
«As shown by a 2017 Eurobarometer survey, despite longstanding problems, a majority of Europeans (56%) are optimistic about the future of the EU and trust in the EU continues to rise, standing at 42% (36% in autumn 2016)»
At the aggregate level, the majority of MPs believes that the nature of the post-2008 crisis is both political and economic. Turning to the possible solutions of the current European crisis, interesting cross-country and cross-partisan differences appear.
The survey was targeted on a sample of representatives in the national parliaments of seven European countries: France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Country samples were designed in order to be as most representatives as possible of the actual composition of the national parliaments in terms of partisan affiliation. The survey was conducted between March 2017 and May 2018 adopting the CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interviews) method. The infographics show cross-country and cross-partisan distributions of frequencies of the political elites’ attitudes and make mass-elite comparisons that allow us to analyse similarities and differences between the opinions of the representatives and their electorate. It does so by comparing the results of this survey to those of a public opinion survey conducted by the REScEU project in the same seven countries in September-November 2016.
Photo credits Flickr CC: j_arlecchino
«As shown by a 2017 Eurobarometer survey, despite longstanding problems, a majority of Europeans (56%) are optimistic about the future of the EU and trust in the EU continues to rise, standing at 42% (36% in autumn 2016)»