Trust and European Integration in Times of Crises: Comparing the Eurozone and Covid-19 Crises

Do levels of trust become catalysts for European integration in times of crises? The purpose of this paper is to explore the way trust impacts the trajectory of European integration by exploring the nexus between trust in national governments and trust in the European Union during two major EU-wide crises: the Eurozone fiscal crisis (2009-2012) and the Covid-19 public health crisis (2020-2022). Crises are important critical junctures that can become a ‘make or break’ or ‘watershed moments’ that shift away from periods of normal policymaking. Hence, the main objective is to understand, analyse and compare the development of trust on the integration process and mechanisms as they affect the transfer of competences to the EU institutions for the member states during crises. The main argument is that higher trust in the EU over the national government increases the demand for transferring more competences to the EU and for supranational processes. Lower trust in the EU over national government decreases transfer of competences to EU institutions increasing intergovernmental processes. Using Eurobarometer data on trust the paper maps out the differentials between trust in the EU and trust in national government across all member states during the two crises and finds a North-South divide, which helps explain the policy responses to the two crises at the EU level favouring more supranational or intergovernmental solutions. Our analysis develops a framework to talk about nuanced differences in varieties of Euroscepticism on the basis of trust differentials towards the EU and national governments.