Making or Breaking the Union? European Collective Identity in Times of Migrant and Refugee Crisis

This paper analyzes public opinion in the European Union (EU) before and after the 2015 refugee and migrant crisis. The central question is how changing attitudes toward migration in this period are linked to collective European identity. Analysis of cross-national survey data indicates that while levels of national and supranational identification remain fairly stable, there have been important shifts in the external delimitation of the community. In recent years, EU citizens have developed an increasingly less favorable view of non-EU migrants but perceptions of internal migrants have become more positive. At the same time, preference for common rules on migration has decreased significantly. This paper examines this puzzle from the point of view of European collective identity and argues that we might be witnessing the emergence of a new kind of identification, substantially different from the traditionally envisaged civic loyalty in the EU.