Citizens' attitudes to EDC in UK, France, and Germany

Abstract

The question of European aspirations for a defence autonomy distinct from NATO dates back to the European Defence Community proposed in the early 1950s, and recurs today as global tensions, questions about Russia's intentions, population displacements and doubts over the United States' commitment to NATO under President Trump have the French again pondering a new model for continental defence. There is scholarly debate over the role of public opinion in driving foreign policy, but Britain's vote to leave the EU should give leaders pause to consider their electorates before building an alternative to NATO. This paper examines the extent to which elite concerns over NATO are reflected in public attitudes in three major European states — the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Drawing on a unique set of YouGov surveys of the British, French and German publics conducted in 2019, it first compares support for NATO and for EU defence across the three nations, paying particular attention to whether the British public is an aggregate outlier, then probes the demographic and political undertones of the divide over NATO within Germany and France, and asks whether coherent segments of the public might form a basis for a European defence alternative. The British prove distinctly Atlanticist, while significant numbers of Germans and French are open to alternatives, a pattern with clear implications for the future of the Alliance.

Panel: Session IV

All papers

Joint Policy Workshop 2019 programme

@inproceedings{eiss-JPW2019-citizens-attitudes-to-edc-in-uk-france-and-germany,
  author = {Thomas Scotto and Konstantin Gavras},
  title = {Citizens' attitudes to EDC in UK, France, and Germany},
  booktitle = {European Security Studies Conference 2019},
  year = {2019},
  url = {https://eiss-europa.com/papers/JPW2019-citizens-attitudes-to-edc-in-uk-france-and-germany.html}
}