Public Attitudes Towards the EU in the Western Balkans

This chapter analyzes public opinion towards the European Union (EU) in the Western Balkans. Although public support for the EU was generally high across the region in the early 2000s, it nevertheless varied across Western Balkan countries. Moreover, the recent trend towards Euroskepticism in the region has also been markedly uneven. Opinion poll data show that while the public in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and especially Serbia has turned significantly more Euroskeptic over time, public opinion in Albania and Kosovo has consistently been supportive of the EU. This chapter uses extensive survey data from the Balkan Barometer to investigate cross-country variation in public attitudes towards the EU. It relies on existing scholarship, archival material, and non-governmental organization (NGO) reports to explain the main causes of this variation. While the existing scholarship has emphasized utilitarian factors and the timing and impact of the integration process, this chapter highlights the crucial importance of identity politics, particularly the process of identity convergence or divergence. To understand the dynamics of the EU’s geopolitical actorness in the Western Balkans, as well as the increased assertiveness of Russia in the region, a better understanding of local public attitudes towards the EU is needed.