PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR THE EUROPEAN UNION IN THE CURRENT CONTEXT: PRELIMINARY REMARKS

• Main Author: Iuliana-Lacramioara TINCU
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Romanian Foundation for Business Intelligence 2017-12-01
• Series: Cross-Cultural Management Journal
• Subjects: European Union; Public support; European integration; Euroscepticism
• Online Access: http://seaopenresearch.eu/Journals/articles/CMJ2017_I2_9.pdf

The European Union appears, in the context of a conceptual and transformational change, in the shape of a fluid structure that is continuously shaped by a wide variety of factors. Under the current redefining process, the present article pursues the amplitude of the social force in the Union’s configuration. The EU can be currently viewed as a reality found at crossroads, due to a growing fragility of public support for integration and the increasing contestation of the EU through the amplification of Eurosceptic attitudes and the rising popularity of the populist-nationalist parties. In the conditions of a populism-terrorism-migration triad that is threatening the European integration project, this article represents an attempt to provide a preliminary insight on the forces that shape the configuration of this supranational structure, with regard to the factors that are accountable for the growing scepticism among the European citizens and have shifted the citizens’ approach on the EU from a permissive consensus to a constraining dissensus.