By Daniel Debomy
(ENJ/hb) Despite various challenges and geopolitical crises, trust in the European Union and the sense of belonging to it have steadily grown among European citizens in recent years, as shown by the policy brief Public opinion and the EU in the age of Trump’s decrees, published by the Jacques Delors Institute.
The author, Daniel Debomy, analyses the results of recent Eurobarometer surveys (2024-2026), carried out twice a year, which ask EU citizens whether their country’s membership of the Union is a good or a bad thing, or neither, and whether their country has benefited from it or not.
In 2024 and 2025, more than 70% of Eurobarometer respondents viewed the benefits of EU membership positively, regarding the Union as an anchor of stability in an uncertain world. This represented a significant increase compared to 2011, when only 52% of respondents believed their country benefited from EU membership. This positive trend was confirmed in the spring of 2026.
“European cohesion appears to have been strengthened by a heightened awareness of external threats.” Daniel Debomy
Daniel Debomy observes that Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency in 2025, his strained relations with Europe, and his coziness with Russian dictator Putin have sparked concerns within the Union, highlighting certain European weaknesses. Yet, this has had only a limited impact on the feeling of stability towards the Union itself, as surveys show.
However, the tendency to equate the United States with its erratic president has led to a sharp decline in the country’s image among Europeans; it now elicits a positive opinion from only 24% of them.[1] Meanwhile, the EU is perceived as a pillar of stability.
The author concludes that, against a backdrop of confrontation with the unpredictable initiatives of the US president and a sharp deterioration in the image of the United States, European citizens generally maintain the positive perception of the EU observed since the end of the 2007–2011 financial and economic crisis.
“European cohesion appears to have been strengthened by a heightened awareness of external threats and by the feeling that the Union provides a framework for protection and collective action”, he asserts, although significant disparities remain among Member States, with some countries standing out for their particularly marked Euro-pessimism.
Read Daniel Debomy’s policy brief
Daniel Debomy, founder and managing director of the opinion research institute OPTEM, is currently Adviser for European public opinions at the Jacques Delors Institute in Paris. © private
More about the author: Website https://institutdelors.eu/en/auteurs/daniel-debomy/
[1] Among the ten Member States with the most negative views of the United States, nine are western European countries – most notably Denmark, Germany, the three Benelux countries and Sweden. Conversely, the ten countries with the least negative views include primarily Member States from eastern Europe (and Cyprus).
