A brief description of the study, taken from the introduction of the paper noted that it was “based on a unique survey conducted between December 2016 and February 2017 examining attitudes to the EU, as well as to the state of domestic and European politics and society, in 10 countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK.”
Data revealed an important divide in general attitudes, beliefs and life experiences. The elite are more likely to experience the benefits of EU integration and are more liberal and optimistic.
“Meanwhile, there is simmering discontent within the public, large sections of whom view the EU in negative terms, want to see it return some powers to member states, and feel anxious over the effects of immigration. Only 34 percent of the public feel they have benefited from the EU, compared with 71 percent of the elite,” the study pointed out.
The survey covered two groups of which one was a representative sample of the general public in each country, comprising respondents aged 18 or over, using gender, age and geographical quotas, with 10 195 respondents surveyed online.
A sample elite, comprising of individuals in positions of influence at local, regional, national and European levels across four key sectors, approximately 180 from each country, were surveyed through a mix of telephone, face-to-face and online interviews.
The elite survey predominantly targeted those based in EU member states rather than in Brussels or the EU institutions. It revealed the strak public/elite divide on immigration.
Elites are mostly protected from the bad consequences of immigration, but not from its benefits, while the opposite is true for most people in the general public.
A study showed a similar phenomenon in the US, although there is less opposition to immigration overall.
Given how much opposition there is to immigration in Europe, it is most striking is that, on every single point raised in the US poll too, people in the public are right and the elites are wrong. The immigration of poor, unskilled and non-Western people, is what the general public have in mind when they complain about immigration.
The sophisticates on the other hand, claim the public is mistaken about immigration. They ascribe the hostility to immigration among the public, to bigotry and ignorance.
But if immigration really doesn’t make crime worse, why did the French government under prime minister Lionel Jospin give instructions to the police not to release any names when communicating to the press or why do journalists systematically replace non-French names by French names when they write on crime.
Strikingly there is a lack of consensus among the elite on important questions about the EU’s direction. “While the elite overwhelmingly feel they have benefited from the EU, they are far from united in their attitudes to further integration,” the Chatham study showed.
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