For years the British have been among the most Eurosceptic nations in Europe. But an examination of 40 years of surveys among all EU member states show that several countries have a widespread Euroscepticism.

Among others it is the populations in Italy, Austria, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, who in the surveys in a lesser degree answers that the membership is a good thing for their country.

Renewed European skepticism

DR’s Investigative Data Team has examined more than 40 years of surveys from Eurobarometer in all EU member states. The population have through the years been asked, whether they think that their country’s EU membership is a good thing, a bad thing or neither a good thing nor a bad thing.

The answers from the representative surveys are presented in the graphics above. The green area in the graph shows the range between those that are most skeptical (in the bottom) and those that are most positive (at the top). It appears that in the early nineties most countries were gathered in a positive range of answers going from around 50 percent, saying that the EU is good for their country, all the way up to almost 90 percent.

It appears from the latest surveys from 2010 to 2015 that there are still one quarter of the member countries in which 65 to 80 percent have answered that they believe the EU membership is a good thing for their country. On the other hand, the most skeptical quarter of the countries have dropped to a range from 35 to 45 percent.

About the survey and the graphic

In the graphics above the line shows the individual country while the green area shows the range in attitude towards the EU in all member states. The upper and lower quartile are shown with the lighter shade, and the middle 50 percent are shown with the darker shade.

All member countries are a part of the survey, but since the number of member countries increase over time the number of respondents will also increase.

There have been a few cases where a country is not included in a survey round.

For each survey there are – with a few exceptions – around 1.000 respondents from each country. Respondents are sampled from citizens above 15 years.

Note that each percentage is an estimate and there will be some statistical uncertainty attached to each estimate.

Source: Eurobarometer