Explaining Public Support for the Euro

The issue of public support for the European single currency is crucial. Because of its very nature, the euro’s legitimacy and survival are dependent on the degree of political and public support it enjoys. Moreover, with the recent economic crisis, these questions about the legitimacy and the future of the single currency have become particularly salient. In light of the above, it is astonishing to note that only a few works have studied the citizens’ attitudes towards the euro. The goal of this article is to fill this gap. It intends to study the degree of public support for the euro and its evolution in time, as well as analysing the factors that can explain this support. In order to do so, three classical theoretical approaches that explain the citizens’ support for European integration in general are taken into account: the utilitarian approach, the identity approach and the cue-taking approach. This distinguishes this work from the majority of previous studies that consider only the economic factors when explaining support for the euro. Data from the May 2017 Eurobarometer survey is used to test these three approaches. The results from models of logistic regressions highlight the relevance of all those three theoretical approaches to explain public support for the single currency. Moreover, it is worth noting that the support mechanisms are not quite the same when comparing individuals from the Eurozone to people outside the Eurozone.