Nationales und transnationales Vertrauen in der Europäischen Union

摘要

Drawing on the assumption that the political integration in Europe needs some underpinning of social integration among EU citizens, this paper asks “How much trust is there between EU nationalities?” The question is answered by using mass survey data. The indicator used is “transnational trust”, which is compared to the level of trust people have in their own countrymen. — The evidence shows that Europeans tend to trust their countrymen more than other EU nations, but the distinction they draw between fellow citizens and foreigners is less sharp in some places than others. Southern Europeans have lower levels of transnational trust, and, in turn, are regarded by Europeans as less trustworthy than those from the countries of the North and West. Albeit transnational trust has somewhat increased in the past two decades in most countries, there are only three countries where it has increased more than national trust. This finding is contrary to the expectation of ongoing ‘Europeanization’. With respect to Eastern enlargement, the surveys show a rather low level of trust on the part of current EU members in the people of the acceding countries, which may indicate growing difficulties for European social integration.