Public opinion and EU policies: Exploring the expectations gap

Briefing 07-07-2016

The Eurobarometer survey of the European Parliament 'Europeans in 2016: Perceptions and expectations, fight against terrorism and radicalisation' aimed to identify, across a range of different policy fields, the level of awareness of citizens of EU action in that field, and to assess how content they were with EU involvement in each field. This compendium brings together a set of short briefings by the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) following up the survey. Taking each of those policy fields in turn, they look at what the Union is already doing, identify gaps between citizens’ expectations and current EU activity, and possible areas for additional EU action. The full survey can be accessed on the European Parliament website, including a series of infographics presenting the differences in public opinion by policy area in each Member State.