Status Quo Bias in Future EU—non-EU Relations

Ongoing crises such as the war in Ukraine, refugee flows into Europe, or climate change have put the spotlight on European cooperation, both within and beyond the EU. Such crises have highlighted the need for a more forward-looking approach to developing effective patterns of cooperation that are supported by citizens. One way to study citizens’ preferences regarding the future direction of European integration is to ask them about their preferred future scenarios. However, survey studies using scenario preference questions must consider the influence of ‘status quo bias’ on their results. Building on earlier survey studies in this field, this study analyzes how the exact formulation of scenarios referring to the maintenance of the status quo influences respondents’ expression of preferences. Focusing on Norway, we conducted an original between-subjects survey experiment in 2025 to assess respondents’ preferences for different scenarios of future Norway-EU relations (N=1003). We assessed the likelihood that citizens would choose the 'status quo' scenario based on differences in the semantic formulation of such scenarios (i.e. providing more or less substantial information). Our regression models show that significantly more respondents prefer the ‘status quo’ scenario when the wording provided more details about the exact nature of the relationship. We further find individual-level differences, for instance that the preferences of low-trust respondents are more influenced by scenario wording than high-trust respondents. These findings have significant implications for the study of citizens’ attitudes towards the future path of Europe.