There's a fantastic and depressing new survey out from Pew Global (via Cardiff Garcia) examining the attitudes of Europeans towards the European Project (AKA: the EU).
What it finds, not too surprisingly, is that there's been a tremendous decline in support for the European Project during the crisis, and that the last year was especially bad.
As you can see in this table, every single country polled (except the Czech Republic) has seen a decline in support for the EU from last year to this year. Spain and France have seen support totally collapse. Favorable ratings of the EU in Greece have dropped from the basement to cistern. The median level of support across the countries polled is down to 45%.
This chart takes the same numbers going back a bit further, and you can see the steady decline throughout the economic crisis.
The report is very broad and very grim. The multi-year economic crisis (which is showing no signs of ebbing) is threatening to upend a project of European integration that's taken place over decades.
It's no surprise that in 2013, the politics have begun to turn in a sharp anti-Eurozone, anti-EU direction.
In Italy we saw the rise of Beppe Grillo's rebellious 5-Star Movement. In recent local elections in the UK, the anti-EU UKIP party surged at the expense of conservatives.
And in Germany, everyone will be watching the fortunes of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), an anti-Euro party rising in the polls whose argument is that the Euro must be destroyed in order to save Europe.
Looking at these numbers, it's hard to argue that they're wrong. The Euro needs to be radically altered in short order to avoid destroying a project that won the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing Europe together.
What it finds, not too surprisingly, is that there's been a tremendous decline in support for the European Project during the crisis, and that the last year was especially bad.
As you can see in this table, every single country polled (except the Czech Republic) has seen a decline in support for the EU from last year to this year. Spain and France have seen support totally collapse. Favorable ratings of the EU in Greece have dropped from the basement to cistern. The median level of support across the countries polled is down to 45%.
This chart takes the same numbers going back a bit further, and you can see the steady decline throughout the economic crisis.
The report is very broad and very grim. The multi-year economic crisis (which is showing no signs of ebbing) is threatening to upend a project of European integration that's taken place over decades.
It's no surprise that in 2013, the politics have begun to turn in a sharp anti-Eurozone, anti-EU direction.
In Italy we saw the rise of Beppe Grillo's rebellious 5-Star Movement. In recent local elections in the UK, the anti-EU UKIP party surged at the expense of conservatives.
And in Germany, everyone will be watching the fortunes of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), an anti-Euro party rising in the polls whose argument is that the Euro must be destroyed in order to save Europe.
Looking at these numbers, it's hard to argue that they're wrong. The Euro needs to be radically altered in short order to avoid destroying a project that won the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing Europe together.
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