Nadine Butova

14.10.16
Euroscepticism in the EU: Trends, Opportunities, Uncertainties

Abstract
In 2014, the results of the EU parliamentary elections revealed the general publics distrust in the
European Union. This phenomenon brought into the limelight Euroscepticism, the term
conceived in Britain in the mid-eighties. Amongst the main factors that caused the distrust of the
public are economic crises in the number of EU member states, security and immigration issues
that are believed to be closely connected to freedom of movement. Euroscepticism, being one of
the most discussed topics on the political agenda in the EU, has not received enough attention of
researchers in Latvia. This paper is aimed at identifying the factors that lead to the decrease of
public trust in the EU, and respectively, the rise of support for Eurosceptic parties. Having
compared three different cases UK, Denmark and Greece, the paper states that the actual cause
of the rise of Euroscepticism is a lack of transparency in the European Institutions. Therefore, the
author concludes that Euroscepticism can be tackled by involving citizens in the policy-making
process and communicating the policies more clearly.

Introduction
In 2014, the results of the EU parliamentary elections revealed the general publics distrust in the
European Union. This phenomenon brought into the limelight Euroscepticism, the term that
emerged in Britain in the mid-eighties. Amongst the main factors that caused the distrust of the
public are economic crises in the number of EU member states, security and immigration issues
that are believed to be closely connected to freedom of movement. Despite being one of the most
discussed topics on the political agenda in the EU, Euroscepticism has not received enough
attention of researchers in Latvia.
This paper is aimed at identifying the factors that lead to the decrease of public trust in the EU,
and respectively, the rise of support for Eurosceptic parties. The research was carried out using
qualitative method and overview of existent literature on the topic. The first chapter is dedicated
to the definition and history of Euroscepticism; it draws the distinction between hard and soft
Euroscepticism. The next three chapters of the work compare three different cases of
Euroscepticism UK, Denmark, and Greece respectively. The paper states that the actual cause
of the rise of Euroscepticism is a lack of transparency in the European Institutions. Therefore, the
author concludes that Euroscepticism can be tackled by involving citizens in the policy-making
process and communicating the policies more clearly.