EU crises as 'Catalysts of Europeanization'? Insights from Eurobarometer data in Romania on the impact of the refugee crisis and Brexit

Abstract

For the last decade, the EU was confronted with an unprecedented series of subsequent and often overlapping crises - the constitutional crisis, the Euro crisis, the massive influx of migrants and refugees and last but not least, the Brexit referendum. They were all very different in structure, but they had a common element - they put to test the European Union’s (EU) legitimacy. The main assumption of the study is that these recent crises in the EU directly influence the debates in the national public spheres, and affect the way in which solidarity among EU citizens and EU states is imagined and enacted in media. Thus, the study aims to explain variation in the Romanian public opinion for the period 2014 to 2017. It identifies exogenous factors that relate to the EU polity, its policies and national politics and how they shaped public debate in Romania around two main Pan-European crises - the refugee crisis and Brexit. The paper discusses the impact of the two crises on the Romanians’ level of trust in EU institutions and assesses possible causes of this 'superficial Euro-enthusiasm' on the overall context of the Europeanization of public sphere in Romania. The findings are discussed in light of three main conditions of a Europeanized national public sphere: the role of Romanian media in building EU legitimacy; very high levels of polarization and contestation around the 2 topics of common concern; and a clear 'European dimension' that transcends national topics.