Cohesion Policy and European identity building: Trust as a mediating element

Abstract

The understanding of the role of Cohesion Policy on the processes of European identity building is becoming more and more important in a period or resurgence of nationalisms and Euroscepticism. However, empirical evidence on this is still extremely scarce, due to both conceptual issues and data limitations. The present study tackles these limits and presents an empirical analysis of the way in which satisfaction with Cohesion Policy affected identification with Europe in EU regions between 2014 and 2017. Results show that this relationship is highly dependent on the intensity of funding spent, capturing the intensity of the European policy, and on the recent economic trend occurred at the regional level. This effect is boosted by a positive attitude towards EU institutions.

The impact of EU Cohesion Policy on European identity: A comparative analysis of EU regions

“…Second, our findings provide evidence of a positive association between Cohesion Policy attitudes and European identity. This contrasts with studies that have not found a positive and significant relationship between Cohesion Policy funding and European identity (Verhaegen et al, 2014;Capello and Perucca, 2019), but which have not investigated the role of well-known cognitive, instrumental and communicative drivers of identity through Cohesion Policy. We found that the perceived benefits of Cohesion Policy for citizens and for their region's development contribute to European identity.…”

“…Analysis of an original survey dataset of 8559 citizens in 17 EU regions provides empirical support for our theoretical expectations. In doing so, our findings challenge and refine the conclusions of studies that do not find an association between EU funding and European identity (Capello and Perucca, 2019;Verhaegen et al, 2014).…”

“…Previous studies have concluded that EU funding can have a direct or moderating effect on attitudes towards the EU (Chalmers and Dellmuth, 2015; Rodríguez-Pose and Dijkstra, 2021; cf. Dabrowski et al, 2019; Osterloh, 2011) but no impact on European identity in terms of feelings of European citizenship (Verhaegen et al, 2014) or attachment (Capello and Perucca, 2019). A limitation with these studies is that they do not factor in the influence of subjective public perceptions of Cohesion Policy alongside objective funding data on European identity.…”

From Cohesion Policy Implementation to European Identity

“…Capello and Perucca () focus on the association between support to the EU and European identity (link B in Figure ), studying the context conditions under which Cohesion Policy promotes identification, once accounted for the individuals' support to the EU institutions. Their results show that the gap in identification with Europe is highly dependent on the recent regional economic performance, supporting the idea that Cohesion Policy could have a significant impact on European identity if its goal of promoting economic convergence within the EU is achieved.…”

“…Taken together, the results from these studies support the general messages and policy implications discussed in the previous section. Cohesion Policy could be a powerful tool for promoting European identity, if the target of reduction of inequality within the EU is achieved (Aiello et al, ; Capello & Perucca, ; Dąbrowski et al, ). At the same time, however, this is likely to happen only if effective strategies of information, communication and involvement will be developed and implemented (Brasili et al, ; López‐Bazo & Royuela, ; Smętkowski & Dąbrowski, ).…”