In this article we discuss the concept of European solidarity by distinguishing between transnational and international solidarity. The former refers to support for institutional arrangements aimed at sharing economic risks at the individual level, while the latter entails public agreement to share economic risks at the Member State level. We explore the joint role of cross-border interactions and political attitudes in fostering solidarity ties among Europeans through multilevel modelling based on the 2012 Eurobarometer 77 survey. The article shows that transnational experiences do not have the same effect on different forms of European solidarity, limiting transnational and enhancing international solidarity. Egalitarian individuals are more prone to EU-wide solidarity, with cross-border practices affecting their level of solidarity, while not altering those of the rest of the population. In particular, we find that cross-border practices make egalitarians more inclined to international and less to transnational solidarity.

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for valuable feedback on earlier versions of this paper. We also thank the anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions. This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, grant number CSO2010-16353.

Policies allowing enfranchisement of non-resident citizens (emigrants and their descendants) are now implemented in the majority of states worldwide. A growing number of case studies show that the extension of voting rights to non-resident citizens is often contested among country of origin political parties. However, there is no systematic comparative study of why different political parties support or oppose external voting rights and how this position is framed by the parties. Drawing on a unique data set based on 34 debates across 13 countries, we estimate the extent to which ideology and party family are correlated with the positioning and framing of parties. Among the findings are that the more to the right is a party, the more it tends to support external voting rights, except in the case of radical right parties. The position on emigrant voting rights is largely framed along more pragmatic arguments.

We thank Katjuscha Mattu, Guillem Ripoll and Emanuela Le Ménahèze and for their invaluable research assistance and our colleagues Eva Marie-Euchner and Andrea Caggese as well as two anonymous referees for their very helpful comments on previous drafts.