Powers, Eurobonds, Governance: Did the Eurocrisis Affect Preferences for Fiscal Integration?

The Eurocrisis has generated a wave of new institutions and policies. Yet, the agenda for the reform of the Monetary Union has no lack of measures waiting for member states approval. During the crisis, however, a substantial cooling of the public opinion in favour of more integration has been observed; Europe may have entered a phase of "circular illness", where fading output legitimacy hinders preferences for integration, therefore weakening output legitimacy further. This "Postfunctional" crisis-integration dynamics can be contrasted with a more classical "Neofunctional" dynamics, where integration is shaped by the need of re-establishing the functionning of the common institutions, eventually through further integration. Against this background, the paper seeks to clarify if and to what extent the Eurocrisis has affected preferences for further fiscal integration, providing hints on the Postfunctional/Neofunctional interpretation of the crisis through a country-level panel dataset built on 10 waves of Eurobarometer data, and 3 different measures of fiscal integration.