Citizens and Europe

Despite the activities of the EU and national institutions as well as intermediate institutions and actors, research as well as opinion surveys diagnose a growing gap between what has been termed “EU elites” and EU citizens. The EU has a legitimacy problem, support rates have been decreasing during the peak of the financial crisis and despite the economic situation improving, votes for populist, extremist, anti-EU and anti-democrat parties and movements are on the rise throughout the EU. At the same time, the Europeanisation of politics and decision making continues to impact and transform the national democratic systems of the member states. What are the reasons behind this gap between “EU elites” and citizens? How can they be researched? The paper presents a research design for comparative citizen focus group discussions in different EU countries. I is argued that open research designs (such as in focus groups) can deliver new and well-based findings about the sources of contemporary EU-criticism and the character of the oft-cited gap between EU elites and average citizens, especially if the countries involved can be considered as representative for the EU altogether as they come from a representative selection of EU countries.