p. 12). The slow pace of the direct payments and the highprices of agricultural inputs impacted on the sudden enthusiasm of thefirst months of integration. As is clear from Figure 3.1, the length ofPolish membership correlated with a lower number of opponents. Theincrease in public support began just after accession and the stabilization


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Support Opposition DK

Figure 3.1 Polish attitudes towards EU integration (1994–2010)Source: CBOS data. Data from April 2004 to January 2012 (latest available).

to values around 77 per cent appeared already between September andNovember 2004.

As in Chapter 2, the analysis uses CBOS data and the same inde-pendent variables, for the months available, in the first three years ofmembership – when support viewed more variations before stabilizing atabout 80 per cent of support. Further, CBOS did not publish the surveyon the economic situation of the household after June 2004; therefore,it is not possible to cross-check the personal utilitarian proxy in thiscase – however, surveys on benefits at the country and personal levelpartly filled this gap (Table 3.3).

The overview of the data at the aggregate level illustrates that supportfor the EU is again among the most stable variables, with less disper-sion (SD = 3.63 and cv = 0.05), as before accession. On the contrary,opponents decreased with the highest shift – with 3.37 as SD and 16.5as mean, the cv is now 0.20, the most similar to negative future per-ceptions. These two variables (opposition to membership and negativefuture perceptions) underwent a similar decreasing trend (sometimesfluctuating) with the mean equal to 24.06 and 4.15 as SD (cv = 0.17).This is the most interesting case, and it would confirm one of thebeginning assumptions of this research, as indicated by Jasiewicz (2004),that after accession, citizens can judge membership on the basis of the


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63

Table 3.3 2004–2006 data. DV and IVs: Mean, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation

May2004

June2004

August2004

September2004

October2004

November2004

December2004

February2005

March2005

April2005

May2005

June2005

July2005

November2005

January2006

April2006

Mean SD cv

Supportingthe EU

71 69 70 69 72 77 76 77 74 77 76 74 78 73 80 80 74.56 3.63 0.05

Presentperception

32 27 31 27 25 26 26 28 20 25 25 23 23 24 41 24 26.69 4.83 0.18

Politicalsituation

4 3 4 4 4 5 4 5 3 4 3 4 2 5 14 7 4.69 2.73 0.58

Economicsituation

9 11 10 10 10 10 12 11 11 13 12 10 9 11 15 14 11.13 1.71 0.13

Supportinggovernmenta

M/B 18 30 22 19 20 17 20 15 18 19 14 13 15 50 50 22.67 11.81 0.52

Futureperception

16 17 16 16 14 13 15 15 14 16 17 13 13 17 28 17 16.06 3.51 0.22

Opposing theEU

20 22 21 21 20 16 16 14 17 15 14 15 14 16 12 11 16.5 3.37 0.20

Presentperception

51 62 55 60 62 62 62 59 68 62 59 65 66 63 40 62 59.88 6.66 0.11

Politicalsituation

67 68 60 59 64 63 67 66 74 69 68 69 68 60 32 57 63.19 9.45 0.15

Economicsituation

56 54 50 50 48 53 50 50 54 50 47 54 55 50 35 41 49.81 5.39 0.11

Opposing thegovernment

M/B 30 27 24 29 29 28 26 38 38 29 35 37 36 10 14 28.67 8.17 0.28

Futureperception

31 29 27 24 25 26 26 24 28 22 20 23 23 22 13 22 24.06 4.15 0.17

Data include the first two years of membership, as, while declining levels of support were expected, high percentages of support for EU integration stabilized between2005 and 2006.aSupport for government up to September 05: mean 18.46, SD 4.35, cv 0.24.Source: CBOS.


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direction of the country. Less negative future perceptions could impacton decreasing levels of opposition and a high number of supporters forEU integration.

As before accession, the overview of the independent variables andtheir dispersion does not indicate a clear picture of relationships withsupport for, and opposition to, EU integration. However, the posi-tive economic situation and positive future perspective for the countryimproved in the long term, and together with the decreasing negativeevaluation on the direction of the country they could have impacted onpublic support for the EU. Looking at the surveys on costs and benefits,these data can suggest that the idea spreading in Poland after accessionwas that membership was beneficial at the national level. Therefore,the perception that the EU ‘was good for the country’ – that was themost important independent variable in the statistical analysis beforeaccession – found concrete realization after accession. Since, as seen,the cost–benefit calculi were perceived at the national level more thanpersonally, that can become the significant variable for the level of sup-port. As joining the EU was currently perceived more positively, becausePoland was a member state and was benefiting, future perceptions couldappear less negative and be related to the level of opponents, decreasingwith the time.

Also, the EU is largely supported, and people felt closer to the institu-tions and generally thought they knew them (even though focus groupswill assert the opposite) (CBOS, 2005, BS/174/2005). The more theyknew them, the more they looked similar to the national ones, usu-ally perceived as not efficient and corrupt. Nevertheless, Poles still hada positive assessment towards the European institutions in strong con-trast with the perceived corrupted domestic situation. That is the reasonwhy, notwithstanding a possible awareness that the EU institutions donot represent the efficient and honest institutions Poles previously couldhave imagined before accession, the EU can hardly lose Poles’ strongsupport.

Euroenthusiasm did not become sceptic, notwithstanding the increas-ing success of Eurosceptic parties, because Poles expected a second-classmembership, price growth was expected, and the vote for Euroscepticparties was misleading.

First, Polish citizens had already realized that the transition was not aquick and painless path. That did not diminish the willingness to join,but it just increased people’s awareness of their primary goal. Accessionwas perceived as the greatest achievement since 1989 (Hofmokl et al.,2006). Poles had ‘huge’ expectations from the EU, and the first benefits


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of integration materialized in the short term for farmers, as for studentsand entrepreneurs.

Second, the idea of ‘higher inflation’ caused ‘higher consumption’,and as a consequence, price growth, particularly for food. It is impor-tant to bear in mind that food was the most expected and feared priceincrease (92 per cent) (Hofmokl et al., 2006). However, the economyperformed well in Poland with a GDP growth between 5.3 per centin 2004 and 3.2 per cent the following year, with a positive per-formance also when the EU member states were suffering from theeconomic recession with a 1.8 per cent GDP in 2009. Imports, as wellas exports, increased. Disillusionment, awareness, and benefits calmeddown people’s reactions after price growth.

Third, support for soft-Eurosceptic parties cannot be read at EU level,and the low turnout at the 2004 EP election should be interpretedwithin the Polish trend in the levels of turnout and as second-orderelections. At the 2005 political election, the League returned to thesame share as 2001: 7.97 per cent (just +0.10 per cent), and in 2007it had just 1 per cent of the vote (1.28 per cent) to run short of votesin the 2007 political elections. That shows how an interpretation of amore Eurosceptic Poland after accession can be misleading and how theshares of votes of the EP elections were just presenting a possible futuredomestic political scenario, where Europe was not an issue.

A survey carried out in August 2005 and January 2006 by Pentorand Office of the Committee for European Integration (Urzad KomitetuIntegracji Europejskiej: UKIE) (Hofmokl et al., 2006) and SMG/KRC-UKIEconfirmed that. If Poles were asked whether in the 2005 elections theywould have voted for Eurosceptic or Euroenthusiast political parties,62 per cent and 61 per cent of respondents answered Euroenthusi-ast parties before the parliamentary and presidential elections, but88.5 per cent and 86.9 per cent afterwards. Very low percentagesanswered for Eurosceptic political parties (5 per cent for both theelections) also after the elections were held, 8.6 per cent for the par-liamentary and 8.1 per cent for the presidential. After accession theEuropean issue was rarely salient in Poland. The radical conservativeand populist agrarian allies of the PiS could worry the European press.Yet, the degree of Eurosceptic stances of these political elites can betested in the long term, and as the 2007 and 2010 elections have shown,Euroscepticism is not successful.

The Catholic most conservative discourse was not successful in thelong term, but developed following a more rational framework, openingtowards a dialogue with secular institutions and still protecting those


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national values close to the church, in particular among the most con-servative groups (Leszczynska, 2009). Data on attendance at the religiousservice and the question on voting in case a referendum were heldat the time viewed similar differences, but with lower negative atti-tudes, across those regularly attending the religious service once a weekand more secular positions. Almost 70 per cent of those who neverattended the mass answered they would have voted ‘for’ in case of areferendum in 2005 (2005 PNES), while only 3.8 per cent would havevoted against it. Percentages change across those attending the massonce a week and, although 45 per cent were in favour of EU integra-tion, 47.9 per cent asserted their ‘No’ in case of a referendum. Figuresdouble among those attending the religious service more than once aweek, with 4.2 per cent asserting they would have cast a positive vote,but 8.2 per cent reiterating their opposition to EU membership (2005PNES). Finally, the political party defending Polish values and protect-ing Catholicism, the League of Polish Families, ran short of votes in the2007 general elections.

In general, as underlined, it is unlikely that support for the EU canbe guided by political parties in Poland, and likely that public opinioncan force political elites not to show attitudes which are too Eurosceptic,while Euroenthusiast attitudes towards the EU can impact on politicalparties.

As a member state, the analysis at the aggregate level indicates that,as before accession, EU support is not linked to political evaluations.On the contrary the economic evaluation and future perspectives couldhave an impact on citizens’ attitudes, while religious attitudes mayslowly become more in line with results at the comparative level (Nelsenet al., 2001, 2011). This analysis now tests the model at the individuallevel, towards a comparative explanation.

Poland: benefits and religion

The results from the previous quantitative analysis on public supportand domestic proxies show the main impact of the collective economicproxy and the ‘European factor’. Nevertheless, the mobilizing force asunconditional support is expected to change after accession, as the firstbenefits materialized in the first 12 months as an EU member state. If,as a candidate country, Poland could not have experienced member-ship and could not frame any idea on the EU, as a new member statepreliminary shortcuts could be used. Particularly, farmers registered thehighest shift in the level of support, stabilizing around 60 per cent after


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two years. If the ‘European factor’ and the general economic context arethe main independent variables before accession, after accession, pub-lic support could be more closely linked to the concrete benefits. Thequalitative analysis at the aggregate level has proven to be still in linewith the findings of the analysis prior to accession. The EU is still animportant factor on citizens’ support. However, the general economicsituation through the idea of ‘benefits’ was likely to remain significant –as before accession. Therefore, it was expected that economic benefitscan become a strong significant variable after accession.

The data set used is the 2005 PNES, carried out for the 2005 parlia-mentary and presidential elections. The two elections were held betweenSeptember and October 2005, exactly 18 months after accession, whenPoles were stabilizing their attitudes towards a Euroenthusiast level (seeFigure 3.1).

The data set does not completely provide all the independent vari-ables used in the study of the 2001 PNES in Chapter 2. However, the‘European factor’, missing in the 2005 data, can be indirectly studiedusing descriptive statistics. This analysis follows the one of Chapter 2with a binary logistic regression analysis and a multinomial logisticregression analysis; secondly it measures the ‘European factor’ usingan overview on the impact of the EU on the domestic context. It isexpected that in Poland the level of support for the EU can be nega-tively linked to the domestic situation and have a positive relationshipwith the ‘European factor’.

The statistical analysis was run according to the same procedure aspreviously, firstly with binary logistic regression, secondly with multi-nomial logistic regression, in order to further measure the significantfactors determining opposition and unwillingness to go to vote – animportant dependent variable in the Polish case, and generally in allthe post-Communist countries (Table 3.4).

The results provide insights not only into how patterns of public sup-port are changing in Poland – explaining trends after accession – butalso into how patterns changed before and after accession – answeringthe main research question, what drives public support before and afteraccession. However, it is worth noting that without the ‘European fac-tor’ the equation explains a very low variability. The comparison withthe case before accession enables the analysis to suggest that in case oflevels of public support, the European factor is still predominant. That isfurther investigated using direct questions on Europe in the 2005 PNESand using a cross-check analysis in the final comparative chapter withthe 2004 EES.


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Table 3.4 Binary logistic regression analysis 2005 PNES

Variable Model 1 B (SE) Model 2 B (SE) Model 3 B (SE)

Age (18–35)Age (36–59) .383∗∗ .487∗∗ .360∗

(.185) (.182) (.201)Age (60+) −.157 −.081 −.198

(.162) (.158) (.179)Religion .807∗∗ .757∗∗ .908∗∗∗

(.261) (.250) (.271)National factor:Political .004 −.170 .203

(.145) (.140) (.266)Economic .714∗∗∗ −.584∗∗∗ −.556∗∗

(.150) (.143) (.270)Material household −.508∗∗∗ −.479∗∗∗ −.951∗∗∗

(.138) (.132) (.194)Regions (former Russian)Regions (former Austrian) −.679∗∗∗ −.712∗∗∗ −.776∗∗∗

(.178) (.175) (.189)Regions (former Prussian) −.305 −.167 −.235

(.215) (.211) (.231)Regions (regained) −.453∗∗ −.302 −.420∗∗

(.198) (.196) (.212)

∗Significant at the .10 level; ∗∗Significant at the .05 level; ∗∗∗Significant at the .01 level.Model 1: retrospective evaluations of the domestic situation. Model 2: current evaluations ofthe domestic situation. Model 3: prospective evaluations of the domestic situation.Model 1: −2 log likelihood = 1595.725; Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 = . 108; Cases correctly classi-fied = 81; N = 1,767; Model 2: −2 log likelihood = 1634.303; Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 = .098;Cases correctly classified = 81.1; N = 1,800; Model 3: −2 log likelihood = 1398.011; Nagelk-erke Pseudo R2 = . 096; Cases correctly classified = 81.7; N = 1,537.Note: In bold: Base value.

The first most important observation is the significance of some of thesocio-demographic variables, which were not significant before acces-sion. At the individual level, religion is in line with the analysis andstudies on other EU member states. While before accession, religionwas used in the Eurosceptic narrative, after accession religion could notpossibly have been a Eurosceptic issue as people could see that the EUdid not threaten Polish values and did not impact on Polish habits andreligion. Also, ultraconservative political parties (in the Polish case, theLeague of Polish Families) could not fuel polemic domestic debates onreligion.

Therefore, it is also possible to explain the reason for the non-significance of religion between 1994 and 2004. In fact, despite the


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possible Euroenthusiast strength of religion before accession, where pos-sibly religion works out as a significant factor for public support for theEU, the political debates halted its significance. These results perfectlyposit themselves in the literature between Jasiewicz (2003) (assertingthat Euroscepticism could not be structured around religion) and Nelsenet al. (2001, 2011), who focused on the role of religion and the eco-nomic variable, and in line with the findings by Hajo Boomgarden andAndre Freire (2009). In fact, Euroscepticism is not structured on religion(Jasiewicz, 2003), but Catholic EU member states, and Poland, are likelyto be ‘warm’ towards the EU (Nelsen et al., 2001) and religion had animpact at the aggregate level before accession, but not at the individuallevel (Boomgarden and Freire, 2009).

As expected, the political variable is not significant, as the analysisat the aggregate level of the previous section has shown. On the con-trary, the two economic factors present an interesting case, especiallycomparing the results to the analysis of the 2001 PNES. The collectiveeconomic factor is the most significant variable. However, following theanalysis across the three models, the collective economic evaluationslose strength on the personal economic situation. Within prospectiveevaluations, the assessment of the personal economic situation – thathad no significance before accession – is significant (−.951).

Prior to accession, citizens believed that the EU would have benefitedthe country. Still, after accession, asking the people whether member-ship benefited the country or them personally, both supporters andopponents answered mainly the country. There was not the aware-ness that the EU was benefiting them personally, even though farmers,young people, students, businessmen, and highly educated people couldclearly benefit from accession. People did not personally realize that, butit easily emerged in the individual-level analysis. This study expected anegative relationship with the domestic proxy, and the analysis showsthe negative relationship: the general usual negative evaluation of Pol-ish citizens on the economy and the personal economic situation candetermine levels of support. Particularly, the economic situation of thehousehold is the most important factor with future perceptions. Theutilitarian proxy still offers important observations, and the distinctionbetween a personal and country-level analysis can be explanatory in thePolish case. Finally, regions were not significant before accession. It canbe interesting to underline that the eastern and south-eastern regions ofPoland are usually more Eurosceptic, while the former Prussian and theterritories regained are usually more supportive, and it partly emergedfrom this analysis.


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Considering support for the EU as the base value of reference, theanalysis carried out a multinomial logistic regression in order to high-light whether the reason to oppose integration can be read as theopposing determinant to support. In addition, as low levels of turnoutare the norm in Poland, the study highlights the reasons for thewillingness to not vote in case of a referendum (Tables 3.5–3.7).

The multinomial logistic regressions show a first important observa-tion on a socio-demographic variable: age is always important in thosewho are not willing to take part in a possible referendum. In partic-ular, viewing the model on prospective evaluations, age is the onlysignificant independent variable. While, before accession, the socio-demographic variables did not have any impact, after accession, age canbe determinant for attitudes towards political participation in Poland,but possibly in the other post-Communist member states. Religion (asalient independent variable in the Polish case, possibly replaced by

Table 3.5 Multivariate regression analysis 2005 PNES

Model 1 (Past evaluations)

Variable Against B (SE) Would not B (SE)

Age (18–35) −.409∗∗ −.831∗∗∗

(.185) (.236)Age (36–59) .150 −.523∗∗

(.162) (.212)Age (60+)Religion −.826∗∗ .163

(.260) (.263)National factor:Political −.016 −.510∗∗

(.146) (.205)Economic .725∗∗∗ .672∗∗

(.150) (.214)Material household .498∗∗∗ .027

(.138) (.198)Regions (former Russian) .772∗∗∗ .266

(.177) (.232)Regions (former Austrian) .278 .037

(.215) (.278)Regions (former Prussian) .451∗∗ −.044

(.198) (.268)Regions (regained)

∗Significant at the .10 level; ∗∗Significant at the .05 level; ∗∗∗Significant at the .01level.The base value is ‘for’ (in bold).


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Model 2 (Present evaluations)


Age (18–35) −.504∗∗ −.754∗∗∗

(.182) (.231)Age (36–59) .076 −.587∗∗

(.158) (.206)Age (60+)Religion −.766∗∗ .113

(.249) (.264)National factor:Political .149 .175

(.141) (.199)Economic .584∗∗∗ .518∗∗

(.144) (.201)Material household .469∗∗∗ .655∗∗∗

(.133) (.185)Regions (former Russian) .668∗∗∗ .236

(.174) (.236)Regions (former Austrian) .142 .112

(.211) (.270)Regions (former Prussian) .297 −.058


∗Significant at the .10 level; ∗∗Significant at the .05 level; ∗∗∗Significant atthe .01 level.The base value is ‘for’ (in bold).

another variable in other more traditionally secular CEE cases, as suchthe Czech Republic) is significant and has a positive relationship tosupport for the EU.

It is also important to underline the significant impact of the eval-uation of the past political situation for the country in the case ofthose not willing to vote in a (potential) referendum in 2005. A neg-ative evaluation of the domestic political situation in the previous 12months decreases the odds among those willing to vote. Finally, asbefore accession, the economic evaluation and the assessment of theeconomic situation of the household are not always significant in thesame types of analysis and do not always show similar coefficients: onlythe collective economic proxy is significant in those not willing to votewith the past evaluations, while in the model using future evaluations,the economic situation of the household is strongly significant andthe evaluation of the future general economic situation is not highlysignificant.


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Model 3 (Future evaluations)


Age (18–35) −.367* −1.058∗∗∗

(.201) (.262)Age (36–59) .197 −.622∗∗

(.179) (.225)Age (60+)Religion −.939∗∗∗ −.101

(.271) (.303)National factor:Political −.174 .096

(.263) (.355)Economic .531∗∗ .446

(.269) (.386)Material household .947∗∗∗ .236

(.194) (.308)Regions (former Russian) .705∗∗∗ −.009

(.189) (.252)Regions (former Austrian) .218 −.017

(.231) (.292)Regions (former Prussian) .416∗∗ −.063


∗Significant at the.10 level; ∗∗Significant at the.05 level; ∗∗∗Significant atthe .01 level.The base value is for (in bold).

After accession the ‘EU factor’ can be measured using some of thedirect questions respondents were asked within the 2005 PNES. The dataare in line with previous findings. Prior to accession it was mainly theidea that the ‘EU was good for the country’ to impact on the levels ofpublic support. That overlapped with the domestic proxy on the eval-uation of the domestic economic situation, but it did not show anysignificant relationship with the proxy on the economic situation ofthe household, at the personal level. It was good to join the EU becauseit benefited Poland and the Polish economy. Similarly, after joining theEU at the aggregate level, Polish citizens supporting the EU asserted theycould perceive benefits more at the national level than personally – asthose opposing were perceiving costs more at the national level thanpersonally. Positive attitudes towards EU integration seemed to corre-late to the perceptions of costs and benefits. Those supporting the EU


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perceived higher benefits, particularly for Poland (57 per cent), as thoseopposing perceived costs mainly for Poland (65 per cent).

The EU brought benefits that could be perceived after just one anda half years of membership and the majority of Polish citizens showedthey trusted the EU. The EU was still likely to be a significant factor onattitudes towards the EU (as the model explains a smaller variability),together with the utilitarian proxies.

The results of this study show that it is important to distinguishtwo levels of utilitarian proxies, where national data sets enable thistype of analysis based on citizens’ perceptions and evaluations. Further,determinants of support are similar but opposed to determinants of neg-ative attitudes, while those who are not willing to vote can structuretheir attitude on different determinants – where age and the evalua-tion of the political situation can acquire more salience compared tothe determinants of support for and opposition to EU integration.

The comparative case

The Polish case and the comparative case prior to EU membership showthat the EU is linked to benefits, in particular at the personal level; ifthe EU delivers benefits, it is worth being supported. The current crisiscan therefore have a higher impact on attitudes in the new memberstates; and that is the result of the analysis by Serricchio et al. (2013).Euroscepticism is on the rise among the Eurozone countries, but morein the new member states (5.75 per cent) compared to old member states(4 per cent) (Serricchio et al., 2013).

As this book contends, material benefits can immediately becomedeterminant, as the Polish case illustrates, and the utilitarian dimensioncan be critical across the post-Communist region. If before accessiontrust towards the EU institutions could decrease, after joining the EU,benefits could materialize and increase support for EU integration. Afterone and a half years of membership, the majority of Polish citizens (sam-ple of N = 2,402, PNES 2005, first wave) trusted the EU (51.1 per centtrusted ‘a little’ and ‘a lot’ the EU), a positive result compared todomestic officers and institutions, but little less compared to NATO (seeTable A.18).

The role of institutions is increasingly becoming important, in partic-ular at the national level (Serricchio et al., 2013). In Poland, low levelof trust for political institutions does not reveal a new reality; RafałPankowski opened one of his works on Polish citizens, the EP, and insti-tutions, asserting that ‘Polish citizens evaluated the situations in the


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country in a very negative way’, 78 per cent were clear that in Poland‘we [had] to deal with a political crisis’ (2003, p. 11). That momentarilyoverlapped with the European institutions. After accession joint CBOSand ISP surveys showed that between 2003 and 2005 the European insti-tutions were perceived more similar to national ones, with higher levelsof distrust due to perception of corruption and the idea that the EUdid not care of citizens. All that reflected in the level of interest inpolitics (‘q62’). When asked about that, 21.6 per cent of Poles assertedthat their interest was ‘marginal’, while only 13.6 per cent responded a‘high’ interest. Despite the ‘medium’ value gathered most of the answers(48.5 per cent), the Polish unrest with politics was made clear alsothrough the answers to the reasons for not voting. The answer whether‘no interest in politics’ was the reason for refraining from voting in the2001 parliamentary elections, the latest elections before joining the EU,at the end of the negotiation process, opened in March 1998, collected38.2 per cent of responses as ‘definitely yes’ – the highest percentage,while it is in Poland that turnout has been low since the first electionsin 1989 (with 41 per cent as the average turnout before joining the EU,see Guerra and Bil, 2009).

On one side ‘Poland [was] a young democracy’, on the other lowturnout has ‘a long tradition’, as a way to delegitimize and not toaccept the state (Czesnik, 2004, p. 134) – that can become a commoncharacteristic in countries where voting was not a right and becomesa choice within a democratic political system. On the contrary, mem-bership increased citizens’ perceptions that the EU institutions weresimilar to the national ones. EU membership had beneficial impactson the country and its economic situation, and on agriculture, but atthe domestic political level the evaluation of public opinion and therelationship with political elites did not change. Discontent was com-mon across the post-Communist area, and the first CEE EU memberstates can have lessons for countries in the region that are poorer orleast democratic (Rose-Ackermann, 2007).

Fabio Serricchio et al. (2013) have found that institutions becomeincreasingly important at times of crisis. Corruption and trust have beentwo of the most controversial issues in the post-Communist region sincethe early 1990s. In the run-up to accession, Ivan Krastev (2002) foundthat more than 70 per cent of Bulgarians and Poles (and Russians) at thattime thought there was more corruption than there had been at the timeof Communism. It is worth noting that the process of democratizationalso tied into the economic liberalization process; and in other cases, itseems to have been associated with worsening corruption levels or atleast perceptions of its prevalence. As Milada Anna Vachudova (2009,


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p. 43) pointed out, ‘Corruption also undermines liberal democracy aspolitical elites violate the legal limits of their power, [and] citizens losetrust in state institutions . . . .’ This is worrying for those concerned aboutthe sustainability of democratic transitions which means that the morewell-known arguments concerning the negative economic and socialimpacts on these new democracies have been supplemented by concernsover the impacts of perception of corruption on political trust, legiti-macy, the quality of service provided by democratic institutions (Norris,2011), more broadly support for democratic forms of politics. Within theliterature, this is often singled out as being a particular issue for so-calledyoung democracies, where democratic structures, processes, and aboveall political cultures are only weakly consolidated. Norris (2011,pp. 93–101), for example, generally found that levels of approval ofdemocratic attitudes in younger liberal democracies were slightly lowercompared to older liberal democracies. Based on the answers at the ques-tion on different political system and the opinion on a ‘democraticpolitical system’, support reached 97 per cent in Sweden and Norway,96 per cent in Germany and Italy, but only 87 per cent in Bulgaria,88 per cent in Slovenia, and 84 per cent in Poland, and much lower incountries outside the status of EU candidate countries, 83 per cent inMoldova, 66 per cent in Russia (Norris, 2011, p. 93).

Norris underlines that direct questions on the political system canbe also misleading, with a strong approval of the democratic system,despite ‘illiberal convictions’ towards some specific principles, such asfreedom of speech, political equality, and tolerance to minority rights(Norris, 2011, pp. 93–94). That is critical in developing democracies,as approval of democratic regimes strengthens the consolidation ofdemocracy itself (Almond and Verba, 1963).

This book examines how new member states and candidate coun-tries perceive the EU in the perspective of further enlargements. The EUhas been considered by some as a successful democratic actor (Manners,2002), reflected in its origins in promoting peaceful coexistence betweenEuropean states and the evolution of forms of decision-making withinits institutions but there has also been an important current of critiquewhich has drawn attention to some of its democratic deficits and long-running concerns over the transparency of its institutions and theirdecision-making processes. In the post-Communist region, democrati-zation included the passage from a state-run economy to a competitivemarket, privatization, and promotion of new enterprises. Although pri-vatization is expected to reduce corruption and positively impact ontransparency and efficiency, in the short term it resulted, as it oftenhappens, to increase levels of corruption (Heywood and Krastev, 2006,


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p. 169) – to such an extent that in Bulgaria, the economist RoumenAvramov talked of ‘the privatization of profits and nationalization oflosses’ (Heywood and Krastev, 2006, p. 171).

Corruption has definitely been a major problem in those two coun-tries defined as the laggards of the fifth enlargement, Bulgaria andRomania, and as seen in the case of Poland trust towards domestic insti-tutions could affect trust for the EU and its institutions after joining theEU. Following democratic conditionality, the impact of the reforms anddemands on citizens’ life viewed the emergence of social and economiccosts that materialized after the opening of the negotiation process inthe second half of the 1990s. The deep dissatisfaction impacted on theperception of democracy (see Chapter 2 and Rose, 1998), and whilethe EU is currently engaging in a more severe battle against corrup-tion, more effective assessments of the mechanisms are in place in theWestern Balkans.

This analysis suggests that the current financial context may bothundermine support for further enlargements in an already contested EUand strengthen the perception of a second-class membership, as it real-ized in the run-up to the fifth enlargement, fuelling mistrust towardsthe EU. In fact, the asymmetrical relationship between the EU and can-didate countries strengthened the lack of trust towards the institutionsand perceptions that candidate countries could not have much voicein the negotiation process (Grabbe, 1999). Nonetheless, if on one handthe changing EU’s policies are likely to address the difficult process ofthe enlargement after the 2004–2007 memberships to the first post-Communist countries, studies also agree that the countries that joinedthe EU at that time were those that had to respond to more demandingrequests from the EU compared to previous enlargements, but also didthat more promptly and more effectively (Sedelmeier, 2008).

Using the latest wave of the European Social Survey (2010), thisbook supports and strengthens previous findings (Tables 3.8–3.11). Inthe post-Communist region, levels of trust towards national institu-tions are generally lower compared to the European and internationalones. Politicians and political parties are the most distrusted actors,but also European institutions and the United Nations are not worthbeing trusted much in the case of those countries that have not yetjoined the EU and are neighbour countries. A lack of trust definitelyundermines ‘the social and political fabric’, in particular in countriesundergoing the process of democratization, and, as already widelystudied in the literature, a lack of trust can lead to political apathy,with levels of turnout that are generally lower in post-Communist


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77

Table 3.8 Levels of trust in Poland (2010)

Poland N Minimum Maximum Mean SD

Interest in politics 1739 1 4 2.73 .836Trust in country’s parliament 1689 0 10 3.44 2.284Trust in the legal system 1671 0 10 4.26 2.341Trust in the police 1705 0 10 5.38 2.392Trust in the politicians 1692 0 10 2.66 2.103Trust in political parties 1677 0 10 2.55 2.070Trust in the EP 1549 0 10 4.72 2.415Trust in the United Nations 1493 0 10 5.30 2.513Valid N 1391

European Social Survey data (2010).

Table 3.9 Levels of trust in Bulgaria (2010)

Bulgaria N Minimum Maximum Mean SD



Table 3.10 Levels of trust in Croatia (2010)

Croatia N Minimum Maximum Mean SD




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Table 3.11 Levels of trust in Ukraine (2010)

Ukraine N Minimum Maximum Mean SD



countries (see Jungerstam-Mulders, 2006). Although, as aforementioned,low turnout can also represent the choice not to vote as a right exer-cised after years of compulsory voting ‘the party’ during the Communistregime, it can also lead, together with discontent towards the estab-lishment, to populist mobilization (Fieschi and Heywood, 2004; seeChapter 6).

Thus, this analysis would like to move the analysis one step forwardand address how this may affect not just the EU’s policies towards can-didate countries and third countries – that, as seen, have been affected –but how this can impact on the quality of democracy in countriesundergoing the process of democratization.

The EU has already reinforced the rule of law chapter with candidatecountries and ‘to give priority’ to the monitoring of anti-corruption poli-cies, also within the European Neighbourhood Policy, EU agencies, asEuropol, Eurojust, CEPOL, and OLAF; and finally promoting interna-tional cooperation with further bodies, as the Council of Europe Groupof States against Corruption (GRECO) (European Commission, 2011).

Also as the Polish case underlines, and the findings suggest, the cost–benefit ratio is likely to strengthen levels of support for EU integrationin the post-Communist region (Figure 3.2). In 2008, after four years ofmembership, most of the citizens of the new member states assertedthat their country benefited from the EU and that membership was agood thing for their country (higher than the EU average, 53 per cent)(EB70, 2008). At the question on further enlargements of the EU, andpursuing ‘the building of Europe’, the highest level of support were inPoland (75 per cent), Slovakia (70 per cent), and Slovenia (70 per cent);similarly the least people agreeing that the ‘building of Europe has gone


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Membership is good for the country

Figure 3.2 Benefit from EU membership (2008)Source: EB70.

too far’ were in Poland and the Czech Republic (7 per cent), Slovakia(5 per cent), and Bulgaria (4 per cent) (Special EB 303, 2009). In Estonia(78 per cent) and Slovakia (77 per cent), citizens think that their coun-try benefited from accession, but in Hungary, where higher levels ofEuroscepticism, in particular at the elite level can be seen, 51 per centof citizens think their country did not benefit; finally, after two yearsof membership, 30 per cent of Bulgarians could not assert whethertheir country did benefit from membership (Special EB 303, 2009). Asthe individual-level analysis shows, collective and personal benefits arelikely to represent the determinants of support for EU integration in theregion.

Collective and personal benefits

The main research question addresses whether and how determinantsof support (here voting for in case a referendum on accession is heldtoday) change before and after joining the EU. This analysis on the Pol-ish case suggests that determinants do change; prior to EU membership,candidate countries can be mobilized by their own idea of EU integra-tion, but they are more sensitive to the impact of reforms. The affectivedimension is not based on an actual knowledge of what EU member-ship may represent and mean for the country. After joining the EU, in


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particular when negative views of integration, affected by the impact ofthe reforms, were perceived, benefits from EU integration could mate-rialize and influence citizens’ attitude. In addition, the financial crisisis likely to affect more increasing levels of Euroscepticism in the newmember states.

Overall, both types of analysis (in Chapters 2 and 3) suggest thatbefore accession, the European factor and the evaluation of the domesticeconomic situation could impact on attitudes towards EU integration.Economic voting was salient in framing public support for the EU, andit was likely to be determinant in all the CEE countries. The differencebetween the collective and individual economic evaluations can furtherenable an understanding of the determinants of support. This two-levelanalysis is slightly different from the egocentric and sociotropic types ofanalysis. This study does not look at specific categories of citizens anddoes not distinguish among them depending on their jobs. The interestof this research is to look at how citizens generally frame their attitudetowards the EU and how determinants change across time. Jasiewicz(2003) understood that ‘the anti-EU stand [was] associated not so muchwith structural factors or religiosity per se’, but rather with a perceptionthat ‘things [were] going in the wrong direction’, where also nationalinstitutions do affect attitudes towards the EU. This seems to emergefrom the comparative perspective, with the possible role of political par-ties, although their position is unlikely to be determinant on Europeanchoices – particularly in the case of membership. The mismatch betweenhigh levels of support among citizens and scepticism towards politicalelites can influence the attitudes of political parties on the EU issuesin post-Communist countries, but in the long term elites can influencegeneral levels of public support.

Rachel Cichowski underlined that even though her ‘findingsreveal[ed] a distinct pattern in citizen attitudes’ before accession, sheexpected changes to occur ‘over time’ (2000, p. 1272). This analysis con-firms that and suggests distinguishing the domestic economic proxiesfor further research. Based on citizens’ perceptions – even though thefact that public perceptions can be critical to be anticipated (Gabel andWhitten, 1997) – the utilitarian proxy became more salient after Maas-tricht. CEE countries looked at the EU as the place they always belonged,while at the same time they were aware that joining the EU was bring-ing benefits, as membership was ‘more than simply an internationalissue’ (Tucker et al., 2002, p. 570). Caplanova et al. (2004) found thatalthough ‘politicians’ could refer to ‘the tide of history’, citizens neededto perceive membership as being linked to ‘benefit’ (p. 285).


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In fact, membership was supported mainly because the EU benefitedthe country; after accession, citizens can perceive benefits at the per-sonal level and that changes the dimension of the economic proxy.The ‘relative poverty of former [C]ommunist states’ (Tilley and Garry,2007, p. 182) and immediate perceived benefits at the personal level canbe determinant, particularly in the short term, as also the comparativeoverview shows, with less positive views on membership in Bulgaria.In the long term we can expect a more salient political proxy, and theimpact of national institutions, that seems to emerge in the Hungariancase, in particular where the fight against corruption can exacerbate therelationship between national governments and the EU institutions.

Conclusion

This study provides us with a clear answer to the question what deter-mines support for and opposition to European integration before and afteraccession in a post-Communist member state? It is the first study tocompare determinants of support and opposition to the EU beforeand after accession, and it is the first in-depth analysis on the largestpost-Communist state that joined the EU with the fifth enlargementin 2004.

The hypotheses that I developed were drawn from the existing litera-ture, mainly the work of Jasiewicz (2004), Cichowski (2000), Anderson(1998), Tverdova and Anderson (2004), Caplanova et al. (2004), Gabel(1998), and Kritzinger (2003). This book has drawn together their differ-ent analyses, thereby making an original contribution to a fundamentaldebate within the field of European integration. The Polish nationaldata sets that I drew on allowed me to operationalize the independentvariables both at the aggregate level (using CBOS data) and individuallevel (using PNES data). Using national data sets has also enabled me tostudy the case in-depth with the quantitative analysis at the individuallevel, whereas previous in-depth analysis has generally been undertakenusually only a qualitative approach.

Domestic proxies, and utilitarian proxies in particular, are going torepresent a fundamental explanation for public support in all the post-Communist region, and the next enlargements towards the WesternBalkans. Together, with the economic proxy, the notion of ‘uncondi-tional support’ can, I would argue, explain higher levels of support infuture member states. Therefore, the retrospective, current, and prospec-tive collective and personal economic proxies that I analysed can beapplied and added to the current frameworks of research on drivers of


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public attitudes towards European integration, as such the simple util-itarian approach, the identity frameworks, and the models linked topolitical party identification. Multifaceted utilitarian proxies and thenotion of ‘unconditional support’ that I developed here, in my view,are likely to explain most of the variability in support for and opposi-tion to the EU in the current candidate countries and the prospectivefuture member states, and can become a more widely utilized frame-work of analysis, in particular after the turning point of the financialand economic crisis.


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4Voting for or against Europe

In 2004 the EP elections brought citizens of 27 EU countries out tovote, highlighting a wide ‘Eurogap’ between the old member states,plus Malta and Cyprus, and the eight post-Communist member states.About 55.63 per cent voted in the ‘old Europe’ and Malta and Cyprus,compared with only 31.19 per cent who casted their vote in the newEU member states. When Bulgaria voted in May 2007, turnout wasat 29.22 per cent and in November 2007 in Romania it halted at29.47 per cent. In 2009 the general average decreasing trend, registeredsince the first EP elections took place, did not alter. Also, the ‘Eurogap’between old member states plus Malta and Cyprus (54.01 per cent) andthe post-Communist new EU member states (22.93 per cent) was almostunvaried.

Turnout had already been a debated issue in the run-up to the acces-sion referendum. In Poland a referendum law, establishing ratificationalso for a turnout lower than 50 per cent (having the approval of two-thirds of the Sejm), was written and passed, while also the decision tohold the referendum for two days, as in Lithuania and Slovakia, wastaken, fearing the same turnout as Hungary (46 per cent).

This chapter analyses public support for the EU and voting in EPelections and EU referendums. In fact, support does not necessarily cor-relate with a positive attitude towards voting for the EU, particularlyin post-Communist EU member states. This section addresses the rea-sons behind voting for and against Europe in the 2004 EP elections,in comparative perspective. Similarly to Western countries, Europeanelections in Central and Eastern Europe are likely to be debated at thedomestic level. However, low turnout is qualitatively different. Thisanalysis underlines and distinguishes the quality of disaffection thatcan be detected in a post-Communist environment. Distrust towards

83


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politicians increased in established democracies since the 1980s. InCentral and Eastern Europe, however, distrust is due to scandals thatemerged since the process of democratization took place, when it couldbecome easy to blame the EU. Also, in post-Communist countries, disen-gagement with politics is linked to the ‘post-Communist environment’.The legacy considered in this study is operationalized through the vari-ables of the available data sets, mainly on ‘protest, repression, economicreform, political organization, state institutions, and socio-economicchanges during communism’ (Vachudova, 2005, p. 21), and the impacton the developments after the fall of Communism (Kitschelt, 1995;Linz and Stepan, 1996; Rose, 1998). Thus, although there are commoncharacteristics between Western and post-Communist cases, this chap-ter addresses the qualitative differences with the quantitative analysis inthe 2004 EP election and the overview on similarities and differences inthe 2009 elections.

Voting on the EU in Central and Eastern Europe:catching up in the referendum days

Before the accession days, comparative analyses carried out by agenciesin Central and Eastern Europe (the Polish CBOS, the Hungarian TARKI(Társadalomkutatási, the Social Research Centre), the former CzechCVVM (Centrum pro výzkum verejného mínéní, Public Opinion ResearchCentre), and Central European Opinion Research Group (CEORG), theCentral European Opinion Research Group) presented patterns of sup-port and attitudes towards EU integration and possible polls on theaccession referendum at the aggregate level. Hungary generally yieldedresults that were more positive towards a future accession referendumboth on the question on the willingness to definitely vote (it was66 per cent in May 2002) and to vote in favour (84 per cent in thesame month). The Czech Republic was usually among the less enthusi-ast states: 35 per cent would have definitely gone to vote in 2002 (and63 per cent would have voted in favour) – whereas in 2000 in Latvia just40 per cent would have voted in favour, 36 per cent against membership(CBOS, 05/2000, CBOS, 2002, BS/210/2002) (Figure 4.1).

In line with the assumption of this analysis and with the findingsfrom Chapters 2 and 3, those far from accession (Bulgaria and Romania)show the highest shares of votes in favour in case of a referendumon EU accession. However, it is noteworthy that the trend increasesin the states joining in 2004, whereas it decreases in the two join-ing in January 2007. This confirms that we can expect a lower level


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Voting for or against Europe 85

0

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BG CZ EE HU LV LT PL RO SK SL

1997 2001 2002 2003

Figure 4.1 Voting ‘For’ in the accession referendumSource: CEEB 8 and CCEBs.

of support for integration and more concerns on accession two–fouryears before joining the EU, while levels of support start increasingagain in the run-up to accession. Among the other eight states thatjoined in 2004, the ‘coldest’ towards a possible referendum were Esto-nia and Latvia. The fact that these countries are more economicallylinked to the Scandinavian area (Guerra, 2002, pp. 6–7; Riddervold andSjursen, 2006) with a large presence of a Russian minority (Koroleva andRungule, 2006; Titma and Rämmer, 2006) can explain the trend. In addi-tion, Estonia already experienced ‘substantial economic growth’ in 1996(Titma and Rämmer, 2006, p. 295), and that can explain lower expec-tations from EU integration and attachment to the EU. That wouldalso explain, similar to the case of Poland, the high percentages of cit-izens asserting the EU brought benefits. When expectations are lower,after joining the EU the perception of benefits is higher. On the con-trary, prior to membership, if benefits can be a significant variable in allthe cases, it may be less important in Estonia, as benefits were visiblelong before accession. Finally, only in the case of Hungary the percent-age decreases in the run-up to accession, as if all the eight candidatecountries had already made up their minds towards an inevitable choice.

Similarly, if we consider whether the citizens of Central and EasternEurope felt ‘very/fairly proud’ of being European, then only Lithuania(51 per cent), Latvia (59 per cent), and Estonia (47 per cent) had alower level compared to the candidate countries’ average (64 per cent) –together with Bulgaria (51 per cent). It is further possible to noticethat considering the two countries, which joined the EU only in May


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2007, Romania was the more in favour towards EU accession, and ahigher percentage of citizens are ‘proud’ of being citizens of the EU(82 per cent) (CCEB 2003.2, 2003, pp. 60–64). On the contrary, notwith-standing Bulgaria shows high levels in favour of accession, since 2003the enthusiasm slightly started to drop, and there is a lower perceptionof being European. It is possible that this shows evidence of a culturaland identity difference between the two – as Romania can have closercultural and value ties with Europe. In the case of Hungary, citizens werein favour of EU accession across the years and felt proud of being citi-zens of the EU (88 per cent in 2003) according to the CCEB surveys;however, turnout both in the accession referendum and the followingyear EP elections registered the lowest figures (Table 4.1).

The Szczerbiak-Taggart model (2004a, 2004b) successfully explains thebackground and results of both ‘Yes votes’ and turnout. This analysisuses the framework of analysis as in the Polish case study and underlinescharacteristics that can help to map out more similar groups of countriesamong the area study represented by the eight former countries thatjoined the EU in May 2004, using a broad comparison with nationalelection and the first EP elections.

Firstly, the low turnout is likely to have helped higher shares of ‘Yes’votes, with the highest percentages (83.76 per cent and 93.71 per cent)in Hungary and Slovakia that registered lowest turnout. As the analysison the Polish case shows in the multinomial analysis after accession,it could be mainly the EU opposition to stop people from voting.That could have happened also before the accession referendum, when

Table 4.1 EU accession referendum: Turnoutand ‘Yes’ votes

Countries Turnout (%) Yes vote (%)

Latvia 72.50 67Lithuania 63.37 90.97Estonia 63.00 66.90Slovenia 60.44 89.64Poland 58.85 77.45Czech Republic 55.21 77.33Slovakia 52.15 93.71Hungary 45.62 83.76Mean 58.89 80.85

Note: In Slovenia the accession referendum was takentogether with the referendum on accession to NATO.


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Euroenthusiasts were more willing to go to vote. Secondly, the diffusesupport for the EU at the elite level, but broadly uncontested – in therun-up to accession – also at the public opinion level within the con-text of post-Communist countries – could yield low turnout, whereas‘No votes’ did not have any chances. Although some scholars may findit interesting to analyse the issue of the strategic ‘No-voting’ in some ofthe CEE cases, the low turnout is mainly in line with the previous elec-tions, and, particularly, is not surprising for two main reasons: (i) stillpost-Communist countries registered, as said, low levels of political par-ticipation (Klingemannm, et al., 2006), and (ii) still there was a highpercentage of Euroneutral citizens, which could prefer not to go to vote.

Through comparison it is possible to further assert that only in theHungarian case the turnout is in line with the turnout in the pre-vious referendums (Fowler, 2004, p. 627), giving strength to Fowler’sexplanation. In Hungary a 25–30 per cent of non-voters have remaineddisconnected from politics and direct political participation. Addition-ally, very close preceding parliamentary elections, and the fact that thefinal result was never in doubt impacted on the remaining 70 per cent.The lack of contestation also boosted the Euroneutral category in acountry which registered a 13.91 per cent in a ‘signature-backed referen-dum in July 1990, . . . on the presidential election mode’ (Fowler, 2004,p. 627). More concerns were provoked by the general turnout in the2004 EP elections: all the countries registered decreasing low levels ofturnout, a 30–37 per cent gap with the accession referendum in almostall the post-Communist new member states. Besides, the gap was oftenwide also compared to the previous recent national elections.

Looking in detail at the levels of turnout for the post-Communist newmember states in the 2004 EP elections and those considered as first-order elections, it is possible to detect a substantial difference both withthe previous and the following national parliamentary elections in allthe cases. However in six out of eight cases (those countries that joinedthe EU in May 2004: Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, andSlovenia), the trend at the domestic level was decreasing as well. Thedata show only one case (Lithuania) in which the EP election does notlose much ground on the national elections, but Lithuania representsthe exception in 2009 for its extremely low turnout (20.98 per cent).

It is worth noting that the record low turnout at the 2004 EP electiondoes not follow a similar trend in the accession referendums of the pre-vious year. Only Hungary registered similar very low record turnout, andLithuania just registered 15 per cent less votes compared to the 2003 ref-erendum. In all the other cases, almost 30 per cent or more (40 per cent


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in Estonia and Poland) decided not go to the ballot for the 2004 EPelections compared to the referendum the year before.

It is likely that Table 4.2 illustrates the strong mobilizing force of theaccession referendum that, at least, in half of the cases, was capableof moving a larger share of electorate compared to the national par-liamentary election. In a focus group held in Zielona Góra (Poland) in2007, while talking about turnout in the accession referendum in June2003 and the EP election in June 2004, a participant asserted that ‘peo-ple would have voted (Yes) anyway for the accession referendum, theydid not need information, it is different for the European Parliamentelection’ (see Chapter 5).

Discussing this point with Beata Roguska (25 October 2007), she didnot agree that more information on the EP could have changed theJune 2004 turnout. Not many EU citizens can generally respond to aquestion on the work of the EU institutions. Roguska suggested that thetime of the election did not favour turnout, as Poland joined the EUjust a month before, and voted on accession the year before. That mayhave created a situation where it was more difficult for citizens to bemobilized.

These findings give strength to the idea that remote governance canbe difficult to be communicated (Wallace, 2006). Accession is the endof the transformation process and can represent the country’s success-ful accomplishment of the changes and response to EU conditionality(Grabbe, 1999). People could perceive it as a duty, and they had alreadyaccepted the idea of integration. That cannot be replicated in electionsand further EU referendums, in addition a student added ‘that may bemore a problem of Poland than of the sources of information’, referringto low levels of turnout in the country (Markowski, 2006).

After the 2004 EP elections, information and identity were found asdeterminant factors (Wessels, 2007). Citizens can feel less engaged, butinformation matters (de Vreese et al., 2006) as also the focus groups show(see Chapter 5). Although information is not necessarily the only factorthat can impact on citizens’ engagement with Europe, knowing Europeis a process in development in CEE countries, and information can playa fundamental role between the average citizen and the EU at this stage.

That is further illustrated by analyses on EU referendums in Westerncountries. As Simon Hix (2005, p. 197) addresses, referendums are usu-ally on ‘complex’ issues that are more difficult to understand, and pollson turnout are usually ‘at odds’ with results. In fact, voters can be moresensitive to the impact of the ‘final weeks of the campaign’. Although,as aforementioned, the accession referendum represents a unique case,


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89

Table 4.2 Eurogaps: Turnout at the national and European elections, and EU accession referendum

Country A (%) B (%) C (%) D (%) E (%) C–A (%) D–A (%) D–B (%) D–C (%) E–D (%)

Czech Republic 57.9 64.5 55.21 28.32 28.22 −2.69 −29.58 −36.18 −26.89 −0.1Estonia 58.2 61.91 63.00 26.83 43.2 4.8 −31.37 −35.08 −36.17 16.37Hungary 73.51 67.83 45.62 38.5 36.29 −27.89 −35.01 −29.33 −7.12 −2.21Latvia 71.51 62.23 72.53 41.34 52.56 1.02 −30.17 −20.89 −31.19 11.22Lithuania 58.63 46.8 63.37 48.38 20.92 4.74 −10.25 1.58 −14.99 −27.46Poland 46.2 40.6 58.85 20.87 24.53 12.65 −25.33 −19.73 −37.98 3.66Slovakia 69.99 54.67 52.15 16.97 19.64 −17.84 −53.02 −37.70 −35.18 2.67Slovenia 70.3 60.5 60.44 28.35 28.25 −9.86 −4.95 −32.15 −32.09 −0.1Bulgaria 55.7 NA NA 29.22 37.49 NA NA NA NA 8.27Romania 56.5 NA NA 29.47 27.4 NA NA NA NA −2.07

Note: A = National parliamentary election prior to 2004 EP election (2007 EP election).B = National parliamentary election after 2004 EP election (2007 EP election).C = 2003 EU accession referendum.D = 2004 EP election (2007 EP elections for Bulgaria and Romania).E = 2009 EP election.


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referendums and EP elections can be compared (Hix, 2005). Informa-tion and electoral campaigns can be fundamental, as citizens have verylimited knowledge on policy issues (Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1991), par-ticularly at the EU level (Hobolt, 2009). We can expect that they feelmore engaged with the EU when information is provided and whenthey feel informed on the source of this information.

‘Why bother’: the 2004 European parliamentary electionsin Central and Eastern Europe

The analysis uses the 2004 EES as it is the closest to the national elec-tion studies, further using additional questions on the EU. According tothe 2004 EES Slovenians (59 per cent), Poles (51 per cent), and Czechs(46 per cent) are among those who often and sometimes perceive them-selves as EU citizens; Hungarians are the less ‘EU-ed’ citizens of thegroup. Only 13 per cent often perceive to be an EU citizen. Yet, themajority of Hungarians are proud of being an EU citizen (59 per cent),followed by Poles (46 per cent).

As the EB 62 (2004) reports, 51 per cent of Slovenians perceivedthemselves as both Slovenian and European. Hungarians were theleast European, among them 64 per cent perceived themselves as onlynational. On the contrary, Hungary was the only new member state toshow ‘a weak positive identification on average’ in the ‘EOS Gallup PostEuropean Elections 2004 Survey’, as detected by Bernhard Wessels, whounderlines that ‘identity needs time, which the new members do notyet have’ (2007, pp. 214–215).

Therefore, despite taking the post-Communist new member statesas an area study capable of outlining similar trends, the compari-son enables us to immediately sketch some distinctive characteristics,where Poles and Slovenians are likely to be the most positive towardsEU integration, while – in the EB 62 survey on the benefits of EUintegration – Latvia (51 per cent), Hungary (48 per cent), and the CzechRepublic (42 per cent) were the only three new member states from Cen-tral and Eastern Europe registering percentages below the EU25 average(53 per cent) on perceived benefits from accession. Overall, as a con-sequence, this analysis can expect less enthusiasm towards EU issues,referendums, and elections among the citizens of Latvia (and generallythe Baltic states), Hungary, and the Czech Republic – with Latvia andHungary still representing those countries where citizens do not perceivemuch benefits from accession.


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This study now applies the analysis at the individual level, as carriedon the Polish case, and it addresses the reasons for the very low levels ofturnout in Central and Eastern Europe and specifically explores the fac-tors that can qualitatively impact on turnout. The case of second-orderelections with lower turnout, where smaller parties ‘do better’, larger‘do worse’, and governmental parties ‘suffer losses’, is a tested charac-teristic in Western member states (Reif and Schmitt, 1980; van der Eijkand Franklin, 1996), but low turnout in the 2004 and 2007 EP elec-tions raised the issue in the eight and then ten post-Communist newEU member states.

In the analysis by Koepke and Ringe (2006), the application of thesecond-order model does not explain the empirical evidence in Centraland Eastern Europe. The comparative study by Schmitt (2005) suggeststhat the post-Communist countries have not yet developed a ‘consoli-dated party system’, and the high volatility and low party attachmentdo not permit a similar analysis to that outlined for Western memberstates.

Mark Franklin (2007) rejected Richard Rose’s (2004) explanation onthe ‘Eurogap’ between Western and post-Communist countries, basedon levels of public distrust towards political parties and institutions,linked to a legacy of the Communist past, as ‘quixotic’. Empirical evi-dence shows that if in Lithuania turnout was at 48 per cent, in Britainit halted at 38.52 per cent. Franklin’s multivariate analysis illustratesthat post-Communist countries are not so different from establisheddemocracies; with Cees van der Eijk, he explains that new member statesbehave as a new cohort of voters and more volatility and lower turnoutcan be expected (van der Eijk and Franklin, 2009). This book contendsthat the role of legacies can further affect voting behaviour in Centraland Eastern Europe and tests their role in the case of the 2004 Polish EPelections.

This analysis now turns to the role of the domestic proxies and the EUfactor on voting behaviour at the 2004 EP elections in CEE and addresseswhether supporting the EU is a determinant on voting behaviour andwhether the domestic context can affect how citizens vote. This studyhas used binary logistic regressions on the 2004 European Election Sur-veys. Unfortunately Lithuania did not present the same questions asthe other data sets and Slovakia did not list the English translation(while the Slovenian data set was translated). The analysis includes twosocio-demographic variables as gender and ranges of age, as controlvariables. Not all the domestic variables, previously used in the case


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study of Poland and support for the EU, were available in the data set,so, where possible, the study includes the assessment of the economicsituation, distinguishing the evaluation of the previous and following12 months (looking at the retrospective and prospective economic vari-ables), the interest towards politics, and self-identification on a left–rightscale (always using as basis of the analysis people’s perceptions andevaluations) (Tables 4.3 and 4.4).

The ‘interest in politics’ is the only variable to be always significant inboth the two types of analysis. Following both the retrospective andprospective economic evaluations, the most significant coefficient isgiven by citizens’ interest towards politics, while the idea that mem-bership is beneficial for the country is never significant in Slovenia. Asdetected in 1995, ‘[I]n all countries of the then European Communityattitudes and orientations toward the European and European integra-tion play an exceedingly marginal role in the explanation of turnout’,where ‘the only difference’ between voters and non-voters in nationaland European elections was ‘a reduced likelihood to vote’ (Oppenhuis,1995, p. 169). Further, looking at the economic factor, it is more sig-nificant in the prospective (Estonia, and Slovenia, close to significancein Latvia) than in the retrospective evaluations, with very far fromsignificance coefficients. That is in line with previous findings, wherethe ‘relative poverty of former communist states seems to be the keyfactor leading citizens to be relatively supportive of EU integration’(Tilley, 2007, p. 182). Previous results on the Polish case, as suggestedby previous research findings and the results of this analysis, still favourprospective economic evaluations on retrospective perceptions.

As the analysis can still expect (to a very small extent) a legacy ofthe Communist past, it has tested an index on the legacy of the Com-munist past only on the Polish case – as a preliminary exploratorystudy. As a preliminary study, it has simply tested it on one case (withthe perception of the economic situation in the previous 12 months),and it has comprised together four variables listed in the Polish dataset, possibly summarizing together the main characteristics of a possi-ble legacy, ‘Trust in Parliament’, ‘Satisfaction with (Polish) democracy’,‘whether (Polish) Economy performs better or worse than before 1989’,and ‘Non-democracy could sometimes be preferable’.

Trust towards Parliament and political parties is usually low(Jungerstam-Mulders, 2006), particularly in Poland (Szczerbiak, 2006a),and in the early stages of the democratization process Richard Rosedetected in the New Democracies Barometer that ‘the new system ofgovernment [was] consistently endorsed by a majority of people in


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Table 4.3 Binary regression analysis on the 2004 EES – Assessment on the past economic situation

Country Gender Age EU Economic past Interest politics Left/Right

(B) Sig (B) Sig (B) Sig (B) Sig (B) Sig B (Sig)

ES (.530).000 (.596).000 (.742).000 (.252).011 (.692).000 (.200).032HU (.210).136 (.462).000 (.456).000 (.076).469 (.859).000 (.206).014LV (.266).096 (.250).017 (.474).000 (.013).898 (.812).000 (.290).086PL (.033).850 (.365).001 (.297).033 (.186).108 (.665).000 (.360).001SL (.811).000 – (.198).171 (.097).359 (.675).000 (.055).601

Gender Age EU Satisfaction with life Satisfaction with politics Left/Right(B) Sig. (B) Sig. (B) Sig. (B) Sig. (B) Sig.

CZ (− .114).449 (.437).000 (.311).000 (.088).415 (.118).296 (.257).007

Always significant at p < 0.05.ES: Cox & Snell R2 = .150; Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 = .214.HU: Cox & Snell R2 = .149; Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 = .199.LV: Cox & Snell R2 = .109; Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 = .146.PL: Cox & Snell R2 = .099; Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 = .134.SL: Cox & Snell R2 = .141; Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 = .189.CZ: Cox & Snell R2 = . 057; Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 = .133.Note: Despite the two models do not explain a great variability, they are proposed to underline further factors – among the domestic proxies and theEuropean factor – that can explain the low turnouts in CEE.Data source: European Election Study 2004.


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Table 4.4 Binary regression analysis on the 2004 EES – Assessment on the futureeconomic situation

Country Gender Age EU Economicfuture

Interestin politics

Left/Right

(B) Sig. (B) Sig. (B) Sig. (B) Sig. (B) Sig. (B) Sig.

ES (.554).000 (.587).000 (.717).000 (.229).028 (.717).000 (.217).022HU (.195).171 (.453).000 (.437).000 (.023).815 (.852).000 (.191).022LV (.264).116 (.240).028 (.424).001 (.222).052 (.792).000 (.293).097PL (.171).343 (.387).001 (.358).014 (.069).577 (.768).000 (.307).007SL (.823).000 – (.167).266 (.270).011 (.610).000 (.063).560

Always significant at p < 0.05.ES: Cox & Snell R2 = .155; Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 = .220.HU: Cox & Snell R2 = .144; Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 = .193.LV: Cox & Snell R2 = .116; Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 = .155.PL: Cox & Snell R2 = .102; Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 = .139.SL: Cox & Snell R2 = .143; Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 = .192.Data source: European Election Study 2004.

Central and Eastern Europe’, but the median voter was a ‘sceptic’, assess-ing ‘both the old communist regime and the new democracy a negativerating’ (1998, pp. 285–289). That has consequences on the study of thesecountries, raising the issue whether the Eurogap can still be the effect ofthe impact of a possible legacy. Considering democratization as a pro-cess (Rose, 1998), probably a measure to operationalize the legacy of theCommunist past can be added to the analysis. The four variables werepresented divided into four categories just in two cases, the other twovariables were recoded following the same categories, where the basevalue is the more positive, therefore expecting a negative coefficient(Table 4.5).

When Polish citizens voted in the EP election, their interest in poli-tics increased the probability of their willingness to go to vote. However,the introduction of a proxy for a legacy of the Communist past resultsin a significant relationship, where taking a person going to vote, ceterisparibus, the legacy decreases her/his willingness to cast her/his vote inthe 2004 EP election. The analysis is here exploratory, and it takes theoutcome as a very limited result, due to the margins of error possi-bly created by the multiple transformations in order to operationalizea variable which is not presented in the data set – and can be measuredwith great difficulty. Yet, the significant coefficient and the negative Bare likely to suggest further space for research in Central and EasternEurope – particularly towards current candidate.


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Table 4.5 Testing the ‘legacy’: Binary regressionanalysis on the 2004 Polish EES

B(SE) Sig

Gender −.157 (.191) .412Ranges of age(35–54) −.766 (.251) .002(55+) −.385 (.228) .091EU .130 (.160) .417Interest in politics .761 (.156) .000Economic past .173 (.128) .177Legacy −.191 (.061) .002

Significant at p < 0.05.Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 = .151; Cases correctly classified=65.8; n = 552.Note: Similarly to the previous models, this last modelincluding the legacy of the Communist past does notexplain a great variability; however, it indicates that,although to a small extent, the legacy can be important.Source: European Election Study 2004.

The 2009 European parliamentary elections:explaining the Eurogap

After the very low levels of turnout in the 2004 EP elections, sur-veys reported on the willingness of potential voters to take part inthe following 2009 elections. Between March and May 2008, the Euro-pean Commission carried out a survey on the state of public opiniona year before the elections. A low percentage of Europeans knew ofthem (16 per cent), but more than in the previous six months (only10 per cent). Young people were the ones that were ‘least likely toknow’ about it. About 46 per cent felt interested in the elections, butmore, 51 per cent, asserted they ‘were not interested’. That is particularlyimportant as detected in the new member states (Special EB 299, 2008).

In Bulgaria, 90 per cent of the citizens did not know when theelections were taking place in April 2008, as well as 84 per cent ofRomanians, 85 per cent of Lithuanians, and 83 per cent of Latvians.In particular, interest was low in Latvia (79 per cent asserted theywere not interested), in the Czech Republic (71 per cent), and Slovakia(68 per cent). The length of membership generally correlates withthe affective dimension of the EU (Gabel 1998a), and it is not sur-prising that the affective dimension is ‘in the making’. Even thoughpost-Communist countries before accession agreed that the reasons why


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the EU had a positive image were due to ‘economic improvements’(14 per cent) and ‘[U]nspecified positive statements based on emotionsor general image perceptions – General positive’ (CEEB 6, 1996; CCEB2001, 2002.2, 2002), this analysis argues that citizens are still in theprocess of knowing about the EU – Hix (2005, p. 157), commentingon public opinion on European integration in post-Communist coun-tries, wrote about the ‘poor availability of information about the EU inmany of these states’. Also, the EU is likely to be represented in people’sperceptions by this double component.

The trend on the likelihood to go to vote registered a year beforethe elections can indicate that the possible turnout could be againexpected to be low in all the EU member states (Special EB 303, 2009).Percentages were particularly low in the case of Romania (19 per cent),and Slovakia (15 per cent) that registered the lowest turnout also inthe 2004 EP elections (17 per cent). Particularly, 60 per cent of thoseresponding they were not going to vote in the EU27 asserted ‘they (did)not know enough about the European Parliament’s role’ (similarly towhat said in the focus Group in Zielona Góra in 2007, see Chapter 5).Information was considered as fundamental in order to make also ‘hes-itant or even recalcitrant’ EU citizens ‘change their minds and turn outto vote on 4–7 June 2009’ (Special EB 303, 2009).

However, in October–November 2008 Europeans did not seem muchmore informed or interested. Twenty-six per cent replied they knewabout the 2009 EP elections and more than in the previous EB survey,54 per cent (+ 3 per cent) was the average across the 27 member statesasserting they were ‘totally disinterested’ (Special EB 303, 2009). Thelikelihood of going to vote was lower than the EU average in Romania(31 per cent), Hungary (29 per cent), Bulgaria (26 per cent), CzechRepublic (25 per cent), Slovakia (23 per cent), and Poland (19 per cent).However, the new member states had received better media coverage onthe EP compared to the ‘old’ ones (50 per cent vs. 43 per cent) (SpecialEB 303, 2009).

In the run-up to the 2009 EP elections, the likelihood of high lev-els of turnout was scarce. It was also anticipated that a similar turnoutgap between old (plus Malta and Cyprus) and new member states wouldoccur. Further, in the 2004 and 2007 EP elections, both the case stud-ies analysed here, Poland and Bulgaria (see Chapter 5), showed thesalience of the domestic dimension. The Polish case is likely to be partlyexplainable through Franklin’s thesis (2002). Although it focused on ref-erendums, the low or high salience of the EU issue is likely to impacton European elections, as in Poland, where the contemporary presence


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of a low salient EU issue (Szczerbiak, 2004) and the high salience ofthe domestic political situation, as in second-order elections, are likelyto explain the extremely low turnout. Similarly, in 2007 the Bulgariancase showed high levels of support for the EU, but a debate that wascontested at the domestic level. Also when issues had an EU dimen-sion, as in the case of the EU funds or the fight against corruption,under the special ‘cooperation and verification mechanism for monitor-ing progress’ implemented by the EU, information retained a domesticcontext (Stefanova, 2008). Finally, in 2009, EP elections took place ina moment when Poles felt less and less trust towards the EP (Polandregistered the biggest decline across all the EU member states since theprevious Eurobarometer survey, −9 per cent).

The second-order model in Central and Eastern Europe

After measuring the significance of the domestic proxies and the EU fac-tor on the 2004 EP Elections and an overview on the 2009 elections,this analysis confirms that the domestic context is always more impor-tant than the EU factor (as in Oppenhuis, 1995, p. 84 and p. 169), alsoin post-Communist new member states. Furthermore, the significanceof the legacy in the Polish case can be explained by a more passive atti-tude towards politics generated by 40 years of Communist regime (Rose,1998). The changes and the transformation process provoked deep dis-satisfaction; that does not mean that shares of the population wererefusing the process of democratization, but it unveiled that in 1995still approved the Communist regime and disliked the new (29 per centin Hungary, and 22 per cent in Slovakia, New Democracies Barome-ter IV 1995, in Rose 1998, p. 289). That does not mean that almostone-third or one-fifth of the citizens really refused the process of democ-ratization, but it unveiled the costs of the transformations, and did notallow to increase any trust towards politicians, which currently are stillconsidered ‘demagogues’ not worth to be trusted (see Chapter 5). There-fore, the overlap of the transformation costs on the passive civil societycan have produced a situation where the bonds between citizens andpoliticians – and politics, as a consequence – are looser. In CEE, dis-affection is likely to be the product of the past and the social costsof the triple transition. In addition, where citizens trust parties, theyare likely to be more politically active, as distrust is likely to be linkedto low turnout (Dalton and Weldon, 2005). That is in line with thefindings of this analysis on the domestic proxies and the legacy of theCommunist past.


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In all the cases under examination, it is likely that the willingness toprotest against the current political situation and political dissatisfac-tion, or generally as in one of our independent variables, the ‘interestin politics’, played the main role. In particular, in the case of the2004 EP elections, when first time voters (new member states) shouldhave boosted levels of turnout, in the Czech Republic the EP electiontook place in a moment of great dissatisfaction towards the incumbentand Vladímir Spidła, exactly in-between the two national parliamen-tary elections. In Estonia, as in the Czech Republic and most of thecases, the opposition dominated in the results (the government partieshad just 26.9 per cent of the votes), gaining 16.7 per cent of the seats(Mikkel, 2004). In Hungary Hungarian Civic Union (Magyar PolgáriSzövetség, Fidesz: FIDESZ), the opposition party, had 13 per cent morevotes than the Socialists, while small parties, as the Alliance of FreeDemocrats, junior partner in the government coalition, and the Hun-garian Democratic Forum, an opposition party, performed well, withcomments asserting that ‘[T]he results primarily reflect[ed] the govern-ment’s mid-term unpopularity’ (Batory, 2004). The only case, wherean extremely unpopular government still gained most of the seats, isSlovakia, which also registered the lowest turnout. Henderson (2004)points to the extreme salience of the domestic situation in the recentsix years and the fatigue in vote mobilizations, ‘[h]aving experiencedtwo very tense national elections since 1998 and very recent two-round presidential elections’, in April 2004. Finally, all the overviewson the analysis of the elections underline the lack of information oruse of resources. When more financial and mobilizing resources wereemployed, this was done in view of the following domestic elections,or after previous domestic defeat, as in the case of FIDESZ in Hungary(Batory, 2004). Similar to the Polish situation, voters in Latvia were morewilling to vote on the domestic situation.

This general picture was confirmed after the election when surveyresearch showed that the domestic political situation, especially thegovernment’s standing, was together with the appeal of the candi-dates the most important factor for the voters. Hence, the scope wasgreat for Latvian voters to convert European elections into a de factoplebiscite on the government’s performance.

(Pridham, 2004, p. 3)

In Slovakia political parties were also found ill prepared for the Europeanelections, and most were barely able to produce any election programme


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at all. As Chapter 5 is going to show, information seems to be relevantin the way it can affect citizens’ perceptions and evaluations. Therefore,information and the impact of a legacy of the Communist past (which isnot as salient as in the early 1990s), high levels of distrust towards polit-ical elites and the low salience of the EU issue with a high salience of thedomestic context resulted in not yet complete second-order elections.

Conclusions

New member states are not so different from established member states.As Wessels (2007) underlines, voting at EP elections can be explained bythe equation, information, and identity. Identity is in the making andinformation does not seem to strengthen turnout, with very low levelsof interest in the elections themselves (Special EB 303, 2009).

A broad information campaign was launched and monitored, also bycivic initiatives, in the case of Poland (see Chapter 5), in the run-upto the accession referendum. These types of organizations, outside thegovernment, were recognized as an efficient instrument of the Polishcampaign (Fałkowski, 2005). In practice, organizations often played arole as the ‘liaison’ between the government and civil society, involvingrepresentatives of the Ministries. Although it is not possible to com-pare EP elections and referendums to the accession referendum, due toits strong mobilizing force, civil society is an important actor, as foundin the case of the second Lisbon Treaty in Ireland (FitzGibbon, 2010).In case of the EP elections, knowing the candidates has an importantimpact on the willingness to go to vote; and a ‘door-to-door’ campaign,as in the case of the socialists in the Bulgarian national elections in July2009, was electorally successful (Savkova, 2009, p. 5).

Membership has been achieved, and lack of information was a per-ceived issue that emerged from focus groups’ research also beforeaccession (Kucia, 1999). This emerged in 2008, in the Eurobarometersurveys, and again it has become a debated issue in the focus groupscarried out in 2009 (Chapter 5).

As this analysis found, citizens are likely to rely on the domestic con-text, when they lack relevant information in order to take a choice. Inthe case of the accession referendum, their attitudes were determined bytheir evaluation of the domestic economic situation, in particular. In thecase of EP elections, a second-order dimension can be detected, and theirinterest in politics can affect their decision not to go for vote. The lengthof membership, civic initiatives, and politicians’ active role are likely tobe fundamental to partly fill the gap between citizens and the EU.


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If CEE post-Communist countries are not so different from establisheddemocracies (Franklin, 2007), it is worth pointing to (i) the general lowerlevel of turnout in the area and (ii) increasing levels of turnout (2009).Finally, an index on the legacy of the Communist past explains turnoutin Poland. This will become less salient in the long term, but currentlyas also the following chapter shows, more knowledge on the EU insti-tutions and possibly the EU political process is critical in new memberstates. In Central and Eastern Europe young citizens are interested inknowing more about the EU and are willing to vote; all these are positivenotes towards the future.


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5Information on the EU: Polandand Central and Eastern Europe

Analyses on the 2004 EP elections found that information plays afundamental role in citizens’ choices (Wessels, 2007), particularly visibil-ity ‘matters’ (De Vreese et al., 2006). As this book is primarily concernedon how and why attitudes change, information, as knowledge on theEU, can represent an important factor. The comparative overview on therole of information in the 2004 and 2009 EP elections stresses the cor-relation between information and turnout. Focus groups carried out inCentral and Eastern Europe in 2007 and 2009 confirm information mat-ters. This chapter explores whether citizens are interested in the EU andif they felt they received the information they expected in the run-up tothe accession referendum and European elections.

Focus groups show that young citizens can be very positive towardsthe EU, and the EU mainly means ‘economy’, as benefits materializeda short time after accession. A few sensitive issues can emerge again,and information is fundamental. Before accession a participant (a pen-sioner) in a focus group organized by Kucia (1999) stressed that ‘themedia should provide continual educational programmes’ (p. 147). Cur-rently nothing has changed. Students say that they want to know ‘howthe European Parliament works’ and how the EU is structured. They allask for ‘objective’ and ‘concrete’ information. Widespread informationwith long spaces of silence leaves citizens doubtful and increases theirmistrust towards sources of information. ‘New citizens may say they’rehappy with the EU, but really, they don’t have a clue’, as resulted ata political forum in Budapest in February 2008 (Szlanko, 2008). TheEU should use basic information to approach citizens, as when they donot understand, they become more negative towards any type of issue.Understanding can improve the relationship between Polish citizensand the EU, and that is fundamentally important in case of futurereferendums and EP elections.

101


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In fact, accession referendums, as showed in the previous chapter,could not represent an impossible obstacle, both for the amount ofinformation generally provided and the mobilizing force of the refer-endum itself, although the accession referendum in Hungary (45.62per cent) and the 2012 accession referendum in Croatia (43.51 per cent)show that low levels of turnout can be expected. Information playsan important role for further elections and referendums. That canimpact on an already fragile relationship between citizens and poli-tics, and bring enduring legacies on political culture in post-Communistcountries. Finally, if concerns may emerge across young students, whogenerally are the most enthusiastic towards EU integration, this analy-sis expects more critical views across public attitudes, showing that therole of communication and how to communicate Europe to citizens stillremains fundamental during the process of European integration, as alsothe Croatian case, in this book, shows.

This chapter firstly provides an overview on the literature on the roleof media on public support for the EU. While political science has exten-sively studied political cues and the relationship of political parties inEuropean referendums and/or EU issues, only recently information andmedia on European referendums has become the focus of extensive anal-ysis by Claes de Vreese. After looking at media and electoral behaviourin the European referendum, the section closes on a brief analysis of thePolish case.

Secondly, it introduces the methodological tools used in this part ofthe analysis. Focus groups are a technique that we can trace back to the1940s. The increasing use of focus groups in communication and marketresearch offered new insights to political science. Currently, among themost used methods of research in social science, focus groups will becritical in understanding the role of media and whether communicatingEurope with citizens can enhance positive attitudes towards the EU.

Thirdly, this analysis outlines details of the procedure and results ofthe four focus groups. Carried out following a comparative analysis,and drawn within the same national context, the first two followedthe Most Different System of Design (MDSD) strategy. The literatureon Poland refers to the three partitions, distinguishing three dis-tinctive areas, or to the two (Western and Eastern) Polands, becauseof different patterns of political behaviour and economic develop-ments, where the Western border is more positive towards the EU –benefiting from trade exchange, because of its proximity to WesternEurope – and the rural East is a loser of integration, because of the


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Information on the EU 103

structure of the economy and the closeness to Ukraine and Belarus. Theother two focus groups were carried out before the 2009 EP elections inPoland and Bulgaria. Findings give evidence that low turnout in EP elec-tions is partially a domestic vote, depending on the electoral cycle, alsoin Central and Eastern Europe. Contributions highlight the importanceof information and the small case study strengthens Franklin’s findings(2007), CEE countries are not very different from Western establishedmember states. Nonetheless, the quality of information does not seemto fill the current ‘Eurogap’, but positive conclusions can be drawn inthe long term, as young Europeans are interested in engaging with theEU political process.

Talking and informing: whether exposureto news makes citizens informed

The debate on the competency of the voter is based on the fact that theaverage citizen can make choices on simple and factual options. ‘Newsmatters’ or so it was in the 2000 Danish referendum on the adoption ofthe common currency (de Vreese and Semetko, 2004). The analysis anddistinction of a ‘direct and personal campaign’ and ‘indirect and medi-ated campaign’ (2004, p. 705) can affect Polish attitudes to the EU withdifferent degrees of influence. The former, considering political engage-ment with family and friends, can assume in Poland an important factorcompared to the latter, although, as Claes de Vreese and Holli Semetkounderline, ‘exposure to news coverage may increase the level of aware-ness and knowledge’, where exposure, as subsequently underlined inthis section, to TV news is higher in Poland than the EU average. There-fore, if information increases knowledge, simultaneously knowledge canproduce further information within a ‘direct and personal campaign’.That can be salient in the Polish case, where trust is deeper among familynetworks, and can create a virtuous circle.

In addition, another important aspect, that has to be considered in thePolish case, is the relationship between citizens and journalists that canfurther benefit or halt the process of societal integration. In April 2002,40 per cent of Polish people evaluated the work of journalists as a ‘publicservice’. This idea was shared by those asserting they were interested in‘politics and active participation in election’ (60 per cent) and those whogenerally took part in the elections. In describing journalists’ behaviourin the profession, 69 per cent of respondents answered that journalistswere ‘inquisitive’, 65 per cent ‘unscrupulous in dealing with people’s


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private affairs’, but still 62 per cent and 60 per cent thought they were‘honest’ and ‘knowledgeable’. Nevertheless 42 per cent of respondentsasserted they were led ‘by their political likes’, whereas in their opiniona good journalist should be most importantly ‘impartial’ and ‘objective’(62 per cent). Further, 36 per cent raised the issue of ‘immunity to pres-sure and corruption’ and 27 per cent ‘courage to raise risky subjects’(CBOS, 2002, 04/2002). As a consequence, Polish citizens seem to havea more positive attitude towards journalists when they are politicallyactive.

In the EU25 Poland is one of the countries where most of the cit-izens mainly use television as source of information (Roguska andStrzeszewski, 2002, p. 72). Both at the question on the sources‘used’ (76 per cent) to obtain information and the one on the ‘pre-ferred’ (65 per cent) sources of information, television registers higherpercentages compared to the EU average (EU25 = 71 per cent and 58per cent) (EB 62, 2005, pp. 51–57); and 75 per cent (EU25 = 70 per cent)responded television as the ‘used’ source of information in the EB 63.4(2005, p. 81). The second most ‘used’ source of information on the EUin Poland is the radio, 42 per cent in October–November 2004 and still41 per cent in May–June 2005 (the EU 25 average is 32 per cent).

Interestingly, in 2004, the year of accession and the EP election,although 43 per cent of respondents answered that Polish media talkedabout the EU ‘about the right amount’, 45 per cent asserted ‘too little’and only 8 per cent ‘too much’. The great amount of information thatwas spread in Poland at the moment of accession did not result in asaturation of information – De Vreese and Semetko refer to ‘saturationof information’ towards public opinion by ‘elite-driven YES bias’ duringthe Danish referendum (2004, pp. 706–707) – or an unpleasant and pos-sible consequent feeling of rejection. On the contrary, the majority ofPolish people felt that the media did not provide sufficient information,as Chapter 2 has already underlined.

In the Polish case, the most used and most preferred sources of infor-mation are television and radio; although the GDP per capita has grownduring the process of democratization, newspapers have become a lux-ury, and the new media challenge them as main source of information(Horolets, 2003). Discussions with friends and colleagues are not soimportant: only 19 per cent answered that it was a used source ofinformation in the Autumn 2004, excluding the possibility of a salientvirtuous cycle of knowledge and information through family networks.It is realistic to assert that in Poland information can reach peoplemainly through television and radio.


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Most useful sources of information

In the run-up to the accession referendum, detailed brochures or leafletswere used as sources of information on the EU (21 per cent), butgenerally, according to the EB polls, they were not among the favourite(13 per cent); although leaflets and posters were particularly importantbefore the referendum, 40 per cent found them useful according to thedata reported by the Institute of Public Affairs (Ciezka, 2005, p. 169).

The main organization interacting in the campaign was the UKIE:after the referendum campaign, most of the respondents in the ISP sur-vey asserted they came across their campaign, finding it useful. The civic‘Initiative Yes for the Referendum’ is also one of the most cited organi-zations (Ciezka, 2005, pp. 172–173) and, as underlined in Chapter 4,these organizations, linking the government and civil society, involvingrepresentatives of the Ministries and the UKIE itself for meetings andseminars resulted as the most successful.

A particular programme for the information of civil society (ProgramInformowania Społeczenstwa) has acted all across Poland, while RegionalCentres for European Information (Regionalnye Centra Informacji Europe-jskiej) were also present in the different regions. It was probably thiswell-organized and capillary information, which was successful in thereferendum, that would have helped a more numerous participation inthe following year EP election. Fałkowski underlines that it is importantfor the future that ‘both the media and the government’ should work to‘fill the gap’ and help the potential of these organizations linking societyto government and institutional elites (2005, pp. 102–104).

In addition, it has to be noted that it is easier to communicate the mes-sage of integration during the referendum campaign than any type ofissues in the campaign for the election of deputies at the European Par-liament. The moment of accession could be interpreted as the final goalof the transition and transformation process, but ‘remote governance isextremely difficult to be communicated’ (Wallace, 2006). Therefore, itwas difficult to explain who had to vote for the Parliament in a partic-ular negative political domestic situation. There was no well-organizedcampaign as for the accession referendum, and that resulted in very lowturnout.

The comparative analysis by de Vreese et al. (2006) on the EP elec-tion campaigns in 25 member states was carried out on three nationalnewspapers and two television news two weeks before the elections. Forthe case of Poland, it would have been important to focus on the radioprogrammes – despite such a comparative analysis had to choose among


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the average most used sources of information – and still provides use-ful insights for this research. Among the new member states, Polandwas among those having ‘less visibility’ for EU news on television (onlyLatvia and the Czech Republic had less televised news) and was fifthafter Malta, Cyprus, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in the newspapers(2006, pp. 489–490).

Further, on the section regarding whether the debates were mainlycontested by EU or national domestic actors, Poland and the other newmember states reflected the trend of the old member states. Althoughthe EU representatives had increased their visibility in comparison withthe 1999 EP election, still domestic politicians were predominant in thePolish case, as in the other member states. It is not good news for thePolish case that newspapers registered more presence of EU actors: aspreviously seen, it is television that is the most used source of informa-tion, with few newspaper readers. Articles registered a slight negativetone in Poland, however, and, as it was possible to expect, generally‘tabloid press was the most negative’ (de Vreese et al., 2006, p. 499).Still, interestingly negative tones of information on the EU did not neg-atively impact on the levels of public support in Poland; however, it isinteresting to examine whether a possible correlation of visibility of EUnews on television and levels of interest (and possibly turnout in EPelections) and support for the EU exists.

Only one previous study of the Institute of Public Affairs focuses onPolish citizens’ interest towards information on EU accession (Roguskaand Strzeszewski, 2002). In 2001, 10 per cent of respondents declaredthat they were interested in integration, while people gave generallymore importance to the process of accession. About 75 per cent thoughtthey did not have sufficient information on Polish integration to the EU(30 per cent ‘definitely’, and 45 per cent ‘rather’), 17 per cent respondedthey had a ‘rather sufficient’ information, only 2 per cent felt ‘definitelyinformed’ (2002, pp. 5–12). The more they were interested, the betterinformed they perceived to be (49 per cent), while the less interested,the lesser informed (53 per cent). Still, a consistent category of thosefeeling ‘weakly informed’ is common to both those ‘very interested’(47 per cent) and among those feeling ‘not at all interested’ (56 percent) (2002, p. 29). That seems to be in line with previous findings: Polesare generally interested, and when interested they are more politicallyactive, and look for further information. Yet, there are still importantpercentages that do not feel confident in their own level of informa-tion, and that is important in view of further elections and referendums,and in the process of societal integration taking place in the first years


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after accession. Further, as illustrated on the surveys taken towards the‘almost’ scheduled Constitutional Treaty in 2005, those who feel moresupportive towards the EU and informed can react negatively in casethey feel they do not have enough information to take a decision on anEU issue.

Finally, there is no study that has been conducted after accession onwhat kind of information EU citizens are interested in or whether theyare really interested in receiving further information using focus groupsand talking directly to people. This analysis can answer the question onwhich sources of information citizens use.

Focus groups: composition and characteristics

The theme of the focus groups was on attitudes towards EU integration,and the role, and possible impact of information. While the overviewat the aggregate level and the quantitative analysis can provide theexplanations, focus groups can allow the researcher to listen to people’sconversation and understand the basis of their attitude, and further pro-vide an answer to this analysis’s question. Focus groups ‘originated inthe work of the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia Univer-sity in the 1940s’ (Bloor et al., 2001, p. 1), as a market research tool.Individual in-depth interviews were later adopted, as an alternative tothat. In contrast to in-depth interviews, in a focus group people are freeto express and interact. As a group they engage in the topic, and oftenreply to particular assessments, showing the reasons underlining groups’and individuals’ behaviours. After an overview at the aggregate level andthe quantitative analysis, focus groups can provide deep understandingand allow researchers to ‘triangulate’, trying to replicate previous find-ings. Triangulation, as defined by Bloor et al. (2001), requires contrastand the use of another method in order to corroborate findings thatresulted from the analysis with an alternative method. It can enrichthe research, and it gives the understandings to the missing gaps ofthe quantitative analysis – even though does not permit the rejectionof particular finding by using a method over another.

Clearly, as stressed by Bloor et al. (2001, p. 17), a focus group cannotbe representative. Therefore, it cannot represent the most useful researchmethod on attitudes, but it becomes the most appropriate as ancil-lary after an already applied mixed-method approach. In this researchboth the qualitative overview and quantitative analysis highlight themajor impact of the economic variable, while the information variablecan be studied with great difficulty using a quantitative strategy. As a


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consequence, focus groups are helpful in order to understand whetherin Poland the high levels of support before accession are still ‘qualita-tively’ the same after accession, whether ‘economy’ and ‘benefits’ play arole, while exploring whether information impacts on attitudes towardsthe EU.

A focus group can be composed of between 6 and 12 people; largergroups are better when participants have a low level of involvement,small groups when they know the topic or feel involved (Morgan, 1997).Focus groups provided a way to be more open to ‘subjectivity’ and inter-pretation. They allowed the researcher to structure and understand theprocess of listening and making sense of the words. Participants can fol-low the flow of their thoughts, guided in an ‘artificial’ conversation thatmight have never occurred in the ‘everyday life’.

This chapter reports the most salient passages, comparing and con-trasting four focus groups in two different sections. The aims of the focusgroups are gathering qualitative data, in addition, specifically (i) listen-ing to and learning from people, (ii) exploring your topic from thepeople’s conversation, (iii) obtaining in-depth knowledge, (iv) answer-ing to interpretive questions as ‘how and why’, and while researchingbehaviours and motivations, (v) it is possible to understand diversity(Morgan, 1997).

On further technical aspects regarding the questions to be presentedduring a focus group, this type of focus groups did not require open-ing questions, as all the participants already belonged to a community.In the first focus group, taken in Warsaw in a students’ accommodation,students lived together; in the second focus group, in Zielona Góra, theyattended the same class. The last two focus groups were again organizedat the University of Zielona Góra and at the University of Sofia, in Bul-garia. All the participants knew one another and that helped to shareopen comments.

The samples were selected just among students, as after accession theyrepresented the average supportive category. Before joining the EU, thepercentage of students willing to join the EU was much higher than thepercentage of farmers, and similar to the one of entrepreneurs. Yet afteraccession they represented the average citizen, slightly less supportivethan the Euroenthusiastic entrepreneurs, but still more supportive thanfarmers (UKIE, 2007, p. 106), in line with the average Polish citizen. Inaddition, the selection followed further two important characteristics inthe case of the first Polish focus groups: regions and religiosity.

History ‘is very much alive in the minds of the inhabitants’ of Centraland Eastern Europe (Tworzewski, 1996, p. 43). That has even a major


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impact in Poland, where the three partitions (1772, 1793, and 1795)affected different cultural and economic developments, and where laterthe German invasion and the Soviet regime led Poles to recognize in theCatholic faith the value symbolically defeating the foreign domination.These two factors can also play a role on attitudes towards EU inte-gration. Catholicism ‘protected’ Poland against the ‘other’ (Krzeminski,2001), and historically, and previously, the ‘others’ (Prussia, Austria,Russia) impacted on the Polish national character, forging differentareas within Poland and strengthening the role of religion later duringCommunism.

As a consequence, regions are likely to affect public attitudes for his-torical reasons, territorial characters, and future economic exchanges,and, at the aggregate level, religion, as previously seen, impacted onattitudes towards EU integration.

Table 5.1 illustrates how membership impacted on the relationshipbetween EU support and religious attitudes: opponents to EU integra-tion dropped, more steadily among devout believers, and supporters ofEU integration particularly increased among those regularly attendingthe mass (several times or once a week). The EU was bringing benefitsand if the pre-accession rhetoric on EU threats – such as secularization –to Polishness could be successful, also the most conservative Poles rec-ognized the material effects of integration in the short term. However,the selected focus groups shed light on different perspectives on the EUmembership, and the one carried out in Warsaw, with students living inreligious accommodation, could give evidence of more uncertainties ora growing enthusiasm after the accession concerns.

Table 5.1 Religion and the EU

Attitude towardsthe EU andattending the mass

1995(Yes/No)(%)

1997(Yes/No)(%)

2005(supp./oppos.)(%)

2006(supp./oppos.)(%)

Several times a week 55/33 57/18 57/18 76/12Once a week 59/29 71/13 76/15 79/11Several times a

month/ 76/10 77/14 80/12

Several times a year 69/21 75/12 80/14 79/11Never 77/18 78/10 64/15 86/9

Note: in 1995 and 1997 ‘Yes and No’ are the answers to the question ‘how would you votein case a referendum on accession is taken now’; in 2005 and 2006, it is the answer to thequestion on support or opposition to EU integration.Source: CBOS.


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The first group of students (12–14) met in March, and the focusgroup was carried out in April 2007. Participants were all Warsawuniversity graduate and postgraduate students from cities outside thecapital and the region of Mazowieckie. The number of students finallytaking part in the focus group was eight. The second focus groupwas conducted within a class of last year university students at theUniversity of Zielona Góra in October 2007, and the number of stu-dents was 10. In the first focus groups, the regions of proveniencepresented further important observations; one participant was fromZachoodniopomorskie, six from Lubuskie, and three from Dolnoslaskie.Lubelskie, Warmínsko-Mazurskie, and Podlaskie are, together withPodkarpacie and Swietokrzyskie, the regions that received further pro-visions within the Financial Framework for the 2007–2013 (Council,2005), as they were the poorest regions of the fifth enlargement. Further,half of the participants of the first focus group belonged to regions ofthat area in Eastern Poland. In addition, not only Poland can still showdifferent structural and economic developments in different areas of thecountry following the three partitions, also the Eastern part of Polandpresents different political behaviours and attitudes towards the EU.

In the 2007 October parliamentary elections, Podlaskie, Mazowieckie,Łodzkie, and Małopolskie presented different voting patterns from therest of Poland, where the eastern regions (with the exception of the greaturban centres) voted Law and Justice and the rest of Poland voted infavour of the liberal right Civic Platform (Gazeta Wyborcza, 2007, p. 9).The second focus group, chosen in the Western part of Poland, couldpartly bring possible differences to light.

Further two focus groups were held in Bulgaria and Poland on Friday,5 June 2009 – with a follow-up questionnaire – on both citizens’ inter-est towards the EU institutions and on the role of information. Again,the analysis selected participants from Zielona Góra, in Lubuskie, at theborder with Germany in the Western part of Poland; and from Sofia,the capital, in the Bulgarian case. As the most pro-European individu-als are, among the others, young, highly educated (Hix, 2005, p. 166)from the urban centres or regions economically favoured by EU inte-gration (Gabel, 1998a), this research design expected more engaged andinterested citizens, particularly in 2009. Findings on a low level of inter-est and information could point to further gloomy expectations for thepost-Communist area.

Participants’ contributions, in 2007 and 2009, highlight the impor-tance of information, while the Eurobarometer surveys (Special EB 299and 303) carried out in 2008 and 2009 still point to a lack of informationperceived by the EU citizens prior to the 2009 EP elections.


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Focus groups and the EU

All the groups opened with the general idea on the EU in order to intro-duce the topic, and to know how the EU affected their lives, in particularin 2007, on whether something changed before and after accession.The first questions gave completely different perceptions of the EU inthe first two focus groups. While speaking of how they see the EU andwhat the EU means for them, the first focus group mainly spoke aboutchances and values, ‘Poland is now part of a cultural union’, and anotherstudent added the EU represented the ‘chance to know other cultures,and also to receive economic support’. Listening to them they oftenrepeated the word ‘chance’, while ranking the way they referred to theEU, the EU was firstly ‘economy’; and secondly ‘culture’, while therewere very few comments on the political dimension.

On the contrary the focus group in Zielona Góra was very prag-matic, the EU meant ‘concrete things, it affect[ed] life in a concreteway, money, travelling abroad, concrete things’. Differently from thefirst group, no one spoke of chances or culture, the EU seemed to havebrought concrete changes in their lives, and the word ‘concrete’ waspronounced with emphasis. The results can substantiate the reasonsof support. While the first focus group seems to be close to a form of‘unconditional support’ (as defined by this thesis) with an idea linkedto normatively positive values, the second focus group recognized thepositive material benefits of accession (the most significant variable inprospective in the statistical analysis).

As seen, before joining the EU citizens of Central and Eastern Europeagreed that the reasons why the EU had a positive image were due to‘economic improvements’ (14 per cent) (CEEB 6, 1996, pp. 52–54), butalso ‘[U]nspecified positive statements based on emotions or generalimage perceptions – General positive’ (CCEB 2001, 2002, p. 41). Citi-zens of Central and Eastern Europe have a general positive image, andtogether with the idea that benefits were going to be materialized, allthese factors structured citizens’ attitudes towards the EU. The focusgroups presented the two positive attitudes: the emphasis in the firstfocus group was on chances and values – general positive – in the secondon concrete things – economically positive.

When the topic moved to how things changed from before to afteraccession, the first focus group was very lively, ‘[b]asic things havechanged, particularly structural things, which we can see also as univer-sity students’, for instance at the university and the students’ library, inWarsaw. Attitudes in the second focus group were completely different,as they did not find the question particularly engaging. They moved


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towards identity issues and underlined they felt different from Frenchand German citizens, and stressed they mainly identify as Polish morethan Europeans. Their attitudes were similar to the trends indicatedin the surveys, reflecting the government relationship with Germany –that gathered the most negative evaluations among all the other 26 EUmember states, 48 per cent, in July 2007 (CBOS, 2007, BS/120/2007).

Asking about how their attitudes towards the EU changed before andafter accession, students showed similar results for the first time. Sevenparticipants were positive towards accession (four definitely positive)before joining the EU in Warsaw, all the participants were positive (fourdefinitely positive) in Zielona Góra (Tables 5.2 and 5.3).

After accession they were all positive, but ‘rather’ positive; noneanswered ‘definitely positive’ in Zielona Góra, only two in Warsaw. Thatcan be due to the high expectations that citizens had from the EU, orthe fact that the focus groups were taken after accession, and studentswere remembering the past. Recollection feelings can be often idealized,and as such their answers could be altered by the process of recollectingtheir attitudes towards the EU (Tables 5.4 and 5.5).

More interestingly the main difference is in one ‘definitely negative’attitude in the first group before accession. The Eastern part of Poland is

Table 5.2 FG1 attitudes towards the EU before accession

Definitely positive Ratherpositive

Rathernegative

Definitelynegative

Difficultto say

4 3 / 1 /

Table 5.3 FG2 attitudes towards the EU before accession


Rathernegative

Definitelynegative

Difficultto say

4 6 / / /

Table 5.4 FG1 attitudes towards the EU after accession


Rathernegative

Definitelynegative

Difficultto say

2 6 / / /


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Table 5.5 FG2 attitudes towards the EU after accession


Rathernegative

Definitelynegative

Difficultto say

/ 10 / / /

more rural and Eurosceptic and extreme conservative parties were moresuccessful since 2001. The rhetoric against accession was much moresalient before 2004, and it was particularly successful in that area withinspecific groups. In Western Poland, all participants of the focus groupwere positive before accession. This is not surprising nor is the possi-bility that a negative attitude could emerge among respondents fromthe eastern regions, belonging to the ‘devout believers’ category. As thesecond focus group was particularly eager to show that they were notas positive as before accession, the moderator asked the reason for theirattitude. Firstly, they identified with their own country, and then sec-ondly and less (much less, from the way that was expressed throughsight and body language) with the EU, which was perceived as remotefrom citizens, compounding the themes previously presented.

Focus groups and information on the EU

The debate turned to discuss sources of information. Before accession,a certain lack of information could be expected, whereas an increasedamount of information before the accession referendum and after theentry into the EU should have changed citizens’ perceptions.

In 2007, in Warsaw students asserted they had to study about the EU‘at school’, although they stressed they could trust neither newspapersas there is ‘manipulation’, nor politicians, referred to as ‘demagogues’(Tables 5.6 and 5.7).

During both the discussions, students were very critical towards theinformation they received. Students of the University of Zielona Góraseemed to underline that there were more information programmes

Table 5.6 FG1 self-perceived assessment of level of information

Definitely wellinformed

Rather wellinformed

Rather illinformed

Definitely illinformed

Difficultto say

2 2 3 / 1


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Table 5.7 FG2 self-perceived assessment of level of information

Definitely wellinformed

Rather wellinformed

Rather illinformed

Definitely illinformed

Difficultto say

/ / 10 / /

before accession than currently. The result from the second focus groupmainly dealt with general sources of information and commercial tele-vision programmes: they still provided information on the EU, butwithout information on the ‘structure’ of the EU, as they often repeated.The main difference, as always, between the two groups was that in thefirst group there were doubts and concerns, while in the second groupthey looked rather firm in their assertions.

Information was defined as ‘black and white’, while they would haveliked to receive a broader range of information. In Zielona Góra, stu-dents spoke about the official sources of information, of the programmePHARE, the Centres of European Information, and civic initiatives. How-ever, one student stressed that they did not receive any information onthe role of the institutions. Regarding the different turnout between theaccession referendum in June 2003 and the EP election in June 2004one student asserted that ‘people would have voted (yes) anyway for theaccession referendum, they did not need information, it is different forthe European Parliament election’. That supports this book’s assumptionand findings; the EU has a mobilizing strength, here defined, ‘uncondi-tional support’. Citizens in CEE view the EU in both its affective andutilitarian dimensions, even prior to EU membership. Information maynot be as determinant before joining the EU, but a capillary and sus-tained information on the EU, by actors involved within the EU process,would strengthen also the process of EU integration itself.

In the two focus groups carried out on Friday, 5 June 2009, in Sofia,Bulgaria, and Zielona Góra, Poland, two days before the 2009 EP elec-tions, information and knowledge were lively debated with similartones. In Bulgaria, a participant stressed that since accession the EU hadbecome a very ‘popular topic’, but ‘no one knows about the EU, . . . Whatdoes the European Parliament do? What does the European Commissiondo? Do you elect them? . . .’. In Poland, students agreed that ‘knowledgeon the EU increased . . . but . . . if someone liked to establish his/her ownbusiness, he/she would be interested in more information in the future’.

In both focus groups participants detected a ‘lack of usefulinformation’. ‘Most people use local sources’ that do not provide much


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information on the EU, a participant asserted in Sofia, ‘What is thecurrent agenda of the European Parliament? What does the EuropeanCommission discuss?’. To what extent ‘does the EU affect us?’, anotherparticipant added.

In 2008 the Eurobarometer found that 60 per cent of those respondingthey were not going to vote in the EU27 asserted ‘they (did) not knowenough about the European Parliament’s role’ (EB 69.2, 2009). Never-theless, sources of information may not help citizens from the ‘new’Europe; in Bulgaria newspapers ‘just talk of scandals, specialist’ maga-zines ‘are too expensive for the ordinary citizens . . . if you need to buythree or four papers, then it’s too expensive’. In Poland students can relyon newspapers, but ‘some . . . are not objective’. Television is less credi-ble both in Poland and Bulgaria, particularly in the latter case, as ‘theTV supports the party in power’.

In 2007, in the focus group in Warsaw, sources of information, includ-ing newspapers and political parties, seemed to be important. Althoughstudents mistrusted them, they still talked about the EU or issues aroundthe EU using the words written in the newspapers of the day, as was clearon the question about the Constitutional Treaty, deeply debated in thenewspapers at the time. The students all knew the Treaty, and manyof them read it, but they showed their opposition. Asking whether andhow they would have voted in case of a referendum in Warsaw six stu-dents answered they would have ‘definitely’ gone to vote, two answered‘rather’. On the question on how they would have voted there was amixed feeling of happiness and satisfaction when six students almostshouted ‘against’, while two said that they ‘did not know’.

Similarly, in Zielona Góra, four students would have ‘definitely’ voted,further four answered ‘rather’, but one answered ‘rather no’ and onereplied that it was ‘difficult to say’. On the question on how they wouldhave voted, the outcome was similar, but less negative compared to thefirst focus group: two would have voted ‘against’, six responded it was‘difficult to say’.

In Warsaw students looked to be anxious to make it clear they wantedto vote against – referring to the long and difficult text, religious roots inthe preamble, and voting system in the Council. This is in line with pre-vious findings on those who were not likely to be in favour towards theTreaty. CBOS found that those who were usually more positive towardsthe EU were also among those more sceptical towards the Constitu-tional Treaty (see Chapter 3). That can be due to the fact that theydid not feel well or enough informed, but also, as it is more likelyin this case, because they read it, and found it difficult to read and


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understand (Guerra, 2007, p. 125). That gives further clear indications.As for the question on their attitude before accession, in the Eastern partof Poland students were more ‘definitely’ negative towards the Con-stitutional Treaty. Students from the Western part of Poland were notpositive, but they debated that concerns could not necessarily lead to anegative attitude, although the two outcomes were similar.

In 2007, during both the discussions, students were very criticaltowards the information they received, criticism that was repeated againin 2009, while politicians do not receive better feedback. Before the 2009EP elections, none of the participants in the focus groups in Polandasserted they trusted politicians. In Bulgaria, participants stressed that‘actually, our politicians don’t say anything useful for us’. Also, ‘whywe don’t believe in our politicians, . . . because they talk about the EUas the EU is perfect (with emphasis), . . . it’s ideal, it’s something with-out problems, with no discussions, no debatable questions’. In Poland,‘better don’t trust politicians, MPs are not competent . . . Ministers avoiddetailed answers’.

Distrust is not a new phenomenon, as seen in Chapter 4. Yet, unsur-prisingly, when voting in the 2009 EP elections, candidates were trusted,when voters personally knew them; in Bulgaria one participant addedthat he ‘never looked at the programme . . . I will vote the party, butbecause I know about the people’. The two focus groups gathered eightparticipants; 15 voted in the EP elections. In a follow-up questionnaire,the participant who did not vote wrote he ‘went to the voting stationthree times during the day’, but there was a long queue and he left with-out voting. Among those who voted, three decided their vote a longtime before or two months prior to the election, most of them betweentwo weeks and a few days before, one ‘the very same day of the election’,and one at the ‘last minute’.

Websites were generally considered helpful. In Bulgaria a participantunderlined that ‘websites (i.e.: http://euobserver.com; www.europarl.eu.int; http://europarltv.europa.eu/StartPage.aspx; www.euronews.net;http://edition.cnn.com/EUROPE) (provided) (me) with a great range ofinformation on various topics . . . so I (used) them selectively . . . practicalimplications and meanings of the policies and disputes (were) rarelyexplained on mass media, local TV programmes . . .’. Another Bulgarianstudent added that he used ‘those sites (i.e.: www.dnes.bg, www.focus-news.net) . . . because they (were) most interesting for me and (I think)they (provided) detailed and unbiased information’. Internet is defi-nitely the most accessed and helpful source of information during theelectoral campaign for young citizens, as it generally results in the


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Eurobarometer surveys; ‘I prefer mostly internet and use it most. I pre-fer the websites: dnes.bg; news.bg, and the international news agencies.I also use euobserver.com and le monde diplomatique . . . the informa-tion on the websites is specialized and it is also dynamic, it changesevery minute or hour’. In Poland a website, www.latarnikwyborczy.pl,was opened for the election and a participant stressed he ‘found outmore about candidates . . . read the programmes’.

Finally, as prior to the elections, participants stressed that knowingthe candidate, more than the party, could make the difference. Aftervoting, 14 out of 16 participants in the focus groups voted for the candi-date: ‘I supported a good candidate and great ideas’ (in Poland); ‘becauseI know the candidate myself and I trust him and the party’ (in Bulgaria).General comments on domestic political characters were usually quitenegative. It clearly emerged in Bulgaria, as the national political electionwas quite close (July 2009). A participant reported that ‘the governingparty failed to do its job with its candidates, so . . . we need to change thepeople representing us in the European Parliament’, another underlinedthat he ‘considered the election for the European Parliament as the firstround of the election battle in . . . 2009’.

The 2009 Polish and Bulgarian EP elections were debated at thedomestic level, similarly to 2004 and 2007, when the election saliencearose from its domestic significance (as seen in Chapter 4; see, Stefanova,2008). Both Poland and Bulgaria viewed an increase in the levels ofturnout; in the short term, although in the case of Bulgaria, Europe hasnot yet acquired a debate of its own; as a participant in a focus groupasserted, ‘no one knows’ about the EU, and corruption can represent asalient theme also in the next legislature.

Information matters, and support on its own is not sufficient togive legitimacy to further processes of EU integration. The EU had astrong mobilizing force before accession, and voting in the accessionreferendum may not require the same amount of information as in par-liamentary elections or further referendums. As one participant stressedpeople would have voted (Yes) ‘anyway’ in the accession referendum.In Central and Eastern Europe people could not know the impact ofthe EU, but they overwhelmingly supported the EU for better futureperspectives, as emerged in the Central and Eastern Eurobarometer andCandidate Countries Eurobarometer surveys. It was not the same for the2004 EP election, and people had much less information compared tothe time period in the run-up to accession. The EU represented chancesfor some citizens – as such students, entrepreneurs, and farmers –and particularly benefits, generally for families – farmers and workers.


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Different regions of Poland can qualitatively differ in their attitudetowards the EU, but they all support EU integration, as surveys show.

EU integration brought benefits. In 2007 both the groups talked aboutbenefits from accession; ‘travelling’ was the first cited benefit. Benefitsseemed to refer also at the family level, and while reminding the ben-efits, they underlined the costs as well. ‘. . . [g]enerally we can considerthe benefits, yes, there were costs, as the increase in price growths’ –and price growths represented a sensitive issue in the run-up to acces-sion. However, students commented that they felt ‘safer as consumers,for the standardization to the EU norms’, and benefits significantlyoutnumbered costs.

In Zielona Góra, the geographical location of the region impacted onthe perceived benefits, as they talked about ‘exports’, and the generalbenefits ‘for farmers, for some workers’, and generally for Poland, ‘youcan now legally work abroad’. Overall, the second group in 2007 showedof being more pragmatic; they looked at the EU as a political idea, andas a consequence a political organization. Less sensitive to feelings orrhetoric, they underlined the concrete facts. However, support did notlead to a ‘Yes’ on the Constitution either in Eastern or Western Poland,and is not likely to be sufficient in order to attain higher turnout in EPelections.

Conclusions

Focus groups brought evidence that they can be an important ancillaryresearch method in a mixed method approach. They were implementedto provide some understanding to missed gaps of the quantitative analy-sis and explore the role of information, but finally they gave more lightto the results of all the analysis, and added more significance to themeaning of the EU, of EU accession, and reasons for low turnout inCentral and Eastern Europe.

It is clear that more extensive work has to be generally carried outon sources of information. As before accession support has an emo-tional basis, but this time, differently from 1999 (Kucia, 1999, p. 151)citizens experienced membership, and knew the benefits and costs.That led them to more definitive assertions, when they felt confident –on changes, on accession – nevertheless they still showed doubts andconcerns – on EU issues, as the European Parliament, and the Constitu-tional Treaty.

In addition, in the particular case of the focus group in Warsaw in2007, there might have been an important effect from the religious


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factor, area of residence, and a salient current campaign – in the media –on the government position towards the Constitutional Treaty and thechanges. Not only had the issue of the Christian roots resurfaced, butafter Berlin, newspapers commented on the suggested Polish alternativeformula on the voting system in the Council.

Comparing the results of these focus groups with the findings of pre-vious research undergone before accession (Kucia, 1999), it seems thatcitizens still need concrete information. That is necessary in view of fur-ther EP elections, but also to give momentum to the process of societalintegration. Notwithstanding focus groups cannot be representative ofall the country, together with the previous types of analysis they allowto close on final conclusions, which are important both for Poland, theother new EU member states, and the current candidate countries.

The quality of support towards EU integration is not the same across asingle country; people have different expectations, but in former Com-munist countries people’s main perception is that membership meansdelivering benefits, and better perspectives. In addition, it is importantthat information reaches people through the official sources of informa-tion, as the high level of mistrust towards political parties and part of thepress cannot respond to citizens’ need for information. In all the formerCommunist new member states surveys show distrust towards politicsand politicians. That is likely to impact on an already fragile relationshipbetween citizens and politics, and bring enduring legacies on politicalculture. In addition, it does not allow expanding any communicationbetween citizens and politics.

With the odd exception, the quality of media coverage of the EUin new member states is abysmal. There are few stories and manyhave glaring mistakes in them – but no one seems to care. Editorsseem to hate the subject. They will tell you that it’s ‘boring’ and‘technical.’. . . It may be an extreme example, but the ‘no’ popularreferendum votes in France and the Netherlands in 2005 over theEU constitution and the political near-meltdown that followed themwere in part products of a simple fact: the press and those who readit have no idea about the EU.

(Szlanko, 2008)

The information gap is going to be filled through European Councilsand meetings, as suggested (Szlanko, 2008), but official sources of infor-mation, more than domestic political elites, and civic initiatives arelikely to play a fundamental role between the average citizen and the


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EU. Accession referendums could not represent an impossible obstacle,both for the amount of information generally provided and the mobiliz-ing force of the referendum itself. On the contrary, further elections andreferendums should be accompanied by ‘basic’ information on the EUand its agenda in order to avoid an uninterested and rejective attitudealso among those citizens that are usually supportive of EU integration.


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6Euroscepticism and the NextEnlargements

This chapter draws upon the findings of the previous chapters of thisbook. In Chapters 2 and 3 the analysis stressed increasing levels ofEuroscepticism in the run-up to accession. Also, the comparative anal-ysis highlighted the parallel electoral success of populist parties. Here,the chapter presents a theme that the in-depth examination of thePolish case brought to light: after the opening of the negotiation pro-cess and the long period of waiting, it is easier for populist partiesto channel citizens’ dissatisfaction, particularly pointing to Euroscep-ticism, using it as external face of their empty ideological box – in their‘chameleonic’ nature (Taggart, 2000). It is likely that favourable institu-tional settings, high volatility rates, and the new politics – absorbed bythe CEE countries (Wisniowski, 2000) – together with a large agrariansector (as in Poland and Romania) and the success or failure of the eco-nomic transition (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2001) can favour the emergence ofthe accession populism, that type of populism rising specifically on theverge of accession and using Euroscepticism as its external face.

Populism emerges from the perception of extreme crisis, whether ornot this is real or only perceived is of no importance (Taggart, 2000, p. 4,2006), and it structures itself in opposition. For that reason EU accessionand Euroscepticism can represent an issue for populism. Particularly,political apathy, as studied in Chapter 4, represents a good soil for pop-ulist parties that can have an easy foot in the door in a not yet stableinstitutionalized party system, as the post-Communist case. Further, inChapter 5 the analysis argued that information matters and citizens ofthe new EU member states feel they cannot take ‘informed’ choices. Allthese three issues represent the basis of a debate on the alleged demo-cratic deficit of the EU (Schmitter, 2000). It is not surprising that allthe CEE states registered a decrease in the percentages of those having

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a positive image of the EU during the accession process. The socialcosts could be easily correlated to EU membership, whereas low levelsof information can increase distrust towards the European institutionsthat can be channelled towards electoral support for Eurosceptic pop-ulist parties. This chapter stresses this issue in the perspective of furtherenlargements, addressing their challenges.

Firstly, it presents what Euroscepticism is, and why Euroneutrals canbecome Eurosceptics after the opening of the negotiation process, ina candidate country. Secondly, it examines the strategic and ideolog-ical debate on Euroscepticism, and thirdly analyses how the religiousdebates radicalized in the Eurosceptic discourse in Poland and tests thesame case in a new member state, Croatia, in order to close on what nexttowards the next enlargements.

This analysis suggests that when social costs materialize, becauseof the implementation of the reforms, a shift among some Euroneu-trals into the Eurosceptic category takes place. In particular, in post-Communist countries, where levels of distrust of political institutionsare higher as a legacy of the Communist past (Chapter 4), political par-ties using Euroscepticism as their main electoral issue can emerge, asit happened in Poland. Before the 2003 accession referendums, AleksSzczerbiak and Paul Taggart (2004, p. 575) observed that the presenceof more Eurosceptic parties brought at the centre of the political arenamore contested debates and people’s preferences became more stronglydefined. Political parties can use Euroscepticism, channel disaffectionagainst an enemy (EU), and emerge as mobilizing force, as has hap-pened in Poland with SRP and the LPR between 2001 and 2005, butalso in Croatia with the Croatian Democratic Community (HrvatskaDemokratska Zajednica: HDZ) and Social Democratic Party of Croatia(Socijaldemokratska Partija Hrvatske: SDP) (Vujcic, 2005) in 2005.

Nonetheless, as seen in Chapter 3, low turnout at the referendum andincreasing levels of Euroscepticism are not likely to signal long-termpatterns of Euroscepticism. Although Poland registered low turnout(58.85 per cent) at the 2003 accession referendum, and passed a ref-erendum law, establishing ratification also for a turnout lower than50 per cent, holding it on two days, support for the EU has been steadilyhigh after joining the EU, with 83 per cent of Poles supporting the EUbetween January 2005 and January 2012 (CBOS, 2012). In Croatia, inJanuary 2012 turnout halted at 43.51 per cent, still valid after a Con-stitution amendment in 2010, but this book contends that low levelsof turnout at the accession referendums are likely to indicate a ‘phys-iological’ decrease, as examined in Chapter 2, and the weakness in


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Euroscepticism and the Next Enlargements 123

communicating the EU to citizens, with Euroscepticism rising when theprocess of EU integration is contested (Taggart and Szczerbiak, 2005).

Eurosceptic or Euroneutral? When?

At the end of the 1990s, a rich literature on Euroscepticism emerged, fol-lowing, in particular, the emergence of party-based Euroscepticism. PaulTaggart provides a definition as ‘encompassing’, expressing ‘the idea ofcontingent or qualified opposition, as well as incorporating outright andunqualified opposition to the process of European integration’ (1998,pp. 365–366). Later, the distinction between ‘hard’, ‘a principled oppo-sition to the EU and European integration’, and ‘soft’ Euroscepticism,when ‘there is not a principled objection to European integration orEU membership’ (Taggart and Szczerbiak, 2002, p. 7) addressed also thedifficulty of measuring the concept, as parties may use Euroscepticismas a combination of both electoral strategic and coalition tactical fac-tors. Broad underlying ideological positions can affect political parties,and soft Euroscepticism can be found among radical right-wing partiesbefore joining the EU, when the loss of national cultural identity andthreat of sovereignty are successful electoral issues.

This analysis shares Aleks Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart’s view (2002)that different causal mechanisms can impact on the emergence of con-troversial tactical opposition to the EU. Party-based Euroscepticism doesnot necessarily translate into public Euroscepticism, and there maynot be any relationship between Eurosceptic or Euroenthusiast votinginto Eurosceptic and Euroenthusiast political parties at national elec-tions, as the case study of Poland illustrates. Poland, in fact, presentedan interesting case of mismatch between public attitudes and politi-cal elites towards the EU. That can be linked to the salience of theEU issue; the European integration project has developed as an ‘incre-mental’ and ‘unspectacular’ process and the EU is debated when thereare more opportunities (Taggart and Szczerbiak, 2005), as in the run-upto accession or referendums. Also, it should not be surprising that EUmembership is much debated before accession and is likely to become‘dynamic and prone to more rapid change’ issue in post-Communistcountries. Party systems are still in flux (Henderson, 2001), but alsothe affective dimension of support towards EU membership is morevolatile.

Even if the distinction between hard and soft Euroscepticism is offeredas ideal type is explanatory in the interpretation of the turmoil of the2004 debates. In fact, the EU was introducing the Euro, was going


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to enlarge and subsequently plan to reform its institutions and, inparticular, the budget and the CAP, fuelling national political debates.

Therefore, Euroscepticism can be explained through an analysis ofdomestic contexts, relations between public opinion and political elitesand interest groups, media coverage, relationships of the governmentand the EU (see Leconte, 2010). Euroscepticism becomes salient in theparty systems of candidate countries, particularly nearing accession,where peripheral parties can use it to gain political advantages. Thatshould be borne in mind in the perspectives of further enlargementin countries undertaking nation-building process and multiple transi-tions, where social costs and dissatisfaction can be easily correlated tothe process of integration. In addition, the increasing use of the ‘referen-dum’ makes Euroscepticism ‘more significant’ (Taggart and Szczerbiak,2005, p. 12). Finally, recent results in analyses on Euroscepticism (seeSerricchio et al., 2013) have found that the current economic crisis is notaffecting levels of support for European integration, but national iden-tity and political institutions are likely to be more significant – althoughthis analysis would suggest, in line with their findings, that benefits arestill an important variable in the post-Communist region.

Thus, through a broad comparative study in the 15 member states andthe 10 candidate countries before the 2004 enlargement (Taggart andSzczerbiak, 2002), it is possible to map out Euroscepticism in Europe.The phenomenon was more diffuse in the former candidate countries,explained as a consequence of the recent reacquired sovereignty, for theformer Communist member states (Taggart and Szczerbiak, 2002), andas the result of the asymmetrical process in the accession negotiations(Grabbe, 1999; Harmsen and Spiering, 2004, p. 26). Party-level Euroscep-ticism was more successful in CEE countries than in the 15 EU memberstates, where hard Euroscepticism was found only in Denmark, France,and Sweden. Moreover in the member states Eurosceptic parties werespread on the left–right wing, while in the candidate states they weremainly on the right (Taggart and Szczerbiak, 2002). Results from previ-ous analyses and the empirical research in Chapters 2 and 3 lead to thefollowing findings:

(i) Euroscepticism spreads when the process of European integrationis on the verge of being realized, both in member states – in par-ticular among net-contributors, those bordering with candidate states,politically concerned – and accession countries (time);

(ii) Hard Euroscepticism is a principled opposition and is less diffusethan soft Euroscepticism, as opposition to one or more policies or


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because against the national interest, but both are present in memberand candidate states;

(iii) A correlation with the state-building process can be detected acrossthe winning formula of Euroscepticism and right-wing parties in thecandidate countries before 2004, and can offer further empirical evi-dence with the next enlargements towards the Western Balkans;

(iv) Institutional settings can impact the political culture of party sys-tems, giving less strength to the government-opposition axis, butdeveloping on a more strategic and tactical dimension;

(v) After 2004, in the new member states a shift on the, general, alreadylow salience of the European issue towards a less ‘Europeanized’ politicaldebate could be expected and realized;

(vi) More focused debates around the concepts of ‘sovereignty’, ‘iden-tity’, and ‘nation’, as used by the right-wing parties, may appear, due tothe presence of Eurosceptic right-wing parties, but may not be successfulin the long term – as the Polish case shows;

(vii) Finally, the political arena shapes the ways and the degrees ofEuroscepticism in party systems (domestic context).

This book contends that Euroscepticism is a phenomenon strictlylinked to the domestic dimension both with regards to party systemsand public opinion; ideology and strategy further help to define anddescribe its outcome and transformation across time. In its multidisci-plinary analysis the term embraces the process of European integration,and, in particular, of Europeanization (Harmsen and Spiering, 2004),widening the debate over party systems, public opinion, and civilsociety.

Findings from this empirical analysis suggest that in post-Communistcountries ‘a certain idea of Europe’ (as represented by the EU) existsbefore accession. However, it did not detect great interest across citizensin wanting to know more about the EU during the first stages of thepost-Communist transformation, in line with previous findings. Thisbook contends that this creates three main types of attitudes towardsEU membership that can be detected in the run-up to the 2003 acces-sion referendums: the first is in favour and seeks out more information(Euroenthusiast), the second is in favour but has little knowledge of theEU and is not interested in seeking it out (Euroneutral), and the thirdopposes EU membership in a future referendum (Eurosceptic), becauseof fears.


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When the social costs of post-Communist transformation started toimpact upon citizens’ lives, we can see a shift among some Euroneutralsinto the Eurosceptic category. In particular, in post-Communist coun-tries, where levels of distrust of political institutions are higher as alegacy of the Communist past, political parties using Euroscepticismas their main electoral issue can emerge, as happened in Poland (seede Lange and Guerra, 2009; FitzGibbon and Guerra, 2010). The gen-eral political attitude of citizens in these countries can be compared tothat of ‘cynics’, with a general negativism and ‘obsessive lack of trust’(Krouwel and Abts, 2007) so that ‘accession populism’ can emerge asmobilizing force. As a consequence, it can channel disaffection againstan enemy (EU), as has happened in Poland with SRP, but also in Croatiawith the Croatian Democratic Community and Social Democratic Partyof Croatia.

Accession populism and Euroscepticism:ideology or strategy?

The debate on whether Euroscepticism is ideology (Kopecky and Mudde,2002) or strategy (Szczerbiak and Taggart, 2002) seems to find an answerin Harmsen’s comment that Euroscepticism needs to be understoodin ‘relational’ terms, as ‘not to fixed boundaries or categories, but asparticular party positions adopted at particular junctures within the con-text of necessarily fluid situations’ (2010, p. 336). Eurosceptics show‘that “Brussels” and the elites that dominate Europe’ and their rule canbe considered as ‘unjust, in that they do not derive their sovereigntyfrom the people’ (FitzGibbon and Guerra, 2010, pp. 275–276). That canfurther become a successful issue for populist parties. As shown, theEurosceptic discourse can become a successful electoral and controver-sial issue and it can lead to the emergence of populist Eurosceptic parties,while also explaining the lack of electoral success at national elections(FitzGibbon and Guerra, 2010, p. 267).

Before accession, in comparative perspective, Bulgaria and Romaniawere exceptional in their shares of votes for Eurosceptic parties, as pre-sented by Taggart and Szczerbiak (2002). These two countries laggedbehind, and it was clear that they were likely to join in at a later stage.The EU still had a positive image (72–75 per cent), higher than the aver-age among the post-Communist candidate countries with percentagesclustered around 40–50 per cent. As accession was not close there was noEuroscepticism in Bulgaria, while in Romania there was only a share inthe votes for the soft Eurosceptic Great Romania Party (Partidul România


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Mare: PRM) (19.48 per cent in 2000). Bulgaria developed more Euroscep-tic and populist political leaders in the run-up to and just after accession,while Romania had a widespread agrarian community, favouring a moreEurosceptic and populist vote (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2001).

This research contends that populism and Euroscepticism can be suc-cessful electoral allies in the run-up to accession. In the Polish caseAndrzej Lepper, leader of SRP, increased his electoral success with thepace of the integration process. ‘Lepper [understood] provincial Polandlike no other politicians’ (Krok-Paszkowska, 2003, p. 126). When therelationship between Poland and the EU became more intense, becauseof the opening of the negotiation, and accession neared, Lepper reliedon his rhetoric. The idea that Poland was going to be sold by politicalelites and the concrete fear that foreigners would have bought Polishlands broadened his success. Most of the time he used ‘conspiracy theo-ries’, interpreting his people’s most perceived anxieties, and the fear ofthe foreign economic invasion.

Some activists take the conspiracy theory so far as to suggest thatthere is an international conspiracy to destroy the Polish nation, bothas a people and as a state.

(Krok-Paszkowska, 2003, p. 119)

As aforementioned, it is likely that favourable institutional settings atthe time, and high volatility rates, did represent an advantage for theelectoral success of Lepper’s party.

In 2004, Poland registered a very high electoral volatility, 34.6per cent, ranked third only after Lithuania and Latvia among the eightpost-Communist countries that joined the EU in May. The average inWestern countries (from 1994 to 2003) was 12 per cent, whereas inCEE it was 30.6 per cent. Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland were consid-ered ‘exceptionally high by any standard’ (Jungerstam-Mulders, 2006,pp. 15–16), and it was recognized that these countries were stabilizingtheir party system at a time when Western countries viewed decreasinglevels of party identification and increased volatility. That seemed tohappen also in Central and Eastern Europe, where ‘new politics’ wasoverlapping with this trend, but with countries that were stabilizingto levels of volatility similar to Western countries (with Italy and theNetherlands higher than 20 per cent, whereas the Czech Republic andSlovenia showed lower percentages with 19.5 and 20.7 per cent).

Poland, therefore, can represent an outlier, but also suggests a phe-nomenon that can emerge when some institutional settings are in place.


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Together with a large agrarian sector (as also in Romania), the ‘transmu-tation’ of the former Communist party (Ishiyama and Bozóki, 2001),and the success or failure of the economic transition (Mungiu-Pippidi,2001) can favour the emergence of the ‘accession populism’, that type ofpopulism rising specifically on the verge of accession, when the use ofEurosceptic political debates are strategically a successful electoral issue(FitzGibbon and Guerra, 2010). It structures itself in opposition and forthat reason Euroscepticism can represent an issue for populism.

During the transformation process, citizens – particularly some sharesof the population, usually considered as the ‘losers’ of the transition(Tang, 2000) – pay for the social costs of the democratic transition andtheir dissatisfaction can correlate with the costs and the integration pro-cess. Furthermore, as highlighted, in candidate countries Euroscepticparties were mainly on the right (Taggart and Szczerbiak, 2002). In somecountries, in fact, the threat from the EU against national sovereignty,after 40 years of Communist rule, could be easily structured withinEurosceptic political discourses, as SRP did. Soft Eurosceptic parties werecommon to all the candidate countries (only Bulgaria was an excep-tion), although also in the short term accession became an uncontesteddebate, and Euroscepticism, as resulted in Taggart and Szczerbiak’s study,spread as ‘soft’ Euroscepticism.

It is worth to note that Euroscepticism did not go hand in hand withpopulism: this analysis aims to highlight that in a particular temporalspace it is easier for populist parties to gain electoral success, if they useEuroscepticism as one of their main themes (FitzGibbon and Guerra,2010), strengthening its strategic dimension. That reflects the drop inthe levels of support for the EU in the late 1990s in most of the candidatecountries.

However, the Polish case demonstrates that this seems to be theconsequence of people’s perceptions due to the economic and politi-cal situations. As seen in Chapter 3, in the Polish case the mismatchbetween political parties and public opinion does not illustrate a per-fect correlation between levels of support and opposition to the EU andEurosceptic political parties. Their Euroscepticism can reflect citizens’dissatisfaction, but instead of raising people’s discontent, it simply chan-nels it and it is dependent on the domestic situation. When citizens’attitudes are positive towards the EU, it is less politically advantageousfor political parties to follow the Eurosceptic path, while they are morelikely to follow people’s stances on Europe. Polish discontent and con-cern towards accession were not uncommon, as seen in Chapter 2.Also, similar concerns emerge in the candidate countries of the WesternBalkans. In Croatia, more and more citizens are concerned with the


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impact of integration, at the economic and political levels. Nationalistissues can further easily rise in an area that is ethnically divided, whereEuroscepticism can be both strategic and ideological.

Also, this book points to the role that religion – as Chapter 2 andChapter 3 found religion represented an interesting and significantindependent factor – can play in the Eurosceptic discourse. That can cer-tainly be addressed both in the case of the Catholic Churches in Polandand Croatia, but, in perspective, also towards the Orthodox Churchesin the Balkans. The Polish Church has traditionally embodied the civ-ilizational identity of Poland, as it did in Croatia. In the Balkans, theOrthodox Churches are at the basis of national mythologies: ‘the churchis the cradle of the nation and the place in which political and reli-gious rulers should cooperate’ (Leustean, 2008, p. 431). The next twosections will first examine how the religious discourse radicalized inPoland; second these sections will provide an analysis on the case ofCroatia and draw its conclusions on the EU’s next enlargements.

Religion and Euroscepticism

As seen in the analysis of the religious variable, religion (Catholicism)did not represent a significant determinant of attitudes towards the EUprior to accession, as it could be expected (Nelsen et al., 2001). In Poland,in 2001, with the support of Father Rydzyk, the LPR deputies sat for thefirst time in the Polish parliament (Sejm) after a campaign based also andmainly on the Polish Christian Catholic identity and Euroscepticism(de Lange and Guerra, 2009). This section of the book examines therole of Catholicism on opposition to and support for EU integrationbefore accession in Poland in comparative perspective. Josè Casanova(2006) poignantly observed that joining the EU when the process ofsecularization is taking place provides a channel towards the politicaland social discourse to the Churches.

In an analysis of the position of the Church and the EU, Catholicismis favoured over Orthodoxy and Islam, as institutionally, it is centrallylocated in Europe, participates in its political life, and can influencepolicy changes (Byrnes and Katzenstein, 2006, p. 302). Traditionally,instead, Orthodoxy is more conservative and less liberal, and if otherreligious communities have a range of more conservative and liberalattitudes, the Orthodox Church ‘is distinguished from other large reli-gious organizations by the greater dominance of conservatives in itspower structure’ (Ramet, 2006, p. 148). In addition, Orthodoxy stressesthe centrality and overlapping of its Church with the nation, makingEuropeanization a challenge for the Eastern Orthodox Church.


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These observations are confirmed by an analysis of the relationshipof religious communities with the state, adopting an institutionalistapproach. Catholicism is sceptical towards the sovereign state, as thisthreatens the unity of the Roman Catholic Church. Consequently, itis also more willing to support transnational networks of cooperation.That is not the same in the case of the Orthodox Church, as it hassustained European unity, but in opposition to Western civilization(Philpott and Shah, 2006).

In order to investigate the role of the Church in the Eurosceptic polit-ical discourse in Poland, this analysis adopts a similar framework to theone selected by Carolyne Warner (2000) in her analysis on the CatholicChurch in Europe after the First World War: the Church can act as aninterest group that, in order to solidify its influence, can seek alliancesthrough political parties. In this specific study, that is examined usingEU accession as the turning point and exploring whether the Churchaims to use the political alliance to impact on the EU accession debate.

The LPR party used its Eurosceptic rhetoric and entered the socialand political discourse as a successful political actor from 2001 to2006 on the basis of its nationalist rhetoric and the perceived threatof secular Europe. The ultraconservative Church and Father TadeuszRydzyk supported the League, and were definitely fundamental for theLeague’s electoral success. The network led by Father Tadeusz Rydzyk,of the Redemptionist order, was established in 1991, and soon gath-ered 2–3 per cent of the overall Polish radio listeners; among them, ‘theelderly and those with minimal education’ (Balser and Foxman, 2006,p. 15). In these years, the All-Polish Youth (Młodziez Wszechpolska: MW),a young far-right group, trained a group of future young politicianswho later became members of the LPR (see also de Lange and Guerra,2009).

The analysis follows five main explanatory dimensions (as suggested,and readapted, by Warner 2000): (i) Channel; (ii) Time; (iii) Resources;(iv) Political space; and (v) Gap.

(i) Channel: Following a market model, a party can have ‘some good(product) the interest group wants’ (Warner, 2000, p. 33). It is possi-ble to expect exchanges between the political party (in the Polish case,the LPR) and the interest group (the Catholic interest group; in the Pol-ish case, Father Rydzyk). Support can end (as it happened between theLeague and Father Rydzyk), when the party no longer delivers whatthe group wants or simply when there is not any longer a conver-gence of strategies, as it would be costly for the interest group to go


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on supporting that party. Both the most conservative Catholic groupsacross the citizens and ultraconservative Catholics across organizationsgathered around Father Rydzyk and splinter parties joined the LPR. Theydid not belong to the traditional Church, but, as aforementioned, to anultraconservative and nationalist faction. The League was the channelat the political level of Rydzyk’s nationalism and opposition to secularEurope, until support moved towards Law and Justice, the main party ingovernment (2005–2007).

(ii) Time: Time was decisive. Poland did not view the emergence of aChristian Democratic party (Bale and Szczerbiak, 2006), when Catholi-cism represented the most important cleavage. The League’s rhetoriclinked with the extremist Catholic views of Radio Maryja, and despiteit remained a ‘niche party’, it still followed a successful pattern, alreadyfollowed by other Christian Democratic parties in Central and EasternEurope (Bale and Szczerbiak, 2006, p. 43). It represented a ‘subcultural’(Christian) party (Enyedi, 1996): in this dimension, it could deviate fromthe usual patterns followed by the pro-EU Christian Democratic partiesacross Western Europe. In particular, it gained electoral success in therun-up to and just after accession, when fears related to EU integrationwere perceived by some sectors of Polish society – such as pensioners,farmers, less educated, unskilled workers.

(iii) Resources: Time is connected with leaders and resources. The selec-tion of leaders is fundamental, as they provide the organization anddelivery of the agenda. In this case, Father Rydzyk selected the politicalleader and allocated resources (radio, newspaper, public channels) thatwere a fundamental factor in the electoral success of the party.

(iv) Political space: the Polish party system lacked a Catholic party.A Christian Democratic party could have emerged from the SolidarityElectoral Alliance, but it was such a diverse, ‘ideologically eclectic andheterogeneous’ electoral group, that it soon failed. Its closeness to theSolidarity movement involved an active position of the former Solidar-ity’s leaders and members and the party never achieved its objective‘of becoming a mass’. A quite homogenous Catholic electorate, as thePolish one, lacked a Catholic party. The League represented the mostconservative one and strongly opposed the EU.

(v) Gap: Poland was experiencing a triple transition, the political sys-tem was not yet stable and parties were not (and are not yet) fullyinstitutionalized. Poles feared the impact of EU membership, and thecosts of transitions became a political sensitive issue from 1999 to 2001.


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Catholicism and opposition to the EU could link together among thosevoters for whom ‘the question of Polish policy towards EU’ was impor-tant (de Lange and Guerra, 2009), as for the LPR that strongly opposedalso abortion, euthanasia, gay rights, and legalization of soft drugs. Thatoverlapped with Father Rydzyk’s discourse – and further explains theselection of the leader – and successfully fills an electoral gap.

Thus, although Catholicism has represented a strong factor impactingon EU support for the EU, it can become a source for EU opposition, ifpolitically represented or whether articulated in the rhetoric of impor-tant social leaders. Catholicism never becomes the fundamental elementof opposition and does not become the basic element for Euroscepti-cism, but depending on the time and the domestic context, Catholicismcan become a source of vocal opposition in the political and socialdebates before accession. In fact, the Church can select a party in orderto impact on the draft of the national Constitution, at the time of thedemocratic transition, and on policy choices at salient turning points ofthe domestic political process developments.

Catholicism represented and represents a core and basic feature in Pol-ish national identity. With the fall of Communism, the regime left a vac-uum that religion could fill, appealing to national identity. ‘[R]eligionshave always been used and abused for political ends’ (Ivekovic, 2002).Although the mainstream Church in Europe is pro-EU, ultraconserva-tive groups, as the ones around Radio Maryja in Poland, have gatheredaround their regained national sovereignty after the fall of Communism.The values flowing into their ideology belong to an ideological familythat usually also presents Euroscepticism.

This book contends that as Poland has shown that Catholicism canbecome a successful electoral issue for populist radical right parties (deLange and Guerra, 2009), the Orthodox Church can also present similarchallenges. Traditionally, it rejects changes and protects ‘its inward-looking sacralization of the nation’ (Ramet, 2006, p. 150), and the nextenlargements to the Balkans can be absorbed in the political debate byradical right-wing parties. As Diamanti and Ceccarini (2007) stressedin the Italian case, when the public debate becomes more contested,when ‘religious attitudes and political orientations combine, opinionsbecome more radical’. The debate, using media and available resources,as alternative associations, can fuel public debates, while supporting apolitical party can strategically provide the Church with an ally that caninfluence political and policy choices – and that is fundamental duringthe process of democratic stabilization.


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A possible peripheral fundamentalist Church can benefit with apossible political ally in the Serbian case, where the Church has an‘ambivalent attitude toward the EU’ (Perica, 2006, p. 177). The Ser-bian Orthodox Church, in fact, has always had a quite anti-Westernattitude with an outright rejection of the ‘strengthening of civil soci-ety’. Although the conservative Serbs have been supportive towards EUintegration – recognizing the historical opportunity of integration(Perica 2006, p. 199) – and the newly elected patriarch Irinej supportsthe process of European integration, the domestic political climate hastaken a more Eurosceptic turn. After the EU has recognized the inde-pendence of Kosovo, and after 22 out of 27 Member States did the same,Euroscepticism has been on the rise (Stojic, 2010) and ‘in times of crisisthe warrior church is likely to turn militant’ (Perica, 2006, p. 201), as hashappened in Poland. Therefore, there is political space in Serbia, whereradical right political positions can be consistent with an anti-Western‘warrior’ Church.

Moreover, the Church can politicize Europe in a Eurosceptic tone, butonly when it finds a beneficial consistent ally in a political party. Politi-cal parties are institutions ‘which reflect different interests and differentideologies at different times according to both internal processes andthe external context’ (Taggart, 1998, p. 367). A party that posits itselfat the fringes of the party system, as populist radical right parties, andprotects national identity, values, and sovereignty – threatened by EUintegration – can represent a reliable ally for ultraconservative branchesof the Church. It is worth noting that the EU leverage (Vachudova, 2008)constrains parties in government, as they lead the negotiation process.That can soften their Eurosceptic tones, and also social actors’ attitudes,when these are willing to support a mainstream party or a party in gov-ernment during the negotiation progress. However, when the Churchmeets populist radical right parties and the EU is perceived as a threatin the run-up to accession, the alliance between the two can be sup-ported by a convergence of common interests – as national identity andsovereignty. In this case, Euroscepticism can increase its salience and beused as a channel, stressing its strategic dimension.

Towards the next enlargements

Croatia, that joined the EU in July 2013, offers the most interest-ing comparison with Poland. Both are Catholic countries and showedsimilar patterns of attitudes towards EU membership with increasinglevels of Euroscepticism nearing EU integration (see Chapter 2). Roman


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Catholicism and the Roman Catholic Church have assumed differ-ent degrees of influence across the post-Communist region, with astronger influence in Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Croatia. In par-ticular, in Poland the Catholic Church promoted the ban on abortionbefore 1993, has strongly opposed contraceptives (David and Titkow,1994), and vocalized a religious Eurosceptic. Lithuania and Slovakiaexperienced less influence of the Church and also generally vieweddifferent patterns of support with lower levels of Euroenthusiasm inLithuania (41 per cent) compared to Poland (51 per cent) (Candi-date Countries Eurobarometer 2001) in 2001 and less steady trends ofincreasing Euroscepticism in the run-up to accession; while Slovakia (9per cent) never reached the high levels of opposition towards the EUas Poland (18 per cent) (Candidate Countries Eurobarometer 2004.1,2004). The cases of Poland and Croatia show very similar decreas-ing patterns and low levels of turnout at the accession referendum,and Poland can explain why Croatia is not experiencing a Euroscepticbacklash.

The 2004 enlargement showed that the length of waiting for EUmembership and the perceived lack of relevant information could neg-atively impact on levels of public support. In order to avoid risinglevels of public Euroscepticism, the Croatian government adopted twocommunication strategies, in 2001 and 2006, seeking to rebut any mis-understandings on EU integration (MVPEI data). The strategy did notgarner much interest and in 2005, Croatian citizens generally assertedthat the media provided sufficient information; the main concernsdealt with the ‘impact of Croatia’s EU membership on the economy’(87 per cent), the ‘impact of the EU membership on everyday life’(84 per cent), the ‘rights and obligations stemming from Croatia’s EUmembership’ (84 per cent), and the ‘impact of the EU membership onsovereignty’ (84 per cent) (MVPEI data): fears and concerns that onlythree years before concerned Polish citizens.

Unsurprisingly, more and more citizens were willing to vote againstEU membership (14 per cent in 2003, 39 per cent in 2004, and 48per cent in 2005, MVPEI data). Although the government strategy wasdirected to inform citizens on the impact of EU integration and avoidmisunderstandings, both national and European surveys indicated ris-ing percentages of interest in the consequences of European integration,reflecting concerns on the costs of membership.

It is also fundamental to note that the case of Croatia can be seenas typical and different compared to the post-Communist region. TheHDZ has had a dominant position in the Croatian democratization


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process, and its role is viewed as negative factor on the transition. Itsfocus has been on ‘independence and statehood’ and less on democra-tization, with his leader, Franjo Tudjman, representing the Croats morethan Croatia (Søberg, 2007, pp. 31–38). The HDZ has articulated Croat-ian ‘national interests’, with the use of symbols and rhetoric that, in theearly 1990s, represented the victory over ‘decades in which any expres-sion of nationalist feeling [had] been taboo’ (Søberg, 2007, p. 41). Thatresulted in critical attitudes towards the way democracy was developingin Croatia. Marius Søberg stresses that with the death of Tudjman, Croa-tian attitudes towards democracy can be explained by the nationalisticinfluence of the HDZ leader. In a comparison with the countries of thepost-Communist region, Croats assume distinct positions, with a verybad opinion on how democracy is developing in the country (1.93) anda very high (highest in region) positive value on democracy in principle(6.94) (Listhaug and Strabac, 2007, pp. 106–107).

In an analysis on civic attitudes in Croatia, at the questions on whatinstitutions contribute most to the realization of human rights andon trust towards these same institutions, the Church always results atthe top of the list; in particular it is the most trusted both by youngpeople and adults (54 per cent and 53 per cent), with political partiesas last (with 9 per cent and 11 per cent) (Ilišin, 2007, pp. 123–125).Examining their political and social values, Croats are the most criticalof the Communist period in the region (Ilišin, 2007, p. 111) and reli-gion (Catholicism) is likely to represent just one of the factors shapingsociety.

Nonetheless after the drop in the levels of support in 2004, CroatianEuroscepticism is explained by: (i) exclusive identity; (ii) sovereignty;(iii) the EU asymmetrical relationship with the country as a candi-date; and also (iv) religious values. Marko Stojic (2006) stresses both thedemands of the EU (viewed as a ‘bureaucratic super-state’) and the fearsof losing independence and national traditions; the high costs of theconditions required before joining and the cooperation with the Inter-national Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), perceivedas threatening ‘basic democratic principles’; the fear that independencecould be lost became widespread – ‘Croatia will lose its sovereignty andfreedom that was very difficultly achieved’. Croatian fears concernedalso cultural and economic independence, as the country could be ‘acolony of cheap labour force used my multi-national imperialistic com-panies’; and anxiety was fuelled by a troubled past, where the Croatiannation could not ‘achieve freedom and equality with other nations . . . inthe last thousand years’ (2006, p. 329). With the religious discourse


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in the political debates, with the EU representing ‘foreign values andnorms’, the rejection of the reference to the Judeo-Christian roots ofEurope was negatively viewed by the Croatian Movement of the Right(Stojic, 2006, p. 329).

Similarly to the case of Poland, the process of democratization canshow debates on the protection of national values and part of theChurch can find a channel towards the political sphere and become asource of opposition to EU integration. The Croatian Catholic Churchis highly influential and quite divided on the EU issue. As in Poland,the mainstream Church is in favour of EU integration, with the sup-port of the Vatican; but it also presents cases of bishops who opposeEU integration, as it threats the Croatian nation. Bishop Želimir Puljicpointed to EU integration as a new Yugoslavia, ‘[T]his new ideology ofthe globalised Europe seems to be very similar to the failed experimentof a creation of the new society of brotherhood and unity . . . I am not fora foolish rush and unconditional membership’ (in Stojic, 2006, p. 331).Thus, although religiosity correlates with positive attitudes towards theEU, the Polish case shows that, even if not determinant, it can becomean ally to voice opposition towards the EU in candidate countries; inparticular if it finds populists radical right parties or a party on theright of the political spectrum that stresses identity as main basis of itsopposition – when costs are more visible.

In a previous analysis of the determinants of Croatian attitudestowards the EU, exclusive identity was found to be an important sourceof popular Euroscepticism (Štulhofer, 2006) with further socio-economicand political factors that could impact on different social groups. Also,Aleksandar Štulhofer stresses the ‘situational’ dimension of CroatianEuroscepticism, rising with the ‘tactical (polemical) use of the idea ofEuropean integration’ in party competition (2006, p. 153).

This analysis suggests, in line with Aleks Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart’s(2004a) findings, that Euroscepticism emerges when debates are morecontested. Trends are similar to Polish attitudes in 2000 and 2004.That makes the quality of Croatian Euroscepticism similar to the Pol-ish one, but without the same impact of Catholicism, and the samestress on sovereignty and national values, although sovereignty was notdeterminant in the Polish case. Positive attitudes towards democracyand the economic situation are the two main factors, with religion, toexplain support for EU integration in Croatia (see A.15). That can alsoexplain the decreasing trends of the following years, with critical atti-tudes towards the performance of democracy in Croatia, as a legacy ofTudjman years, and rising concerns on the economic situation.


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Finally, in Croatia, the Croatian Democratic Union has been suc-cessful in leading the country for a long time, and has been the mostsuccessful ally for the Croatian Church. As the leading party, it is con-strained to carry out the reforms dictated by the negotiation processand support the reforms in the country. This leverage tempers alsothe Church that softens its attitudes towards the EU. The Euroscepticalliance between the Church and populist radical right parties, that wassuccessful in Poland, makes a new Polish case unlikely in the case ofCroatia, but more and more dissatisfaction towards democracy and theeconomic situation can explain Euroscepticism in the country.

Conclusions

This analysis points to the strength of the EU as a democratic actor inthe post-Communist area; citizens, in particular in Central and EasternEurope (CCEB 2002.2, 2002; CCEB 2004.1, 2004), distrust politicians,but generally ‘want decision making to be a balance between electedofficials and ordinary people’ (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, 2001, p. 152).When decisions are taken or dominated by office holders, citizens feelmore distant and disengaged. No matter a larger or smaller EU, ifEuropean elections are debated at the EU level, also when citizens aremobilized to vote, communication does not revolve around EU politics.Taggart and Szczerbiak (2005, p. 8) point out that Europe is often the‘dog that does not bark’, and European integration is usually an absentdebate at the domestic level. It is not the case in the run-up to the acces-sion referendum that represents a case of its own, and further Europeanelectoral events. When debates on European integration emerge, the‘dog barks’ and it can lead to the emergence of Eurosceptic populistpositions, although not necessarily (FitzGibbon and Guerra, 2010). Inthe Polish case, in the run-up to accession, the EU issue, the fear of theselling of land to foreigners, Polishness, and Polish sovereignty becamesalient issues. In 2001, the PNES reported that 21.2 per cent of thoserespondents who identified themselves with SRP answered that the mostsalient issue at the time was to ‘protect our sovereignty’.

Croatian citizens are currently concerned with the EU’s threat to theirnational sovereignty. Between 2000 and 2002 Croatian support for Euro-pean integration was almost unvaried, 77–78 per cent of Croats wouldhave voted in favour of EU accession; in 2005, only 41.9 per cent sup-ported EU integration, while 47.9 per cent were against EU membership(MVPEI data). Polls before the referendum on EU accession expected arejection and the non-binding in January 2012 viewed only one out


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of three ‘Yes’ votes on a turnout lower than 50 per cent. It is whenEuroscepticism is on the rise that parties can have an easy foot in thedoor, if electoral and political demand and supply meet (de Lange andGuerra, 2009)

As surveys and focus groups have shown, further information, mea-sures to increase trust towards the institutions, and attention towardsnationalist stances, in particular when the threat of the EU and a neg-ative economic situation can impact upon citizens’ attitudes, are thethree issues to be targeted before accession (Štulhofer, 2007, pp. 153–156). The accession referendum does not often represent a difficultobstacle, as it has an emotional, symbolic, civilizational, but politicallyimportant charge, a sort of ‘mission accomplished’ after the opening ofthe negotiation process – and in most of the cases, the only possiblechoice.

Euroenthusiasm certainly impacts on higher levels of turnout at EPelections, as the analysis on the Polish case has shown those abstainingfrom voting are likely to negatively perceive the political domestic sit-uation (with positive evaluations of the economic situation). EU actorsshould mobilize voters on the basis of shared values and norms, andon benefits, in particular in a post-Communist context, where the fluidparty system can view the winning formula between Euroscepticism andpopulism or Euroscepticism and radical right.


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7Conclusion

In the first chapter, this book introduced its research question (Q)What drives support before and after accession in Poland? Previous research(Cichowski, 2000) pointed to analyses at one point in time, while pat-terns in citizens’ attitudes could be expected to change over time. Thisbook answers to how determinants of public support for the EU changebefore and after EU accession. This study also presents what determinessupport for and opposition to EU integration in a post-Communist EUmember state after accession.

First, in Chapters 2 and 3 the analysis tracked the changes thatoccurred in public support for the EU in Poland and Central and EasternEurope as a candidate country and member state. Second, in Chapter 4this analysis qualitatively explores low turnout at EP elections in a post-Communist environment. Third, in Chapter 5 it presents the results offour focus groups carried out in Poland and Bulgaria after the 2004 EPelections, and before and after the 2009 elections. Finally, Chapter 6draws the study together in the perspective of the next enlargements. Inthe case study, the PNES surveys provided data from the parliamentaryelection of 1997, 2001, and 2005. The 2001 PNES data enabled me toundertake an analysis of the period following the opening of the acces-sion negotiations at the end of the 1990s and the first significant drop inthe level of public support for EU accession in Poland, which occurredin 1999. The 2005 PNES data allowed me to undertake an analysis of thelevel of public support after accession. The descriptive analysis and thecomparative framework allowed identifying significant statistical rela-tionships and determining how support for and opposition to Europeanintegration change before and after accession.

Before accession, the dependent variable at the aggregate level is rep-resented by the CBOS question ‘how would you vote, if today there

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Table 7.1 Case study: Research hypotheses and findings (using binary logisticregression analysis, 2001 PNES and 2005 PNES)

Hypothesis Before accession After accession

H1: Religion Rejected∗ Supported∗

H2: (Negative) Politicalsituation

Rejected∗ Rejected∗∗∗

H3: (Negative) Economicsituation

Supported∗∗ Supported∗

H4: (Negative) Personaleconomic situation

Rejected∗∗ Supported∗∗∗∗

H5: (Wrong) Directionof the country

Rejected∗∗ NA

H6: (EU) Benefits for thecountry

Supported∗ Not tested (descriptivestatistics)

The format of the table follows the one indicated in Buckingham and Saunders (2004), sum-mary of findings.∗B coefficient in line with the hypothesis.∗∗B coefficient not in line with the hypothesis.∗∗∗B coefficient in line with current evaluations, not in line with retrospective and prospec-tive evaluations.∗∗∗∗B coefficient in line with current and perspective evaluations, not in line with pastevaluations.

were a referendum?’. At the individual level, this analysis uses thesame question from the 2001 PNES. After EU accession, CBOS slightlychanged the question at the aggregate level – as they asked respon-dents for their ‘attitude towards EU integration’; however, it remains thesame at the individual level (using the 2005 PNES data), with the ques-tion ‘how would you vote, if the referendum on EU took place now?’(Table 7.1).

In some respects, these findings have departed from the initial expec-tations. This book contends that the evaluation of the political situationwill become more important in the long term; the EU maintainedimportant economic connotations in the first years of membership; stillit can become a more controversial issue with the passing of time, wheneconomic benefits can become less visible. Clearly, in the short term,particularly in post-Communist countries, citizens can rely more onbenefits. Benefits and chances were the most debated issues during thefocus groups, and both boosted support for EU integration. Also, in thecomparative frameworks, the EU means ‘freedom to travel, study andwork anywhere’ (52 per cent, EB 67, 2007), in particular among CEEcountries, less European citizens agree on peace (33 per cent in the same


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Conclusion 141

survey). EU citizens recognize their own common European identity orvalues only vis-à-vis other countries, and the debate on the common‘Judeo-Christian tradition’ brought to one of the most controversial andsensitive debates that resulted in rejecting the statement on the religiousroots of Europe from the EU member states.

The EU is rarely salient in the domestic debates. In Poland the EU wasnever a salient political issue after accession: the tense political situationwith two contested national parliamentary elections (in 2005 and 2007)and the presidential election (in 2005) did not focus on EU membershipbut on domestic issues and the political debates between Law and Justiceand Civic Platform. The possible referendum on the EU ConstitutionalTreaty might have raised the issue, but this was postponed and the EUissue lost momentum and continued to move down the political agenda.

In fact, Chapter 5 showed that also well-informed students perceivedthat they were not well informed. Even though they were generallypositive towards the EU, they talked about their concerns regardingfuture referendums or EP elections. In Zielona Góra, one participantstressed the need to be better informed on the work of the EU insti-tutions. More knowledge on the institutions can be certainly attainedafter years of membership, but the results obtained in the run-up tothe accession referendum should not be neglected, and can representan impulse for further information after accession. The results fromthe comparative analysis using the 2004 EES further strengthen theseassumptions. Therefore, even though the focus groups were carried outamong a category that is usually more supportive and well informed, itgives clear indications that information is fundamental in the processof EU politics. That could represent a useful lesson in view of furtherenlargements.

Nevertheless, this book contends cautiousness. The 2004 enlargementshowed that the length of waiting for EU membership and the perceivedlack of relevant information could negatively impact on levels of pub-lic support (see also Chapters 3 and 6) and, in order to avoid risingEuroscepticism, the Croatian government adopted two communicationstrategies, in 2001 and 2006. The main aim of these strategies was toinform citizens of the progress towards European integration, with theinvolvement of civil society organizations, social and economic institu-tions (MVPEI data). Strategically, the government aimed at improvingthe level and quality of debates on EU integration (MVPEI data).

If theoretical explanations would suggest a more Euroenthusiast atti-tude, on the contrary the strategy, in place since 2001, has not had asuccessful impact. In 2005, 55.9 per cent of Croats felt that the media


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did not provide sufficient information. Also, although the governmentstrategy was directed to inform citizens on the impact of EU integra-tion and avoid misunderstandings, both national and European surveysindicated rising percentages of interest in the consequences of Europeanintegration. Information, its quality, timing, and delivery remain offundamental importance when it comes to EU-related issues. Perceivedbenefits alone are not likely to drive citizens’ decision when taking theirchoice.

However, within the framework selected, with the EU completelyabsent from the political debate, the economic proxy revealed themost interesting findings. It was more important both before and afteraccession (when the political is never significant), and distinguishingbetween a more personal and collective benefit, the analysis provideddifferent outcomes in the two time periods, giving strength to previousstudies in the literature. In fact, in line with the previous analysis byTilley and Garry (2007), these findings confirm that the relative povertyof the pre-accession period in post-communist Poland can have deter-mined the salience of the collective economic factor before accessionand the higher significance of the prospective personal economic situ-ation (H4) after accession. That should not surprise us: farmers clearlyrecognized the positive impact of the direct payments, while ordinarycitizens could benefit from other advantages of EU accession, such as theability to travel and work abroad. Even though prices increased, citizensrecognized that they could be safer as consumers (as asserted in a focusgroup), confirming H3 (‘The worse is the evaluation of the economicsituation, the higher is the level of public support for the EU’).

Finally, following Markowski and Tucker’s analysis (2004), this thesisoperationalized a few socio-demographic variables. In fact, Markowskiand Tucker’s study provided evidence of the low impact of socio-demographic variables. This book confirms this finding, although thisanalysis also found an interesting result with respect to the variable onreligion.

Religion represents a salient ‘cultural and institutional force’(Broughton and ten Napel, 2000, xix). In particular, that can be the casein Central and Eastern Europe, where the repression of the Churchesfrom the Communist regime halted affiliations, but particularly inPoland did not halt people’s spiritual beliefs. These could re-emergeduring the democratic transition and impact on levels of public sup-port for EU integration. Religion can become an important elementfor national identity, particularly in those countries that experiencedthe loss of national identity, as Poland, and South-Eastern European


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Conclusion 143

countries. The loss of sovereignty ‘froze the percentage of believers atthe level characteristic for more traditional societies’ (Gesis June 2009).

The increasing use of the threat of ‘secular Europe vs. Catholic Poland’by the League of Polish Families was particularly successful before EUaccession. Data at the aggregate level reveal that those regularly attend-ing church services were those more sceptic towards the EU than thosewho attended more rarely. Quantitative analysis of public attitudesbefore EU accession shows that H1 (‘The more devout believer is the cit-izen before accession, the lower is the level of public support for the EU’)was not supported with a significant coefficient. However, the negativesign of the B coefficient can indicate the trend at the aggregate level,and it perfectly posits itself in the literature between Jasiewicz (2003)(asserting that Euroscepticism could not be structured around religion)and Nelsen et al. (2001), who focused on the role of religion and theeconomic variable.

That is even more interesting given that in line with my hypothesisfor what would occur after EU accession (H1: ‘The more devout believeris the citizen after accession, the higher is the level of public support forthe EU’). Poland comes into line with the other Catholic countries withsupport for EU membership correlating positively with levels of religios-ity, as expected. Furthermore, following the literature (Jasiewicz, 2003;Nelsen et al., 2001) and the significance of the economic variable, wecan expect that with the increasing secularization of society (in the verylong term), the economic proxy can become more important comparedto the religious variable. Finally, this analysis has used an original vari-able for the Polish case, in line with Nelsen et al. (2001). The interest ofthis research, in fact, is not on how many times a week a citizen attendsthe mass, as usually analysed at the aggregate level (Szczerbiak, 2001b),but on whether religion makes the difference. In particular, after find-ing the role of both the economic proxies and the religious variable, thisanalysis further indicates new avenues for research, in candidate coun-tries (Croatia) or following current new member states in the long term(Poland and Lithuania) in order to measure the religious and economicvariables in the long term.

My findings on H5 (which, prior to accession predicted that‘The worse is the perceived direction of the country before accession, thehigher is the level of public support for the EU’) was not confirmed.The direction of the country did not present a significant coefficient,and the sign of the B coefficient was not in line with the hypothesis.Following Anderson’s (1998) study, the analysis was repeated with-out the economic variable (as he asserted that the economic variable


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overshadows all the others). The direction of the country was the onlyvariable that had a more important change in the coefficient. Nonethe-less, it still did not result in a significant coefficient. We can evaluatethat the direction of the country could be possibly significant only afteraccession (but it could not be tested, as the variable was not in the dataset), due to benefits from EU accession in line with Jasiewicz’s (2004)suggestion.

The perception variable used in this study distinguished differenteconomic assessments and also relied on retrospective, current, andprospective economic evaluations. Prospective evaluations were foundto be particularly significant after EU accession. After the fall of Com-munism, people had already improved their economic conditions. Infact, this came through more clearly also during the two focus groups.

Focus groups were organized to answer my second question: (Q2) Howdo citizens perceive the EU after accession, and what are the sources of infor-mation they use? During both the 2007 focus groups, after three yearsfrom accession, the participants stressed the ‘chances’ and ‘benefits’ ofEU accession. According to the focus group participants, the EU meantbenefits at all levels. It benefited students, workers, citizens in general –who could now travel abroad – farmers, and consumers when buyingfood or other products (as toys for children). It does not have to sur-prise the higher significance of the personal economic situation (withinmodel 3 on prospective perceptions after accession) in the quantitativeanalysis at the individual level. Focus group participants felt that the EUhad already delivered, and citizens are aware that further benefits canstill be attained.

From the in-depth study of the Polish case in comparative perspec-tive, this book offers a contribution to the theoretical analysis. AsTable 7.2 reports, results showed that the EU is not always an impor-tant dependent variable (H1: ‘The higher the perception that the EU isa good thing “for the country”, the higher turnout’) when voting in EPelections – as in the case of Slovenia. This book suggests that for the cit-izens of Central and Eastern Europe the EU can have a mobilizing forcein the accession referendum – representing the final goal of their suc-cessful transformation, generating a mixture of feelings and emotionsprior to accession, and concrete benefits after accession. The referendumhad an emotional, symbolic, but politically important charge, a sort ofmission accomplished after the signing of the Association Agreement in1992 and the opening of the negotiation process in the spring of 1998 –particularly as people perceived the social costs of the transition.Instead, underlying support for the EU is not likely to act as a factormobilizing turnout in European elections.


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Conclusion 145

Table 7.2 Comparative analysis: Research hypotheses and findings (using binarylogistic regression analysis, 2004 EES)

Hypothesis Past (economic)situation

Future (economic)situation

H1: (EU) Benefits for the country Rejected∗+ Rejected∗

H2: Economic situation Rejected+ Rejected++

H3: Interest in politics Supported∗∗ Supported∗∗

Left/Right Rejected∗∗∗ Rejected∗∗∗

The table reports ‘supported’ when all the cases under analysis were supported. It furtherreports on the Left/Right axes as in three cases it was significant.∗+Not significant in Slovenia, not significant in Poland at the.01 level, but supported in theother cases, in line with the hypothesis.+Supported in Estonia, B coefficient not in line with the hypothesis.++Supported in Estonia and Slovenia.∗∗B coefficient in line with the hypothesis.∗∗∗Significant at the.05 level in Estonia, Hungary, and Poland.

When it comes to voting in European referendums or elections, thenit is information that matters, particularly the visibility of such sources.This analysis suggests that official sources of information are likely torepresent a very important channel for communicating the idea ofEurope to its citizens, but timing cannot be neglected. The political cul-ture in post-Communist countries (Klingemann et al., 2006) is clearlyaffected by legacies of the past. H4 (‘The more interested in politics,the higher turnout’) is the variable with the strongest coefficients, inline with my expectations. Interest in politics and trust in political insti-tutions can also play an important role in citizens’ attitudes towardsinformation. The negative attitudes towards media and politicians, thatparticipants in my focus groups showed, partially confirm the findingsof other surveys that found low levels of trust in politicians and politi-cal institutions in Poland and all the CEE member states. On EU-relatedissues (as referendums and parliamentary elections) attitudes towardsthe EU are not the key factor explaining participation and attitudes;rather it is the level of information and the interest in politics amongcitizens. These results are likely to be valid not only for the cases underexamination but also for the countries willing to join the EU, and theold member states (Wessels, 2007).

By examining the Polish case in a comparative perspective, this pro-vides us with evidence that the ‘EU factor’ is an important independentvariable in determining support for EU integration, but it is not sig-nificant in all cases for explaining turnout in EP elections. This hasshort-term consequences for European elections and possible future


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European referendums. The most important issue that needs to beaddressed here is mainly citizens’ interest in politics, and information. IfWessels (2007) found that ‘identity’ and lack of information are impor-tant variables on turnout in EP elections, the length of membership andthe benefits delivered in post-Communist states can perhaps correlatewith this affective dimension and identity. Lack of information wasa perceived issue that emerged from focus groups research, conductedboth before (Kucia, 1999) and after accession, and descriptive statistics.A low turnout in EP elections is not likely to represent any opposition,but it can be linked to low levels of interest in politics and low levels ofinformation.

Both H2 (‘The worse the evaluation of the past domestic economic sit-uation, the lower turnout’ and ‘The better the evaluation of the futuredomestic economic situation, the higher turnout’) are not so importantin EP elections as for the accession referendum. However, prospectiveevaluations are still more important than retrospective evaluations ofthe economic situations. Clearly, accession can be viewed on the per-ception of cost/benefit calculi, but, as seen, information is much moreimportant to involve citizens in further political processes of the EU.

As underlined, these findings suggest that in post-Communist coun-tries ‘a certain idea of Europe’ (as represented by the EU) exists beforeaccession. Nevertheless, this analysis did not detect great interest inwanting to know more about the EU during the first stages of the post-Communist transformation. This, as aforementioned, can create threetypes of attitudes towards the EU membership that can be detected inthe run-up to the 2003 accession and with the current candidate coun-tries, referendums: (i) Euroenthusiasts, who are interested and seek outmore information; (ii) Euroneutrals, who are generally in favour, buthave little knowledge of the EU and are not interested in seeking itout; and Eurosceptics, who oppose EU membership in a future accessionreferendum, because of fears.

Therefore, the EU is important in the case of the accession referendum(as the multinomial logistic regression on the Polish case demonstrates),but it is not always the most important determinant in case of EUelections. That has further implications, particularly for the debateon the ‘democratic deficit’ of the EU. On the one hand, low turnoutin European elections and referendums does not necessarily indicateEuroscepticism. On the other hand, the low salience of the EU in thesepolls points to a lack of interest in the EU – and, as a consequence, ademocratic deficit. Information matters and further research can provideanswers to a situation that – regarding EP elections – is defined as


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Conclusion 147

‘gloomy’. News on the elections has second-order coverage, with lowpriority, and is debated by domestic political actors – it is not surprisingif the result is second-order elections (de Vreese et al., 2007, p. 129).

On the utilitarian proxy

Although this analysis does not measure the economic evaluation inorder to understand party choice or the vote for or against the incum-bent, the literature is useful in order to outline how citizens maketheir choices on European integration. In particular, how their individ-ual choices make up the final aggregate, and on which basis citizensstructure their own economic evaluations (Duch and Palmer, 2002,pp. 139–161). That gives strength to the choices undertaken with thismodel. This book does not seek to explore how Poles (and the otherCEE citizens) structure their own economic evaluations, but assum-ing that their own subjective evaluations diverged from the objectiveevaluations, it has based the analysis on the answers citizens gave tothe questions on ‘how they evaluated the past/current/following twelvemonths situation’. As far as it concerns identity issues, they do not seemto be relevant in most of the new member states. Party cues and partyidentification are likely to be valid only in the long term. Citizens’ sub-jective evaluations are likely to be salient in all the new post-Communistmember states included in this study, but findings can also explain howattitudes change before and after accession in the current candidatecountries and how they changed in all the EU member states.

Before accession, the model used in this research can explain 91per cent of the variability on support, and the results show that citizenscan be moved by their personal heuristics – different by politicians’ tideof history – here named ‘unconditional support’. However, the individ-ual level analysis did not follow the expectations that could be followedat the aggregate level or using the literature review. The perceived neg-ative situation does not lead to a more supportive attitude towards EUintegration. Negative political evaluations show a negative coefficient,but they are not significant. The collective and personal economic eval-uations are linked to support and only the collective proxy is significant.Before joining the EU, citizens of Central and Eastern Europe agreed thatthe reasons why the EU had a positive image was due to ‘economicimprovements’ (14 per cent) (CEEB 6, 1996) (utilitarian dimension)and responded to questions on membership with ‘[u]nspecified positivestatements based on emotions or general image perceptions – Generalpositive’ (CCEB 2001) (unconditional support, affective dimension). The


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EU had, and has, a general positive image for the citizens of Central andEastern Europe. This, together with the idea that benefits were goingto be realized, was among the factors that structured citizens’ attitudestowards the EU with an overlap of affective and utilitarian dimensions.

After accession, it is useful to draw insights from the 2004 Jasiewicz’sanalysis. Citizens needed to perceive benefits from accession in orderto adopt a positive attitude: among those supporting that is likely tobe valid. Evaluations on the past economic situation has to be posi-tive: citizens need to perceive a positive past evaluation of the economicsituation of the household. This possibly impacts current and futureevaluations, as negative current and prospective evaluations are in linewith expectations in that they are linked to support, likely based onpositive past evaluations of the EU.

With accession the EU brought benefits: the overview on the aggregatelevel data, descriptive statistics, and the two focus groups, representingcitizens from different regions of Poland, stressed the salience of theimmediate perceived benefits – particularly for farmers, students, andthose who could travel and work abroad. Therefore, it is worth support-ing the EU on the basis of the past personal situation, and because EUmembership can improve the current and future situation. That needsto be taken into account depending on cultural and political traditionsof the candidate countries. Economic benefits are perceived at differentlevels (personal and country levels), EU funds and trade relations withthird countries can impact on citizens’ attitudes towards the EU in thenew EU member states. Also, after accession the same model – withoutthe ‘European factor’ as independent variable – has a lower explanatorypower. Attitudes towards EU integration are likely to be determined bothby affective and utilitarian dimensions.

Before accession domestic proxies and the ‘European factor’ can bepartly intermingled, where the EU factor is prominent. Further, the eco-nomic factor is not likely to represent a personal variable in Poland(it is in the Czech Republic), but comprehended within the expecta-tions that citizens of candidate countries have for their state and younggenerations. The evidence gathered with the quantitative analysis atthe individual level on Polish support for the EU prior to accessionsuggests that both the national and European factors impact people’sattitudes. The national factor can further be interpreted within thenational context, and be dependent on a country basis.

Patterns of public support for EU integration in post-Communistcountries are based on prospective benefits. Before accession, fears andanxiety due to transition and reforms halt the salience of personal


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Conclusion 149

benefits in Catholic religious countries that can show higher levels ofsupport after accession. Secular post-Communist countries can be moresceptical towards EU benefits, as citizens always structure their attitudeson the personal dimension. Information can further limit decreasinglevels of positive attitudes that usually emerge after the opening ofthe negotiation process. The weakness of less-institutionalized partysystems can favour the emergence of populist parties using Euroscepti-cism as their main political issue. Although a short-lived phenomenon,populism can fuel debates at the domestic level, and citizens can feelstronger in their position.

Further, previous research found that political actors impact on cit-izens’ behaviour when they were united, and not dissonant. Currentresults give evidence that consensus between coverage news and EUactors is not beneficial to citizens, as they do not perceive the salienceof the elections. On the contrary, the tone can be significant, but notparticularly so when it is negative. Therefore, both negative tones andbroad consensual positive coverage of the elections are not as importantas expected. Studies on determinants of European citizens’ attitudes andthe role of information can offer further useful insights, where determi-nants of attitudes change before and after accession, and differ in caseof the accession referendum, further referendums, and EP elections.

Where do we go from here?

This book began as an empirical study of the drivers of public supportfor EU membership in Poland from a comparative perspective. The maininterest was in how determinants of support and opposition changebefore and after EU accession, and also in the role that informationplayed in determining support for the EU, an issue that became moreimportant after the results of the 2004 EP elections, which had a verylow turnout in post-Communist countries.

This book provides us with a clear answer to the question what deter-mines support for and opposition to European integration before and afteraccession in a post-Communist member state. It is the first study tocompare determinants of support and opposition to the EU before andafter accession, and it is the first in-depth analysis on the largest post-Communist state that joined the EU with the fifth enlargement in 2004.In addition, the study sheds light upon the why question with the focusgroups, and an overview at the aggregate level, and it broadens theexplanation to the where and when questions, through the comparativeframework. The Polish case is followed throughout 16 years and tracking


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the changes that occurred during this period enabled me to criticallyassess how and when particular variations can affect crucial changesacross time. The comparative chapter allowed drawing comparisons inthe area study.

First, one way to build on the findings of this analysis would be toextend to other current member states, beyond post-Communist Cen-tral and Eastern Europe. EU candidate countries cannot judge accessionon the basis of their own personal experience; tracking their changesacross time can highlight the role of these proxies (as perceptions andshortcuts) in the other candidate countries.

Second, outside this specific field, the comparative study pointed tothe emergence and nature of ‘accession populism’. The impact of EUintegration in countries that have high levels of mistrust towards politicscan also produce new research findings. The comparative study of thesuccess of populist parties in the run-up to EU accession can shed lighton the nature of their populism. Also, it can limit possible future alarmsto any rising populist movements in the next candidate countries, asaccession populism is generally short-lived, while enriching the field ofstudy on populism through examination of the characteristics of thistype of populism.

Third, as far as it concerns low turnout in EP elections and Euro-pean referendums, and a more general lack of interest towards politics,the findings of this research offer further avenues to explore. Retro-spective and prospective types of analysis disclosed the diverse roleplayed by economic and political domestic proxies in those willing toabstain from vote in the multinomial logistic regression. Whether a ret-rospective positive economic evaluation and a retrospective negativepolitical assessment are significant may reveal a characteristic of the‘lazy’ voters.

Fourth, not less important, this book also provides important findingson the role of religion in determining support for or opposition to theEU, building on the findings of Jasiewicz (2003), in the Polish case study,and Nelsen et al. (2001) in a comparative framework. This study not onlyprovides us with new findings but also logically follows and strengthensthe results of previous research. New research on comparative analysisacross time (before and after accession) in similar cases to the Polish one,such as Catholic Ireland and Spain, can explain whether religion can bea salient debated issue before accession, and whether Catholicism is stillan important indicator of support – perhaps through an investigation ofwhether it is a short-term or long-term indicator and its strength againstthe economic evaluations – after accession.


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Conclusion 151

Fifth, the topic of the impact of information on attitudes towards theEU is an expanding field of research. Exploring whether informationis a significant factor affecting how well society is ‘integrated’ into theEU or whether ‘saturation of information’ is actually a counter-effectslowing down this process can be further studied, also with the use offocus groups as a social science tool.

Sixth, closely linked to the topic of information, both the 2004 andthe 2009 EP elections show that also post-Communist countries arelikely to be in line with Oppenhuis’ findings in 1995, ‘ “the only dif-ference” between voters and non-voters in national and European elec-tions was “a reduced likelihood to vote” ’ (p. 169). European electionsare domestic elections with a ‘less likelihood to vote’. That supportsFranklin’s view that post-Communist countries are not that differentfrom Western member states (2007). This book contends that the qualityof low turnout is diverse, where the low salience of European inte-gration in European elections can be strictly connected to the roleof information and levels of mistrust in the case of post-Communistcountries.

Seventh, as Cas Mudde (2000a) underlined, Euroscepticism becamemore political in the run-up to accession, while populism (Mudde,2000b) was ‘more prominent . . . than in the West’. This book pointedto its dynamic, in particular comparing before and after accession, asthis can offer important insights on the process of democratic stabiliza-tion in the post-Communist area. Populism should not be viewed innegative terms, but we should underline both its negative and positivedimensions (Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012). This analysis suggests that it isimportant to address at what stage of the integration process populismemerges and to examine its impact. As I have examined all throughthe book, trust towards political institutions and politicians has beena controversial issue in the region in the 1990s with high levels ofdistrust at the national level. When the Association Agreements, nowpartly in the Stabilization and Association process for candidate andpotential candidate countries, are signed, the process of democratic sta-bilization develops within the EU legal framework, where conditionalityconstrains the path to EU membership. Nonetheless, on the downside,among the negative aspects, Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser (2012) stressesa possible shrinkage of ‘the political’ and a ‘plebiscitary’ form of politicsthat can undermine political institutions. That can affect the develop-ment of democracy and bring with it an enduring legacy of distrusttowards political elites. In the case of Poland, the Solidarity movement isviewed also as an ‘original sin’ of the Polish Republic (Kubik and Lynch,


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2006). While Lech Wałesa was president of Poland, he still asserted hewas representing civil society, blurring the border with the institutions.That impacts citizens’ perceptions and can endure the idea that you can-not trust politicians in a society where levels of trust are low, and it ismore difficult to socialize politically because of the legacy of the Com-munist past (see Holmes, 1997). This has further implications and itbecomes crucial in this analysis, as perceptions towards the domesticpolitical and economic situation are determinant towards support forthe EU. A further comparative study on candidate and potential candi-date countries using perceptions as independent variables could addressto what extent the concept of ‘accession populism’ could explain furtheremergences of the phenomenon.

This book, therefore, started from an empirical analysis of the Pol-ish and post-Communist cases and then broadened out the theoreticalfindings to open up new avenues of research. Domestic proxies, andutilitarian proxies in particular, are going to represent a fundamentalexplanation for public support in all the post-Communist area, and thenext enlargements towards the Western Balkans.

Further analysis of what determines support for or opposition to theEU can follow the analytical approach proposed by this research, whereoutside the political and economic perception, the EU played the roleof a salient mobilizing factor in the form of ‘unconditional support’.Together, with the economic proxy, the notion of ‘unconditional sup-port’ can, this book would argue, explain higher levels of support infuture member states. This analysis expects increasing levels of sup-port in those countries that are more economically backward than thecurrent EU; the retrospective, current, and prospective collective andpersonal economic proxies here analysed can be applied and added tothe current frameworks of research on drivers of public attitudes towardsEuropean integration, as such the simple utilitarian approach, the iden-tity frameworks, and the models linked to political party identification.Multifaceted utilitarian proxies and the notion of ‘unconditional sup-port’ this analysis developed in this book are, in my view, likely toexplain most of the variability in support for and opposition to the EUin the current candidate countries and the prospective future memberstates and can become a more widely utilized framework of analysis.


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Appendix

Focus groups

The first two focus groups were run in Polish and moderated by the author. Wherea particular emphasis was underlined by gesture or eyesight that is explainedin the chapter and the appendix, and the original Polish word is added inbrackets.

The first focus group was organized in Warsaw, with university students livingin religious accommodation (and that could give evidence of more uncertain-ties or a growing enthusiasm after the anxieties emerging during the accessionprocess). Participants were all Warsaw university graduate and postgraduate stu-dents from cities outside the capital and the region of Mazowieckie. The numberof students finally taking part in the focus group was eight. The second focusgroup was conducted within a class of final year university students at the Uni-versity of Zielona Góra, and the number of students was ten. Before starting, allthe respondents were asked to fill a three-question form in order to have somesocio-demographic characteristics. In the first focus group, participants were cho-sen as belonging to a typical group, selected on the basis of their religiousattitude.

Table A.1 Residential category (Warsaw)

Village Up to 20K 20–100K 101–500K 501K+1 2 1 2 2

Table A.2 Residential category (Zielona Góra)

Village Up to 20K 20–100K 101–500K 501K+2 2 3 3 –

The tables show the residential category of participants. That could further high-light whether the two groups were presenting homogeneous groups, as theywere mainly selected on age category (and university students as the most sup-portive both before and after accession). CBOS carried out regular reports onattitudes towards EU integration, in particular before accession, and citizensfrom urban centres were generally more in favour of accession. The two groupspresented students from all the main different categories, possibly ranging froma more open attitude towards the EU to a more Eurosceptic behaviour, and as aconsequence were heterogeneous.

153


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154 Appendix

Table A.3 By regions (Warsaw)

Dolnoslaskie Lubelskie Wielkopolskie Lódzkie Warminsko-Mazurskie

Podlaskie

2 1 1 1 1 2

Table A.4 By regions (Zielona Góra)

Zachoodniopomorskie Lubuskie Dolnoslaskie

1 6 3

On the contrary, the regions of provenience presented further important obser-vations. Lubelskie, Warminsko-Mazurskie, and Podlaskie were, together withPodkarpacie and Swietokrzyskie, the regions that received further provisionswithin the 2007–2013 Financial Framework (Council 2005) (see Chapter 5). Fur-ther, half of the participants of the first focus group belonged to regions of thatarea in Eastern Poland. In addition, not only Poland can still show different struc-tural and economic developments in different areas of the country followingthe three partitions, also the Eastern part of Poland presents different politicalbehaviours and attitudes towards the EU.

In the 2007 October parliamentary elections, Podlaskie, Mazowieckie, Łodzkie,and Małopolskie presented different voting patterns from the rest of Poland,where the Eastern regions (with the exception of the great urban centres) votedLaw and Justice and the rest of Poland voted in favour of the liberal right CivicPlatform (see Guerra and Bil 2009). The second focus group, chosen in theWestern part of Poland, could partly bring possible differences to light.

It has to be noted that the second group was more homogeneous both by ageand regions of residence. That may have affected the discussions of the groups:the first focus group was more animated, and in the second focus group all thestudents generally agreed on the same points. As a consequence, the second focusgroup lasted about ten minutes less than the first one, and in the first focus groupthere was more interaction among the participants. As a general preliminary feed-back, it was possible to notice that in the first group some participants (four)talked more than others, and particularly one was very willing to talk on morespecific aspects of the EU. In the second focus group, some students were morewilling to take part in the discussion, and intervened almost for every question.

Part 1. Introduction: what is the EU?

In Warsaw(i) EU as chance;

(ii) The EU mainly is (1) economy, (2) culture – as countries belonging to thesame cultural area, (3) political (organization);

(iii) Structural things (changes): university, library, books;(iv) Prawo, standardization and monitoring;


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Appendix 155

(v) EU as chances;(vi) Control (regularizacja);

(vii) ‘The moment of accession, the exact day?’ – currently they are lessenthusiastic about it.

In Zielona Góra(i) EU as concrete benefits;

(ii) EU as money;(iii) EU integration as more funds, and, as a consequence, more civic projects;(iv) EU as political organization;(v) EU membership does not mean we are all the same, feeling (and willingness

to feel) different from Germany and France;(vi) What does it mean being European? I am Polish;

(vii) EU as concrete benefits.

Part 2. Key topic: information

In Warsaw(i) Manipulation;

(ii) Demagogues;(iii) Black and white;(iv) Negative;(v) There are lots of things in-between – not told;

(vi) Not objective;(vii) Cannot trust;

(viii) Bombarded of information and after? Nothing! – ‘Here is my programme’(2004 EP election).

In Zielona Góra(i) Centres of Information on Europe, but no information on how the EU

works;(ii) Critical comments on the Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc–Samoobrona (Rzeczpospolitej

Polskiej)–Liga Polskich Rodzin (PiS–SRP–LPR) government (Ministry of ForeignAffairs);

(iii) Distinction between sources of information: official sources (+) vs.media (–);

(iv) Large amount of information (internet and television), but no informationon the structure of the EU (Polish problem?) – particularly important in therun-up of the EP election

(vi) In charge of providing information about the EU, they would give informa-tion on concrete facts and figures (concrete information).

Part 3 Closing: Attitudes, costs, and benefits

In Warsaw(i) Preamble;

(ii) Long text, difficult, wrong translation, . . . unreadable;


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156 Appendix

(iii) I would go to vote, but I would be willing to vote ‘No’ to the ConstitutionalTreaty (CT);

(iv) Travelling;(v) Passport controls, Euro (which membership? ‘second-order’) – ‘Straszno!’

(vi) Benefits;(vii) Family level;

(viii) Costs and benefits (see socio-demographic group);(ix) ‘Yes’ to the EU, but ‘No’ to the CT Referendum.

In Zielona Góra(i) They read and knew the CT; it was not a difficult text, but it was very

formal;(ii) On the CT, eight would have gone to vote, but six out of eight did not

know how to vote;(iii) Benefits for regional products and exports;(iv) Benefits for farmers and some categories of workers that can legally work

abroad;(vi) Costs and discriminations;

(vii) ‘Yes’ to the EU, but ‘Don’t Know’ to the CT.

The third and fourth focus groups were held before the 2009 EP elections, witha questionnaire submitted after the elections, in Zielona Góra (Poland) andSofia (Bulgaria). These focus groups were moderated by two external moderators,Mr Tomasz Klin in Poland and Mr Dragomir Stoyanov in Bulgaria. Eight univer-sity students, expected as the most enthusiastic category, took part in the debateon information and EP elections in both (homogeneous) focus groups.

The questions generally followed this sequence:

1. Did you vote in the 2009 EP elections? (Y/N)If yes, please proceed to question 2 (skip only question 7)If no, please proceed to question 7

2. If yes, did you read any newspapers/watch TV/accessed internet before voting?(Which of the three?); If newspaper, which? (Do you usually read that paper?Y/N); If TV programme, which? Which channel? (Do you usually watch thatprogramme? Y/N); If internet, which website(s)? (Do you regularly access that(those) website(s)?

3. Did you find it useful? (Y/N) Why?4. Did you vote for the candidate? (Y/N) Or did you vote for the political party?

Or was your vote more against another political party?Why did you take that choice?Do you know to which political group in the European Parliament does he/itbelong?I am not interested in it.

5. When did you decide?6. Have you read about the results in the other EU countries?

I am not interested in it.Do you feel interested in the results in any particular EU member state?Why?


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Appendix 157

Do you feel interested in the result at the EU level?7. If you did not vote, why did you not?8. In case there were a national election last month, would have you voted in

the EP election?(Y/N/DK)Comments.

Image of the EC/EU Before Accession

Table A.5 Poland

Years Positive Neutral Negative

1992 53 29 31993 48 31 51994 37 32 91995 42 23 71996 46 19 51997 58 24 51998 56 27 62001 44 32 182002 46 31 192003 47 27 21

Table A.6 Bulgaria


1992 47 16 11993 51 12 21994 42 17 61995 37 23 71996 27 15 81997 42 19 41998 50 17 32001 70 17 52002 64 21 82003 72 16 6

Table A.7 Czechoslovakia


1992 46 33 3


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158

Table A.8 Czech Republic


1993 45 36 31994 37 40 101995 34 40 61996 26 36 71997 33 42 91998 34 38 72001 46 24 232002 43 26 242003 42 29 26

Table A.9 Slovakia


1993 35 43 61994 44 39 51995 37 37 71996 31 35 61997 34 44 71998 46 38 52001 48 33 122002 47 33 142003 51 32 14

Table A.10 Estonia


1992 39 36 11993 32 37 21994 31 38 51995 29 38 51996 30 35 81997 24 57 101998 30 50 82001 24 47 212002 27 44 242003 30 42 23


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Table A.11 Hungary


1992 45 28 41993 34 34 61994 36 32 81995 32 28 81996 30 28 91997 33 32 111998 42 30 72001 51 31 122002 59 26 102003 45 35 17

Table A.12 Latvia


1992 46 30 11993 40 32 11994 40 32 41995 35 39 71996 35 29 111997 26 53 121998 33 46 62001 33 45 182002 37 32 262003 44 33 19

Table A.13 Lithuania


1992 55 20 01993 43 31 31994 45 33 21995 34 41 41996 23 31 31997 22 40 41998 34 38 72001 39 36 152002 41 39 142003 50 31 14


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Table A.14 Romania


1992 44 12 21993 55 16 51994 45 21 111995 51 25 61996 50 18 51997 65 21 21998 56 25 52001 70 17 52002 72 10 42003 75 13 4

Table A.15 Slovenia


1993 45 37 71994 30 39 151995 37 42 71996 35 36 131997 35 40 131998 40 40 92001 38 42 152002 43 37 122003 50 37 11

Table A.16 Cross-tabulation voting today in a referendum∗EU isgood for Poland

% (N) % (N) % (N)

Is good Is bad Other answer

Suppose voting todayFor joining 88.6% 4.9% 6.4%

(757) (42) (55)Against joining 15.2% 77.7% 7.1%

(58) (296) (27)Would not vote 26.8% 45.4% 27.8%

(26) (44) (27)

Supposing voting today in a referendum∗EU is good or bad for Poland.


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Table A.17 Coefficients and multicollinearity diagnostics

Dimension Tolerance VIF Condition index

Age .988 1.012 2.607Religion .986 1.015 2.889Political evaluation .903 1.107 3.420Economic evaluation .902 1.108 3.573Material household .943 1.060 3.757EU is good .938 1.066 4.462Country direction .944 1.059 5.148Regions .971 1.030 11.285

Source: (PNES, 2001).

Table A.18 Trust and distrust (Poland)

Trust anddistrust(%)

EU Officialsstate andlocalgovernment

PolishMPs

Membersof localcouncils

Newgovernment

Formergovernment(2004–2005)

NATO

Trust a lot 2.8 1.2 1 1.2 3.7 0.5 5.3Trust a little 48.3 30 15.1 32 36.4 13.2 49.5Distrust a

little25.8 44.7 46.5 39.7 23.2 42.4 20.4

Distrust alot

7.7 16.5 30.6 18.2 7.9 36.8 6.3

Source: 2005 PNES, variables ‘q92’.

Table A.19 Attitudes towards EU membership in Croatia (2003 European ValueSurvey)

B SE ExpB

Gender (1 = male) .301 .181 1.351∗

Age (range) −.053 .070 .448

Income rangeUp to 2,500 −.171 .317 .8422,500–4,000 −.355 .303 .7014,000–6,000 −.068 .257 .9346,000–8,000 .030 .256 .971(Over 8,000)

Region1 Zagreb .204 .308 1.2272 Central Croatia .085 .269 1.0893 Dalmatia .328 .291 1.389∗


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Table A.19 (Continued)

B SE ExpB

4 Rijeka, Istria .465 .335 1.592(Slavonia)

Political orientation (2003)Christian democracy .109 .661 1.115Communism .284 .891 1.328Conservatism .141 .846 1.151Liberalism −.492 .656 .611Nationalism .395 .741 1.484Social democracy −.494 .651 .610(Something else)

ProxiesSatisfied with democracyVery satisfied −1.393 .770 .248∗Mostly satisfied −.291 .262 .747Mostly dissatisfied −.090 .258 .914(Very dissatisfied)

Satisfaction with own life in general1 Very satisfied −.167 .556 .8462 Mainly satisfied .056 .487 1.0583 Both satisfied and dissatisfied .109 .504 1.1164 Mainly dissatisfied .014 .546 1.014(Very dissatisfied)

Evaluation of the past economic situationMuch better today −2.018 .620 .133∗∗A bit better today −1.053 .285 .349∗∗∗Mainly the same −.488 .278 .614∗A bit worse −.128 .294 .880(Much worse)

ReligiosityBeliever, accept all religious teachings 17.221 .311 3.014E7∗∗∗Believer, do not accept all religious

teachings17.058 .281 2.560E7∗∗∗

When I think about it, I am not sure Ibelieve

16.887 .479 2.157E7∗∗∗

I am not religious, but I do not haveanything against it

16.332 .000 1.239E7

(I am not religious and I am religionadversary)

–2 log likelihood 782.285.Chi square 107.367.Sig. 000. ∗Significant at the .10 level; ∗∗Significant at the.05 level; ∗∗∗Significant at the .01level.Source: 2003 European Values Survey (based on the Slomczynski and Shabad’s study, 2003,as covering similar variables to the study by Štulhofer, 2006, and enabling a comparison onhow patterns of attitudes toward the EU in Croatia are developing).


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Index

accession, 2, 3, 6, 8–23, 25–8, 30–3,35–8, 40–2, 44–57, 60–1, 64–74,79–81, 83–90, 95–6, 99, 101–2,104–9, 111–14, 116–44, 146–52,154–5, 158, 163, 165, 168–70,172–4, 176

affective, 3, 5, 8, 10, 14, 37, 45, 51–2,79, 95, 114, 123, 146–8

agriculture, 24, 56, 74apathy, 21, 76, 121attitude(s), 1–3, 5–7, 10–12, 14–17,

18–21, 20, 23, 24, 26–8, 30, 37,38–9, 44, 47, 48–9, 51–4, 53–4,56–7, 60–2, 66–7, 70, 72–3, 75, 80,82, 83, 84, 92, 97, 99, 101–3, 104,107–13, 116, 118, 120, 123, 125,126, 128–9, 132–3, 135–9, 140–1,143, 145, 147–9, 151–5, 161–3,166, 169, 172, 174–6

Balkans, 2, 18, 21, 23, 76, 81, 125,128–9, 132, 152

benefit(s)/ benefited/ benefiting, 3,8–9, 13, 15, 17, 19–20, 24, 26–31,34–5, 44, 50–2, 54–5, 61–2, 64–7,69, 72–3, 78–81, 85, 90, 101, 102,103, 108–9, 111, 117–19, 124,133, 138, 140, 142, 144–6, 148–9,155–6

Bulgaria/Bulgarian(s), 2, 23–5, 28–30,34, 75–7, 79, 81, 83–6, 89, 95–6,97, 99, 103, 108, 110, 114–17,126, 128, 139, 156–7, 168, 173–4

CBOS, 13–14, 16–17, 24, 27, 32–40,42–4, 46, 54–9, 60–4, 74, 81, 84,104, 109, 112, 115, 122, 139–40,153, 164–6, 173

Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)/Central and Eastern European,2–3, 7–8, 10–12, 16, 19–20, 21–5,27–9, 51, 59, 71, 74, 80, 83–5,

87–8, 90–1, 93, 94, 97, 100–1,103, 108, 111, 114, 117–18, 121,124, 127, 131, 137, 139, 140, 142,144, 145, 147–8, 147, 150, 163,166, 168, 171–3, 175

civil society, 22, 59, 97, 99, 105, 125,133, 141, 152, 168, 170

communism/communist, 2, 6, 8–9,11, 12, 18–19, 22–4, 27, 30, 35,43, 51–2, 59, 74, 78, 84, 91–2, 94,97, 99–100, 109, 119, 122, 124,126–8, 132, 135, 139, 142, 144,146, 152, 162, 167–71, 170,174, 176

post-communism, 169–70post-communist, 3, 9, 12, 14, 18,

20–1, 27, 31, 37, 51, 54, 67, 70,73–6, 78, 80–1, 83–4, 87, 90–1,95–7, 100, 102, 110, 121–7,134–5, 137–40, 142, 145–52,171–3, 175–6

Constitutional Treaty, 5, 53, 57–9,107, 115–16, 118–19, 141, 156

Constitutional Treaty referendum,58, 60

corruption, 74–6, 78, 81, 97, 104, 117,170, 173, 176

cost-benefit, 13–14, 38, 50, 64, 78, 146cost(s), 7, 22, 24–5, 28, 31–2, 34–5, 37,

45, 61, 64, 72, 76, 97, 118, 122,124–5, 128, 131, 134–6, 144,155–6

Council, 57, 110, 115, 119, 154, 166Croatia, 2, 25–6, 77, 79, 102, 122, 126,

128–9, 133–7, 141, 143, 161–2,169, 171–4

culture(s), 4, 21, 27, 75, 102, 111, 119,125, 145, 154, 163, 170–1,172, 175

cynicism, 168Eurocynicism, 170

cynics, 126

177


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178 Index

democracy, 8, 10, 74–6, 78, 92, 94,135–7, 151, 162–3, 170–3, 175–6

democratic deficit, 5, 10, 75, 121,146, 176

democratization, 10–12, 33, 74–6, 78,84, 92, 97, 104, 134–6

disengagement, 3, 84domestic, 1–3, 5, 7–10, 14–15, 17–20,

38–9, 42–5, 47–51, 54–5, 61, 64–9,71–4, 76, 80–1, 83, 87, 91, 93,96–9, 103, 105–6, 117, 119,124–5, 128, 132–3, 137–8, 141,146–52, 163, 172

domestic proxy, 48, 69, 72

economic proxy, 66, 71, 81,142–3, 152

efficiency, 75Euro, 123–4, 156, 167Eurobarometer, 9–10, 12, 14, 16, 97,

99, 110, 115, 117, 134Euroenthusiast(s), 30–1, 57, 65–7, 69,

87, 123, 125, 141, 146Euroenthusiastic, 6, 108

Eurogap(s), 83, 89, 91, 95, 103Eurojust, 78Euroneutral(s), 24, 30–1, 87, 122,

123–6, 146Euroneutrality, 54

European Commission, 95European Community, 24, 92, 174European Council, 2

see also CouncilEuropean Parliament (EP), 2–3, 6, 20,

53, 55–8, 65, 73, 77–8, 83–4,86–91, 94–9, 101, 103–6, 110,114–19, 138–9, 141, 144–6,149–51, 155–7, 163, 167, 168,171–4

European parliamentary elections,90, 95, 167

European Union (EU), 1, 14, 27, 36,163–4, 166–76

Europol, 78Euroscepticism, 2–3, 21, 25, 31, 54,

65, 69, 73, 79–80, 121–38, 141,143, 146, 149, 151

Eurozone, 73

focus group(s), 3, 15, 19, 31, 58, 64,88, 96, 99, 101–3, 107–19,138–42, 144–6, 148–9, 151–4,156, 163, 171

information, 3, 6–9, 12–13, 15–16, 21,24, 31, 34, 37–8, 43–4, 47, 50,56–8, 88, 90, 96, 99, 101–10,113–22, 125, 134, 138, 141–2,144–6, 149, 151, 155–6

integration, 1–3, 5–10, 13–16, 20–2,24–6, 30–4, 36–40, 42–5, 49–51,53, 55, 61–6, 70, 72–3, 78–82,84–5, 88, 90, 92, 96, 102–3,105–7, 109–10, 114, 117–20,123–5, 127–9, 131, 133–4, 136–7,139–42, 145, 147–53, 155, 163–4,168–76

legacy, 8, 51, 84, 91–2, 94–5, 97,99–100, 122, 126, 136, 151–2

legitimacy, 3, 5, 75, 117Lisbon Treaty, 99

membership, 1–2, 8, 10–16, 26–7, 29,31–42, 44–5, 47, 50–2, 53–5, 57–9,61–4, 66, 69, 73–4, 76, 78–81,84–5, 95, 99, 109, 114, 118–19,122–3, 125, 131, 133–4, 136–7,140–1, 143, 146–9, 151

national, 6–7, 9–10, 12, 14, 16, 20, 26,39–40, 42, 47–50, 53, 56, 64, 66,70–4, 76, 80–1, 86–90, 98–9, 102,105–6, 109, 117, 123–6, 128–9,132–7, 141–2, 148, 151

negotiations, 11, 21, 23, 25, 34, 37–8,43, 74, 76, 121–2, 127, 133,137–8, 144, 149

news, 103, 105–6, 117, 147, 149newspapers, 36, 57, 104–6, 113,

115, 119nomenklatura, 6

opposition, 1–2, 4–5, 20–1, 22–52,53–82, 86, 98, 109, 115, 121,123–5, 128–32, 134, 136, 139,146, 149–50, 152


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Index 179

passive, 49, 97perception, 9, 11, 19, 28–9, 34–5,

38–40, 42–3, 45, 47–50, 64, 74–6,80, 85–6, 92, 119, 121, 144,146, 152

Poland, 2, 6–7, 10–12, 14–15, 17–18,20, 22–32, 35–40, 42, 44–5,47–51, 53–7, 59–61, 64–7, 69–70,72–9, 83, 85, 87–9, 92, 96–7, 99,101–20, 121–3, 126–7, 129–34,136–7, 139, 141–3, 145, 148–9,151–2, 154

political proxy, 81populism, 121, 126–8, 138, 149–52,

168–9, 172–3, 175proxy, 19, 51, 72, 94, 147public opinion, 1–3, 6–8, 12, 16–17,

20, 23, 33, 35, 38–41, 44, 49, 53,56, 59–60, 66, 74, 84, 87, 95–6,104, 124–5, 128

ratio, 78referendum, 5–6, 13–16, 21, 31–2, 36,

40–1, 44–5, 47, 49, 51, 53, 55–60,66, 70–1, 79, 83–8, 99, 101–5,109, 114–15, 117, 119–20, 122,124–5, 134, 137–8, 140–1, 144,146, 149–50

religion, 1, 5, 17–18, 30, 48, 50, 54,66, 68–72, 109, 129, 132, 135–6,140, 142–3, 150

Romania, 2, 23, 25, 28–30, 53, 76, 79,83–4, 86, 96, 121, 126–7

Serbia, 2, 133Serbian, 133

support, 1–3, 5–12, 14–15, 17–21,22–52, 53–82, 83–5, 87, 92, 97,102, 106, 108–9, 111, 114,117–19, 122–4, 128–37, 139–45,147–50, 152

unconditional support, 3, 8, 19, 27,31, 35, 37, 42, 50–1, 66, 81–2,111, 114, 147, 152

transparency, 75trust, 18, 34, 42, 47, 73–8, 92, 97, 103,

113, 116–17, 126, 138, 145, 151–2turnout, 6, 16, 20, 40–1, 49, 53, 55,

57–8, 65, 70, 74, 76, 78, 83, 86–8,91–2, 95–100, 101–3, 105–6, 114,117–18, 122, 134, 138, 139,144–6, 149–51

utilitarian, 8–10, 14–15, 30, 39, 45, 48,51–2, 54, 62, 69, 73, 80–2, 114,147–8, 152

utilitarian proxy, 9, 15, 30, 39, 48, 52,54, 62, 69, 80, 147

volatility, 7, 12, 91, 121, 127


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central and eastern european attitudes in the face of union ||

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