Anti-EU Sentiment Spreads

We wrote yesterday about sentiment towards Brexit in the U.K. Now comes a Washington Post article on the subject which suggests disillusionment with the EU has spread beyond the U.K.

According to the results of a Pew survey released Tuesday — of more than 10,000 participants in 10 major E.U. nations this year — Euroskepticism is on the rise across the continent, even outside of Britain. Only 51 percent of those polled expressed a positive view of the Brussels-based institution, while 42 percent expressed the desire to have certain powers restored to their local governments.

In both France and Spain, for instance, Pew reports that favorability has dropped by double-digits between 2015 and 2016.

The poll data indicate that “overwhelming majorities” in each of the 10 countries surveyed disapprove of the way the E.U. has handled the migrant crisis, which saw more than 1 million people pour into continental Europe in 2015 alone.

In six of the ten countries polled, more people expressed a preference for devolution of E.U. power than they did for a stronger Brussels bureaucracy. That is ultimately the issue at stake in Brexit to begin with.

Immigration problems - they fuel the Trump movement, the Brexit movement, and are weakening support for the EU among member nation citizens. Maybe we have more in common with Europe than we thought.