(DIS)TRUST IN THE EU

Newspapers articles, magazine covers and even the evening news in Member States of the European Union often show great interest in the topic trust in the European Union as part of the widely reported developments in politics. No wonder the media focusses on these developments, because trust is a very important topic in democracies. Like any other democratic system, the European Union relies for support on its citizens’ trust in the institutions of that Union. The European Union gathers statistical information through Eurostat, which is a Directorate-General of the European Commission. Eurostat provides statistical information to the institutions of the European Union, amongst which is a survey conducted twice a year on the trust in the European Union and in its institutions. The surveys conducted by Eurostat show that the past decade trust levels in the bodies of the European Union, specifically the European Parliament have significantly declined. Some years report strong negative figures which gives reason to study the topic of trust, particularly trust in the European Union and its causes. This research aims to analyze possible causes of the declining trust levels in the European Parliament. In order to do so, this study begins with a review of the literature on the topic of trust in institutions, governments and the European Union. We proceed with selecting possible causes for the decline in trust and laying out the research design to test the hypotheses, after which we use a multilevel linear regression test to identify which of the previously selected indicators are found to have significant influence on trust in the European Parliament.