The European Mind-set, European Opinion and Economic Developments in 2007-2017: Major Changes of Public Opinion and the European Mind-set in Years 2004-2018

Abstract

The purpose of the study: This study reports the major changes in public opinion in the European Union. The first part of the study includes citizens' assessments of the most important issues facing the EU at the moment. The second part of study reports the changes in (1) national economic situation evaluations, (2) European economic situation evaluations, (3) European economic crisis recovery evaluations (the impact on the crisis on jobs), (4) evaluations of euro-optimism vs. pessimism, (5) evaluations about the support for the euro area and (6) evaluations support for the euro. All these changes of the Standard Euro-barometer results are mirrored in relation to the long-run GDP changes of the European Union (EU-28). The third part of the study analyses the four key elements of European mind-sets. In general decision theory and general systems theory, a mind-set is a set of assumptions, beliefs, methods or notations held by one or more people or groups of people. In the field of future studies, the concept and analysis of mind-sets have been discussed in many global studies. From this perspective, it is interesting to elaborate the European mind-set and its status. The study is based on the very latest ``The Future of Europe{''} datasets (September 2017). From these three perspectives, this study is relevant for European integration studies. A brief description of study design and tasks: This study analyses the European Mind-set in EU-27 countries and in other key regional categories of the European Union in 2017. The study also analyses some changes in the European cognitive mind-set in 2006-2017. In the field of mind-set analysis, the critical issue of mental inertia will be discussed in this study. The study is based on the statistical platform of the European statistical research questionnaire which has some common platform elements in Eurobarometer studies. Methods: The study is based on the databases of previous Eurobarometer survey studies in 2006-2015 (eurozone, EU-25, EU-28 and other regional sub-categories) and Eurobarometer published in September 2017 (with EU-25 or EU-27 categories). The methods of Eurobarometer studies are conventional survey study research methods and statistical indicator research methods. We compare some pre-vious key Eurobarometer results with the database of Eurobarometer 2017. The full analysis of four mind-sets is performed with Eurobarometer database of year 2017. Some analyses and conceptualisations are of a pilot-type methodological nature. Key Results: The study provides empirical insights about the European mind-set changes in the context of the global and European economy, especially in 2017, on the basis of the latest European future oriented studies of Eurobarometer research in 2006-2017. The study analyses and presents some results of the changes in the European mind-set in 2006-2017. The Eurobarometer database (EU-27, EU-25 and other EU's regional categories) are sorted in such way that we can analyse the four key elements of the European mind-set in a systematic way and draw some logical conclusions based on the Eurobarometer database of ``The Future of Europe{''}. A key result of the study is a novel analysis of four European mind-set categories. These four categories of reporting are global mind-set, collaboration mind-set, virtual mind-set and innovation mind-set. The primary interpretations and conclusions: The present study discusses the innovative and new indicators of European mind-set evaluation (in chapter 5.1.). These indicators are linked to the mindset analysis with the Eurobarometer indicators. The economic growth in the euro area and mind-set measurements will be combined in the empirical analyses of the study. The analysis of mind-set and public opinion changes and changes of economic growth are reported for the euro area and for EU-27/EU-28 regions. The key challenge is to develop four different mind-set indicators to evaluate economic growth and development. For the concept of a mind-set, we propose four key elements, global mindset, collaboration mind-set, virtual mind-set and innovation mind-set. We present a full argumentation of selected categories and cognitive mind-sets. The interpretation of new results is a very challenging task because there will be a EU-27 category after the BREXIT process.