Is this crisis different? Attitudes towards EU fiscal transfers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic
| Author | Markus Haverland,Reinout van der Veer,Michal Onderco |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14651165221112988 |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Is this crisis different?
Attitudes towards EU fiscal
transfers in the wake of the
COVID-19 pandemic
Markus Haverland
Department of Public Administration and Sociology,
Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Reinout van der Veer
Department of Political Science, Radboud University Nijmegen,
Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Michal Onderco
Department of Public Administration and Sociology,
Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands;
Peace Research Center Prague, Charles University, Czech Republic
Abstract
To mitigate the enormous and asymmetric economic implications of the COVID-19 pan-
demic, the EU has adopted an unprecedented €750 billion fiscal transfer programme,
financed by joint member state liabilities. The highly contested decision pitted ‘frugal’nor-
thern member states against ‘profligate’southern member states. However, do citizens
from northern countries view EU transfers as unfavourably as their governmental posi-
tions suggest? This article focuses on the crucial case of the Netherlands, whose govern-
ment has become the assertive leader of the ‘frugal’coalition. We test COVID-19 specific
explanations based on a large-scale survey conducted at the height of the pandemic. Our
analysis suggests that citizens who experience the non-material health and social effects of
the pandemic more directly are more supportive of fiscal transfers than those to whom
the pandemic is more abstract, whereas those who experience negative financial effects
and those who believe that COVID-19 is a conspiracy are less supportive.
Corresponding author:
Michal Onderco, Department of Public Administration and Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam,
Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, Rotterdam 3000DR, The Netherlands.
Email: onderco@essb.eur.nl
Article
European Union Politics
2022, Vol. 23(4) 680–699
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14651165221112988
journals.sagepub.com/home/eup
Keywords
COVID-19, deservingness, European Union, public opinion, redistribution
Introduction
Anticipating an economic crisis that would dwarf the 2008 Great Recession, the
European Union (EU) scrambled to come up with a joint response to mitigate the socio-
economic consequences of COVID-19. Despite heavy contestation, the European
Council decided on a recovery package of €750 billion financed through EU-issued
bonds, NextGenerationEU, in July 2020. The step towards debt-financed EU fiscal pol-
icies might be temporary but could also evolve into a more permanent feature, a new
major step in EU integration, shaking up the EU’s‘constitutional equilibrium’
(Moravcsik, 2005), and further penetrating core state powers (Genschel and
Jachtenfuchs, 2018). The recovery package implies a sizeable redistribution of financial
resources across member states (ECB, 2020).
The decision for large-scale fiscal transfers to cope with COVID-19 and the unprece-
dented step to accrue significant debt met with a heavily politicized environment. The
‘politicization’of European integration (De Wilde et al., 2016; van der Veer and
Haverland, 2019) and the associated rise of Eurosceptic public opinion (Hobolt and de
Vries, 2016) and Eurosceptic political parties (Braun et al., 2019; de Vries and Hobolt,
2020) have replaced the ‘permissive consensus’(Lindberg and Scheingold, 1970: 62)
with a ‘constraining dissensus’(Hooghe and Marks, 2009: 22). Public opinion matters
significantly in the calculation of political actors and due to polarization has become sig-
nificant for decision making.
The conflict over whether and under what conditions the economic burdens of the pan-
demic should be shared has divided the governments of the EU member states across
trenches dug in 2008 (Iversen et al., 2016). The EU response to the European sovereign
debt crisis (henceforth, Eurocrisis) has created narratives of ‘northern saints’and ‘south-
ern sinners’(Matthijs and McNamara, 2015), which have been echoed by small northern
countries, the so-called ‘frugal four’. These ‘frugal’countries initially opposed fiscal
transfers and then favoured loans under strict conditions using the European Stability
Mechanism, as opposed to providing grants and joint borrowing through so-called
Coronabonds (Walker and Schaart, 2020). Given the increased politicization of the
EU, one might assume that northern political leaders are constrained by Eurosceptic
publics. Cross-national research prior to the pandemic has demonstrated that a member
state’s economic performance and (perceived) position as potential net-contributor or net-
beneficiary do influence their citizens’opinion regarding whether and under what condi-
tions international redistribution should occur. At the same time, that research has also
documented significant differences within individual countries associated with identity,
political values, cueing effects, and, to a lesser extent, material considerations.
This article adds to the literature by testing explanations specific to this crisis. It is
based on the assumption that the causes of the COVID-19 pandemic differ from those
of the 2008 Eurocrisis in an important aspect: the first economic downturn originated
Haverland et al. 681
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