Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP15021
Authors: Sebastian Blesse; Massimo Bordignon; Pierre Boyer; Piergiorgio Carapella; Friedrich Heinemann; Eckhard Janeba; Anasuya Raj
Abstract: We explore the potential for six well-known reform proposals in the European Union such as Eurobonds and European Unemployment insurance through a survey of members of national parliaments in France, Germany and Italy in 2018. In addition, we address three institutional reforms and fiscal policies: a new tax-based own resource for the EU budget, majority voting of the European council on tax policy, and the extension of legislative initiative to the European Parliament. We find that (i) nationality and party alliance are key determinants of reform preferences, but the latter dominates quantitatively the former; (ii) on average Italian politicians and members belonging to the Socialists and Democrats group are much more in favour of further European integration than German policymakers and those from the European People’s Party group; and (iii) populist parties in Germany and Italy have radically different views on the future of Europe. In the last part of the paper, we compare the answers for the same questions to the answers made by French and German parliament members in 2016. We find that (iv) there is considerable stability of views over time.
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Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| party alliance (D71) | reform preferences (D72) |
| Italian politicians (F55) | European integration (F15) |
| German politicians (F55) | European integration (F15) |
| populist parties (D72) | views on EU integration (F55) |
| AfD (Y60) | oppose EU integration (F55) |
| M5S and Lega (D72) | support EU policies (F55) |
| nationality (F52) | reform preferences (D72) |
| party ideology (D72) | support for EU reforms (F55) |
| views stability (P27) | preferences over time (D11) |