Have the Germans lost their trust in Europe?

Daniel Gros
20 September 2013

In the final days before the German federal elections, some observers are asking whether a change in
government would portend a shift in the country’s consistently strong support of the euro. Even if a
more eurosceptic government is elected to office, this commentary finds it unlikely that the German
public would materially change its stance.



ccording to conventional wisdom, the crisis has reduced citizens’ trust in the
European Union and in the European institutions in general across all member states.
A number of recent reports have claimed that the German public in particular has
turned its back on Europe 

But this narrative is wrong. On the contrary, the trust invested by Germany’s public in the
euro has been increasing throughout the crisis and its trust in the EU institutions has now
come back to the previous high level after falling until a couple of years ago. 

The best indicator of the attitude of German citizens towards the euro is provided by a regular
poll conducted since 2002 by the authoritative Allensbach Institute for Demographic Studies,
which asks a simple question: “Would you like to have the DM back?”

The figure above shows that in recent years the proportion of those who like to have the DM
back has steadily declined, standing now only at about 33%. By contrast, the proportion of
those who would rather keep the euro has increased steadily throughout the crisis, going now
above 50%. It is interesting that this trend of increasing acceptance of the euro started in 2008,
i.e. coinciding with the onset of the financial crisis.

It seems that the financial crisis has forced German citizens to reflect more on the importance
of having a common currency. Over the last few years, the German public has been
extensively informed by the media on the potential fiscal cost of the rescue operations for
Greece and other countries. But despite this barrage of warnings, the German public has
concluded that it prefers to keep the euro, even if this means a high potential cost.

Even a recent Pew report that concluded that the EU was the new ‘sick man of Europe’ found
that a majority of Germans (52%) think that their government should provide financial
assistance to other EU countries that have major financial problems.2 Other studies have found
that a large part of the decline in trust has since been reversed.

More in general, Germany is not an outlier since looking at the EU average there has been
only a modest decline in trust in the EU institutions and this is to a large extent driven by the
pronounced decline of trust in four periphery countries of the euro area, namely Spain,
Greece, Portugal and Ireland. More importantly, in these countries trust in EU institutions has
held up more strongly than their trust in national institutions.

Thus, what is commonly perceived as a widespread crisis of trust in the EU is in reality a
generalised crisis of trust in all official institutions within the periphery. In Germany, trust in
and acceptance of the key element of the EU, namely the euro, is becoming stronger and
stronger.

Read the Commentary (PDF)

http://www.ceps.eu/book/have-germans-lost-their-trust-europe