A blessing and a curse? Examining public preferences for differentiated integration
| Author | Lisanne De Blok,Catherine E. De Vries |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14651165221133671 |
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
A blessing and a curse?
Examining public
preferences for
differentiated integration
Lisanne De Blok
School of Governance, Utrecht University,
Utrecht, the Netherlands
Catherine E. De Vries
Department of Social and Political Sciences,
Bocconi University, Milan, Italy
Abstract
This study examines public preferences for two forms of differentiated integration (DI):
opt-outs and multi-speed EU. Due to the low salience of DI in domestic politics, we sug-
gest that people use ideological benchmarks when forming opinions about DI mostly
relating to their general predispositions towards the EU. While pro-EU citizens are
more in favor of DI in the form of multiple speeds as this might pose a solution to over-
come gridlock, Euroskeptic citizens display more support for opt-outs as a means to
accommodate concerns about national identity and control. These differences are in
turn accentuated by people’s left-right ideology. We test our hypotheses using public
opinion data from the Eurobarometer between 2004 and 2018 and complete it with
novel survey data. Our results suggest that while support for DI has increased in recent
years, DI preferences largely coincide with ideological predispositions. Our findings indi-
cate that rather than overcoming preference heterogeneity within the EU, DI might
entrench existing fault lines.
Keywords
Differentiated integration, EU support, public opinion
Corresponding author:
Lisanne De Blok, School of Governance, Utrecht University, Bijlhouwerstraat 6, 3511 ZC Utrecht,
the Netherlands.
Email: e.a.deblok@uu.nl
Article
European Union Politics
2023, Vol. 24(1) 143–163
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/14651165221133671
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Introduction
As European Union (EU or Union) member states have become more interconnected over
the last decades, their political, economic and social trajectories have grown further apart.
Northern and southern member states disagree over how to share the economic burden
and regain competitiveness, while governments between East and West disagree over
democracy and human rights. As citizens’experiences with the EU diverged, different
people came to want different things from the Union. In various member states, national
government leaders today face considerable opposition to European solutions from citi-
zens who have grown distrustful of the EU –the “Euroskeptics”. The even deeper
problem is that Euroskeptics in North and South or East and West have sharply different
views about how to move forward with the European project (De Vries, 2018). In other
words, considerable heterogeneity exists between and within member states in terms of
preferred policy directions, including both the scope and speed of EU integration policies
(Gabel, 1998; Hooghe and Marks, 2005; Kuhn, 2015; Nicoli, 2019). Hence, the EU needs
to reconcile radically different views about the appropriate scope and depth of integration
that exist both across and within member states. At the same time, it needs to secure and
revive public support for the European project to make its future sustainable.
Various scholars have argued that differentiated integration (DI) may be a viable solu-
tion to accommodate the heterogeneity in preferences (Bellamy and Kröer, 2017). DI is a
key part of the EU’s political and legal framework (Gänzle et al., 2019). The Eurozone
and Schengen Area are just two important examples of DI. When it comes to decisions
on DI, the public is also often involved. Telling examples are the referendums on opt-outs
held in Ireland and Denmark (Hobolt, 2009). Yet, with the exception of a few recent
studies (Leuffen et al., 2020; Telle et al., 2022), we know little about public support
for DI (see also Schimmelfennig et al., 2023). This is surprising given the importance
that is generally attached to DI as a solution to the growing heterogeneity between and
within EU member states. However, it can only be a solution when DI aligns with the
preferences of at least a majority of EU citizens. Building on a classical insight from
the EU support literature that people are generally less informed about and interested
in EU politics and rely on benchmarks to make up for these informational shortfalls
(Anderson, 1998; De Vries, 2018; Kritzinger, 2003; Sànchez-Cuenca, 2003), we
suggest that people use their general ideological predispositions to form opinions
about DI. Due to the fact that DI is not highly salient in domestic politics (Telle et al.,
2022), we argue that people make up for a lack of knowledge about DI by extrapolating
from their general ideological predispositions. These ideological predispositions are more
readily retrievable in their minds and serve as benchmarks to determine how to reason
about DI (Anderson, 1998; De Vries, 2018; Kritzinger, 2003; Sànchez-Cuenca, 2003).
While focusing on public preferences for two forms of DI, multi-speed EU and
opt-outs, we theoretically argue and empirically substantiate that pro-EU citizens are
more in favor of DI based on multiple speeds because this form of DI can be seen as a
solution to overcome gridlock. From this viewpoint, DI is a way to move European inte-
gration forward and aligns with their pro-EU ideological predisposition. Euroskeptic citi-
zens, however, display more support for opt-outs because this form of DI can be seen as a
144 European Union Politics 24(1)
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