“The Greeks are unbelievably negative about almost everything”
An interview with Pew Research Center’s Bruce Stokes on Europeans’ perceptions of NATO, their role in the world, EU integration, the refugee and financial crisis.
Bruce Stokes is Director of Global Economic Attitudes at Pew Research Center, where he assesses public views about economic conditions, foreign policy and values — including how people feel about the EU, how they feel about economic integration in Europe or how the EU is dealing with various issues.
Full interview transcript:
One of the major drivers behind European integration has been the French-German relationship. I was wondering what kind of changes have you managed to track?
What’s been interesting, not so much in the last year, but over the last few years is the growing divergence between French opinion on a range of issues and German opinion on a range of issues. Everything from “How do you feel about the economy?” to “How do you feel about the EU?” and other issues. I think, one of the questions that has arisen out of that research is: “Is France looking more and more like a southern European country in terms of public opinion?” That was not so much the case this year, but it was certainly the case last year and I think going forward one of the issues would be: “Is there a close relationship between German and French public opinion or is there a growing divergence between French and German public opinion?” and given the history of the European project, at least in the past, “the success of Paris and Berlin working together to make a successful European project.” If their publics are diverging in how they view the world, the countries viewing the world, the world of the EU etc.
What does this mean for Europe? We don’t know the answer, but it’s a certainly interesting question to ask ourselves. Well, for example, in the last year we saw in France, after a couple of years of favourability of the EU beginning to improve, still it was pretty bad, but there was a beginning to improve. (It’s dropped off again by 12 percentage points, which is a pretty significant drop in one year). So, this wasn’t the only European country where you saw a new drop off, but it does seem to me it’s one of those issues that bears watching, because support for the European project, no matter how you measure it, has been low for a number of years since the financial crisis, really. But it was beginning to come back, now it seems to drop off again.
We have asked in the past questions about “Do you think European economic integration has been good or bad for your country?” And this is what I would call the 1957 question. Now we signed the treaty of Rome, we going to break down barriers between our countries, this is going to be good for us all and people were less convinced of that in recent years than they had been in the past. So, it does seem to me that the public is telling us something in Europe that this project we don’t think that is paying off for us.
Now what was interesting and when we asked that question, we also asked about other aspects of the EU. “Do you think the EU brings peace?” Yes, people still believe that about the EU. So, some of the idealism about why a European community was first created in the aftermath of WWII? That still remains and people believe it brings peace to the region. It’s just that they aren’t so sure that it delivers the economic benefits that they once believed it did and that it obviously purported to do.
This year for the first time, we asked across Europe, as in the US and India, China, and Japan, we asked a variety of questions about global engagement to get a sense of how people felt themselves, but how they felt relative to other people as well and as you can imagine in a survey that covers 10 European countries, you had a wide variety of views. So, for example 62% of the Germans thought that Germany played a more important role in the world today than it did 10 years ago. Well, so it seems the Germans are feeling pretty good about Germany’s role in the world and I think you could argue quite objectively that’s probably true. The Greeks were far less happy about Greece’s role in the world, the Italians far less happy, so there was a wide variety of opinion inside Europe on that question.
Just as a reference point, I would tell you only 21% of Americans believe that the US is more important today than it was 10 years ago. So we actually were very low on that question, even relative, remember of European countries. We also asked people: “Do you think that global economic engagement is good for your country because it spares growth or do you think it’s bad for the country because it destroys jobs and lowers wages?”. Again, you got a variety of results, some of the more successful countries, Sweden, Germany, thought this was a good thing for the country. Some of the less successful countries like the Greeks thought it was a bad thing for the country. Across the board, Europeans actually were not so committed to this anymore. We don’t really have a reference point going back, but we have asked in the past about trade, just trade alone, and in the past roughly four-three quarters of the Europeans said trade is good for the country. We didn’t ask that question this year but the answer to the question we did ask would suggest that it may have gone down a bit, but as you know there’s more of a trade debate in Europe now, than there had been in the past, and obviously whatever the current debate is in a country tends to influence people’s public opinion. But I can tell you when we have asked in the past, we didn’t ask this year, but we’ve asked the past in Europe: “Do you think trade creates jobs creates jobs or destroys jobs, does it raise wages or lower wages?”
Again, you have a variety of answers in Europe. The southern European countries that have suffered most in the financial crisis and maybe never did quite as well even before the financial crisis, are more likely to take a jaundice view on the on the result of trade, whereas the Northern European countries, which tend to have done very well, both economically and in trade terms, they tend to be more positive towards these issues. Infact far more positive than say Americans are, but what is interesting is that, this year, and bear in mind we were in the field, in April and May, in Europe, so it was after the after the Paris attack, after the Brussels attack, people are very concerned about terrorism, also worried about the economy, they are relatively unconcerned about, or less concerned, not unconcerned, but relatively less concerned about Russia for example, in fact Americans are more concerned about Russia than the Europeans are, so that was kind of an interesting differential. The Poles for example are more worried about Russia than the Greeks, I suppose that, you know, is explainable, we asked people about refugees, people are quite concerned about refugees as a threat. What was fascinating this year in Europe, because we never asked that question before, because this year is the year where it is really a big issue, is countries like Poland, which have taken very, very few refugees, if any at all, were the most concerned about the threat posed by refugees, which actually bears out what we found in the United States, that the counties in the United States that have the lowest immigrant population, the smallest share of the population that are immigrants, are often the counties that have the greatest fear of immigrants. So it is ‘fear of the other’, is one of the other fears you see in Europe.
Can you tell me a little bit more about the thoughts of the rest of the European countries on refugees and how, say, the biggest countries are perceiving refugees?
What is interesting is that despite the overwhelming number of refugees that the Germans have absorbed, a million people in a very short period of time, the German anti-refugee backlashes is actually relatively low in general. Now, we did ask people all over Europe: do you think these refugees bring terrorism? Do the bring crime? Are they going to steal our jobs, and take our social benefits? People were worried about all those things, most worried about terrorism, than jobs and social benefits, the third lowest concern is crime, you get a wide variety of views on this, again, the countries that arguably have taken fewer refugees seem to be more worried about these things than the people… We were in the field after the Cologne New Year’s day crime wave driven by refugees, allegedly driven by refugees.
Nevertheless, the German population was relatively less concerned about crime than they were about other things from refugees. What was interesting is that, as I said, we saw a decline in support for the EU, as an institution across Europe, we asked people: how do you think the EU is handling a variety of issues and the issue that the public is most critical of the EU about is the handling of the refugees issue. They are also critical of the economy, how they are handling the economy or how they are handling Russia, but refugees was the principal complaint people had about how the EU might be managing a variety of issues. Well, what was interesting was we wanted to test, in Europe and compare it to the rest of the advanced and emerging market world, what would people be willing to support in terms of dealing with developing countries? What was interesting is, again you got a variety of views, I mean the Greeks were not willing to do much for other, for developing countries, the Greeks have had other more immediate problems to deal with. Other countries did a fair better, were more willing, but basically more than half the public in across these ten European countries, were willing to see their companies invest more in the developing countries, they were willing to import more products from developing countries, and they were willing to provide more foreign aid to developing countries.
Now, I would caution you that that question had no price tag attached to it. I think that if we were ever asked that question again, it might be useful to say for example, would you be willing to provide more foreign aid for developing countries, even if that means we have less to spend on Schools in our countries or on our medicine, I mean whatever, so that people are forced to go through some kind of budgetary exercise in their head, because what we know, and I can tell you that Europeans, the median in Europe, and the median number in Europe is actually higher than the media number in the United States, in terms of what people are willing to do, but generally people all over the world, in Japan, in China, in Europe, in the United States, people in principle are willing to do more for developing countries. We do know from questions, we have asked on other issues, that if you ask a principled question you get a principled response, so if you ask: is trade good the country, even two thirds of Americans say yes, then you ask people: well, does it create jobs? No, it doesn’t create jobs, no it doesn’t raise wages. So if you get a more detailed question you going to get a lower response. So, while I think it is interesting in principle Europeans, in general, support helping developing countries, no matter how to ask the question. We also asked Europeans: do you think our government should help other countries with their problems, or should we just deal with our own problems? And Europeans, like most people around the world except the Japanese, say no no, we should deal with our own problems first. Americans say that, Indians say that, so that is a kind of universally shared opinion for the most part, that you turn to your domestic issues first.
You tend to your domestic issues first.
Is there an age divide in the responses you got? Secondly, are rural areas more or less eurosceptic than cities?
It’s interesting, that’s a good question and frankly we haven’t analysed by rural or urban, and we probably should. But on the question of age we have analysed these questions. The Brexit-related question we asked was, not to ask people in Britain how they are gonna vote because you couldn’t ask people on the continent that question, so we asked people in Britain and on the Continent, “Do you want more power back from Brussels?” or “Do you think the power balance is about right?” or “Do you want to give more power to Brussels?” because that, I think arguably, was the issue around which the Brexit vote was turning. And 65% of the British said “we want more power back” while they were about to have a referendum, so bear in mind we asked this question before the referendum. What was interesting is that a median of four and ten on the continent said actually “we would like more power back from Brussels as well.” Now, frankly, we don’t know what people were thinking when they said that, I mean, which powers do they want back from Brussels, but we had asked in 2015 in Germany alone. Just in Germany, “do you want future trade agreements to be negotiated by Berlin or by Brussels?” Bear in mind that the Treaty of Rome in 1957 gave the power to negotiate trade agreements to Brussels. So the Germans were telling us this, whatever that is, this 60-year-old power we want back. So there clearly is a minority of people in the non-Brexit countries who are uneasy with the power balance within Europe between Brussels and the national capitals. I think it would be interesting to see how that plays out in their domestic politics, you already have eurosceptic parties saying “we want powers back from Brussels” and we’ll just see how that plays out in the forthcoming elections where those eurosceptic parties gain enough power to actually be able to demand that.
Now, what was interesting is that generally people on the right more than people on the left.. Now it’s people on the left in Spain and Greece who wanted more power back from Brussels but for the most part it was people on the right who said “we more power back from Brussels” and when you think about some of the eurosceptic parties in some of the countries, AfD in Germany and the Front Nationale in France, these are more-than-right-of-center political parties.
Basically what we’ve found is that older people were more critical of the EU, older people were more likely to want powers back than younger people. I mean it’s clear in a number of these countries that a younger generation is just more European-friendly, more at ease with the Europe that has become after two or so generations, than older people. Now this is also because they probably travel more, they have more communications with other… Many of them have studied abroad. What’s interesting though is that this is the case even in places like Greece or Spain or Italy where you have huge unemployment rates among young people. So you might expect that they would even be more bitter than their elders. But it’s not the case. As we say in English, they’ve “drunk the Kool Aid”. They believe in this even though arguably it hasn’t delivered for them.
What trend has surprised you the most?
Not this year, but we have for a number of years asked about support for the Euro. Should our country stay in the Euro, should we go back to the Deutsche Mark, should we go back to the Lira, should we go back to the Drachma? And what was interesting throughout the post-financial crisis period is that in the most countries support for the Euro was unwavering. Whatever the number was, 66% said we should keep that, it did not really change. We did not ask that question this year, I think we will ask this question next year, but because it’s becoming more and more of an issue again. But what is interesting is, that there was an one-year-period where support for the Euro in Italy dropped precipitously. So only about a half of the population wanted to keep the Euro and people in southern Italy particularly did not want the Euro, as if having the Lira was so good for southern Italy in the past. But then it bounced back. And it will be interesting, Italy being a perfect example, where the debate about staying in the Euro has actually began to heat up again. To my mind that was interesting.
The other thing is, that we’ve asked over a number of years this question: “Is European economic immigration good for your country?” And the declining support for that over time was striking. That’s the very fundamental essence of the European community. Saying that “we’ll do this and you will all be better off as a result” but people do not believe this anymore. What was interesting this year was, after seeing attitudes towards the favourablility of the EU seem to bottom out in 2013 in a number of countries. Then it kinda began to crawl back up in 2014 and it was a little higher in 2015 and dropped off again in 2016. I wouldn’t have anticipated that, I think. And I think in retrospect that was because of the perceived mishandling of the refugee crisis. So it does suggest that any of these elements can be very subject to events that are unanticipated.
I can tell you, the other finding that was most striking and has nothing to do with the EU, but with the other European and Transatlantic institution called NATO. Last year we asked the question “Would you be willing to go to the defence of a NATO ally if it was attacked by Russia?” This is for those of your viewers who understand these things called the “Article 5 Question”. It is article 5 of the NATO Treaty that you are committed by treaty to go to defence of a NATO ally. 58% percent of Germans said “no”. Half of the French and the Italians said “no” and only half of the British said “yes”. Whereas 56% of Americans said “we would go to the defence of a NATO ally if attacked.” So what was interesting, first, is that there was a whole lot of support in major NATO countries to go to the defence of a NATO ally and second, no one had ever asked that question in the seventy years of NATO. Which is also quite striking when you think about it. No one had the courage to ask that question. And we had a major polster in Europe saying to me “you are not going to release the results, are you?” And I thought, that’s exactly why we are going to release the results! Because this is a question we need to know how the public thinks.
By the way the Greeks have the most favourable view of Russia of any the ten surveyed countries that we survey in. And the most favorable view of Putin. I mean, we don’t know why this is, because the rest of Europe is perceived to “have been so mean to us,” is it because of the Orthodox church connection? We don’t know why. One of the other limitations of survey researches is that you don’t know why the respondent gave you the answer they did. You ask them a question, they give you an answer. And frankly they might not know why they gave you that answer, it’s just what they felt when you asked the question. What our survey have shown is the depths of the impact of the financial crisis on Greek public opinion. That the Greeks are unbelievably negative about almost everything. It is an incredibly gloomy view of the world, whether you are asking them about how the economy is doing or the EU is doing or whatever the question. They are unbelievably depressed. And given the financial situation in Greece, given what’s transpired over the last few years, I think that’s probably understandable, but it does suggest that the Greek public opinion is significantly different than the public opinion in any other European countries, even in other southern European countries, who have arguably also suffered, not nearly as much as Greece, but clearly the impact on Greek public opinion has been far worse than any of the other countries that we survey.
62% of the Germans thought that Germany played a more important role in the world today than it did 10 years ago. Well, so it seems the Germans are feeling pretty good about Germany’s role in the world and I think you could argue quite objectively that’s probably true. The Greeks were far less happy about Greece’s role in the world, the Italians far less happy, so there was a wide variety of opinion inside Europe on that question. Just as a reference point I would tell you only 21% of Americans believe that the US is more important today than it was 10 years ago.
We have asked in the past questions about “Do you think European economic integration has been good or bad for your country?” And this is what I would call the 1957 question. Now we signed the treaty of Rome, we gonna break down barriers between our countries, this is going to be good for us all and people were less convinced of that in recent years than they had been in the past.
What was fascinating this year in Europe, because we never asked that question before, because this year is the year where it is really a big issue, is countries like Poland, which have taken very, very few refugees, if any at all, were the most concerned about the threat posed by refugees, which actually bears out what we found in the United States: that the counties in the United States that have the lowest immigrant population, the smallest share of the population that are immigrants, are often the counties that have the greatest fear of immigrants. So it is ‘fear of the other’, is one of the other fears you see in Europe.
A younger generation is just more European-friendly, more at ease with the Europe that has become after two or so generations, than older people. Now this is also because they probably travel more, they have more communications with other… Many of them have studied abroad. What’s interesting though is that this is the case even in places like Greece or Spain or Italy where you have huge unemployment rates among young people. So you might expect that they would even be more bitter than their elders. But it’s not the case. As we say in English, they’ve “drunk the Kool-Aid”. They believe in this even though arguably it hasn’t delivered for them.
What was interesting this year was, after seeing attitudes towards the favourablility of the EU seem to bottom out in 2013 in a number of countries. Then it kinda began to crawl back up in 2014 and it was a little higher in 2015 and dropped off again in 2016. I wouldn’t have anticipated that, I think. And I think in retrospect that was because of the perceived mishandling of the refugee crisis.
What our survey have shown is the depths of the impact of the financial crisis on Greek public opinion. That the Greeks are unbelievably negative about almost everything. It is an incredibly gloomy view of the world, whether you are asking them about how the economy is doing or the EU is doing or whatever the question. They are unbelievably depressed. And given the financial situation in Greece, given what’s transpired over the last few years, I think that’s probably understandable, but it does suggest that the Greek public opinion is significantly different than the public opinion in any other European countries, even in other southern European countries, who have arguably also suffered, not nearly as much as Greece, but clearly the impact on Greek public opinion has been far worse than any of the other countries that we survey.
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