Decentralisation and European identity

Abstract

The European Commission aims to understand the extent of which European citizens feel that they belong to the EU, assume their European identity and think of themselves not only as national citizens but also as citizens of Europe. Using data from the European Commission’s Eurobarometer Surveys to proxy European identity and multinomial logistic regressions, this paper examines whether the transfer of resources to subnational tiers of government (i.e. fiscal decentralisation) and/or the transfer of powers to subnational tiers of government (i.e. political decentralisation) influence a European sense of belonging in comparison with national belonging. The results show that fiscal decentralisation is a powerful promoter of European identity, while there is no strong evidence that political decentralisation has reinforced it. Moreover, men, middle-aged people, highly educated people, single and people who are very satisfied with their life feel more European than others.