Public Support for EU Targeted Welfare Assistance: The Role of Socio-Economic Status and Poverty Blame Attributions

Since the Eurozone crisis, the political and academic debate has resurfaced on whether the EU should take responsibility for the living standards of European citizens, in particular the most vulnerable. In this respect, the EU has expressed its ambition to strengthen its social dimension by the proclamation of the European Pillar of Social Rights and its translation into concrete policy initiatives (European Commission, 2017). However, building a ‘Social Europe’ have become a particularly contested aspect of European integration since it redraws the boundaries of welfare, which have been traditionally defined by national welfare states. Against this background, this study sheds light on the rationales behind public support for EU-level policies aimed to support vulnerable groups across the EU. Drawing on original cross-national survey data in 10 EU countries, we investigate to what extent support for EU welfare assistance to the poor, disadvantaged children and the unemployed is driven by socio-economic status and poverty blame attributions. The study disentangles individual and cross-national dynamics of blame attributions by disentangling perceptions about the causes of poverty on the one hand and perceptions of countries’ mismanagement of public finances on the other hand. The results provide new insights into the democratic legitimacy of Social Europe.