Crafting Solidarity? Cueing Effects on Public Support for EU Solidarity

Can elites influence the public acceptance of EU solidarity policies? We tackle this question via a survey experiment fielded in 14 EU countries varying three factors. The first factor introduces the policy domains in which solidaristic reforms are implemented. We vary domains across the cultural-economic dimension as we expect higher support for domains where the EU has higher competences and a positive track-record. The second and third factor vary the initiator of the cue (government/opposition) and their (non-)support for particular policies. Our results give a positive answer to the initial question: cues matter but mostly in the case of energy solidarity and negative cues have a stronger effect than positive ones. Beyond this, the results also highlight various sources of heterogeneity in such cueing effects varying with credibility of the source or respondents ideological orientation. Generally, our paper speaks to the nature of mass-elite linkages in the EU polity as these have implications for both the legitimacy of the EU in times of crisis and the EU’s and domestic politicians’ capacity to build support around crisis policies.