The European Sentiment Compass 2022

In partnership with the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) the European Sentiment Compass was launched to survey the state of the European Sentiment in 2022 and discussed on 9 May 2022, as part of our Europe Day programming. A second launch took place in Paris on 12 May. 

This first edition of the European Sentiment Compass sheds light on how attitudes and feelings about Europe change across Europe, by looking through the prism of key challenges of today. How has war in Ukraine and international security issues impacted Europeans’ feelings about Europe? Could culture and media hold the compass of a better and stronger European space in the future?

Summary

• Two major crises – the pandemic and the war in Ukraine – have consolidated support behind the European integration project. But they have also shaken the union’s sense of direction.
• The EU is facing a broad array of challenges, from international security to climate change, to migration, to democratic decline.
• European leaders may be tempted to make trade-offs, such as between the EU’s geopolitical unity and its principled approach to values; between energy sovereignty and the green agenda; between financial solidarity and economic stability.
• But these are more than just problems to address – they also contain the potential to become the centre of the EU’s purpose, which may be redefined in the context of war in Ukraine.
• The free media and a flourishing cultural sector are vital for nurturing European sentiment – and are therefore also essential for Europeans to successfully tackle these challenges and define the EU’s sense of direction in the years to come.

The European Sentiment Compass is a joint project and initiative by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and the European Cultural Foundation (ECF).