The causes of the rise of Euroscepticism: a survey of Serbian citizens in 2020

ABSTRACT

The recent spread of Euroscepticism has largely been limited to criticism of the actions, inefficiencies, or credibility of EU institutions, while the issue of leaving or not joining the EU is still out of focus for the vast majority of the European population. With the exception of the United Kingdom, which withdrew from the EU, Serbia is the only country where the majority of the population does not want to join the bloc. This paper is dedicated to researching the causes of this phenomenon and measuring their impact on the current additional increase in resistance to the EU among the population of Serbia. This paper presents the results of a survey organised by the authors in Serbia in 2020. MANOVA and the Generalised Linear Model (GLM) were used to analyse the impact of different demographic and socio-economic characteristics, as well as the influence of the national attachment of respondents to their attitude towards EU membership. The results showed that Euroscepticism was on the rise due to a weakening expectation of economic benefits of EU membership and a strengthening of national attachment, including concerns over the loss of national sovereignty, under increased EU pressure on Serbia to give up disputed Kosovo territories.

KEYWORDS:

• Euroscepticism
• Serbia
• European Union
• Kosovo
• national sovereignty

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The paper presents findings of a study developed as a part of the research project ‘Serbia and challenges in international relations in 2022ʹ, financed by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia, and conducted by the Institute of International Politics and Economics, Belgrade.