EU Solidarity and Risk-Sharing in the COVID-19 Crisis. Results of a Conjoint Experiment in Five Countries

In July 2020, the European Council agreed on a historic €750 billion recovery plan to tackle the unprecedented public health and economic crisis following the global COVID-19 pandemic. While the leaders of some member states were concerned about moral hazard and a potential Eurosceptic backlash of their voters, we actually know little about whether European citizens support European reforms to tackle this crisis and under which conditions such joint responses are perceived as legitimate. To answer this question, we conducted a conjoint experiment on public support for European solidarity and risk-sharing in the fight against the coronavirus in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. This experiment enables us to analyse to what extent public support is sensitive to key dimensions of the Eu recovery fund, such as European debt emission and repayment mechanisms, and how support is structured within and across countries.