The more the merrier? A study on how further enlargement of the European Union and increased internal migration affects EU attitudes

Sammanfattning: The free movement of workers within the European Union has strong support among its citizens. At the same time, the free movement of labour has been put forward as one of the most politically controversial features of the European common market. This paper examines how a set of EU attitudes are affected by the inclusion of Bulgaria and Romania in the union through changed intra-EU migration. The analysis is conducted in 25 European countries using the responses from the Eurobarometer surveys during the period 2004 to 2019. The analysis is conducted using an IV approach utilizing the distance from Bulgaria and Romania interacted with opening of the border as an instrument. The results indicate that increased intra-EU migration is negatively associated with positive EU attitudes. The results also indicate that increased intra-EU migration is negatively associated with the willingness for further enlargement of the EU. Further, the analysis displays a heterogeneous effect between the founding members of the EU and new member countries where the EU image of founding member countries is positively affected by increased intra-EU migration while the effect is negative for new members of the EU.