There is a popular perception that poorer European regions have less trust in the EU than richer ones. Sofia Vasilopoulou and Liisa Talving, relying on data from a new study, found the way to demonstrate the non-linear relationship between regional inequality and trust in the EU, according to the LSE.
Globalisation and the transformation from industrialisation to an economy of knowledge and innovation have created a climate of inequality. Some regions of Europe experience concentrations of high-wage and high-skilled employment, better quality public services and generally better prospects for intergenerational mobility.
However, other regions suffered the negative effects of globalisation, deindustrialisation and depopulation, facing long-term pressure from declining manufacturing employment. They tend to be disconnected from knowledge and innovation and have lower levels of wages, skills and educational attainment.
Researchers often link the economic condition of regions to the level of trust in the EU, but dissatisfaction with the bloc’s activities is also observed among rich regions and those that receive insufficient compensation from the EU.
The study of trust in the EU focused on middle-income regions as well as three measures of regional inequality: regional wealth status, regional wealth growth and regional wealth growth at various levels of wealth status.
Confidence in the EU in 2019 ranged from 12 per cent in Yorkshire and the Humber region in the UK to 85 per cent in Salzburg in Austria. The lowest average GDP in 2019 was recorded in the North West region of Bulgaria and the highest in Luxembourg.
The relationship between trust in the EU and a region’s prosperity status is non-linear. The level of trust is the highest among wealthy regions in Europe, remains more moderate in poorer regions, but is the lowest in middle-income regions.
The predicted probability of trusting the EU is 78 per cent for individuals from the highest income region and 54 per cent for individuals from the lowest income region in the sample (Luxembourg in 2019 and Northwest Bulgaria in 2015, respectively). However, middle-income regions are lagging behind: the probability of trusting the EU for the average regional wealth level is only 47 per cent.
Vasilopoulou and Talving note that intra-regional growth over time is associated with higher levels of EU trust.
The level of trust in the EU increases as regional wealth grows. The highest confidence probabilities are recorded in regions that have experienced moderate to significant wealth growth, although they begin to decline again in regions with very large wealth growth, potentially indicating a ceiling effect.
The probability of trusting the EU is 25 per cent for the region that has undergone the largest negative change in well-being over the study period and 55 per cent for the region that has witnessed the largest positive change. For a region with medium growth, the probability of trusting the EU is 50 per cent.
The link between growth and trust in the EU is much more pronounced among poor and medium regions compared to rich regions. While poor and middle-income regions start with relatively low probabilities of EU trust, the predicted probabilities increase as they experience greater wealth growth.
In rich regions, on the other hand, political trust remains stable no matter how large the income growth is. Europeans living in middle-income regions are least likely to trust the EU, but this confidence depends not only on wealth status but also on wealth growth.
Overall, the results of the study show that Euroscepticism is not a phenomenon of a poor region: rather, it is primarily found in regions whose development has reached a dead end. Scholars should reconsider the simplified distinction between the “losers” (poor) and “winners” (rich) of globalisation.
Focusing on growth and growth prospects, one can conclude that Euroscepticism can be found simultaneously in relatively rich and much less prosperous regions. This is due to the problem of stagnation and lack of growth.
Citizens understand politics through their life experiences and processes within the community. Localised economic experience shapes the perception of the political world.
