Attitudes towards EU integration and Euro adoption in the Czech Republic

Abstract

Our paper focuses on eliciting people’s attitudes towards EU integration and the adoption of Euro currency in the Czech Republic. Although EU Accession was widely supported and accepted by the Czech citizens prior to 2004, more than 10 years into the EU membership the attitudes to integration have changed considerably. The recent world’s economic and financial crisis, the crisis of the Eurozone and the issues with the Greek membership in the Eurozone (the possibility of the “Grexit”) have undermined the Euro optimism in many EU Member States that joined the EU during the so-called Eastern Enlargement in 2004. We use the example of the Czech Republic and the representative survey data collected by the Czech Institute of Sociology in 2012-2014 to estimate and describe the attitudes towards the EU integration and Euro adoption. Our results might shed some light on the reasons of Euro pessimism and scepticism and find links with the current economic and political situation.