Crisis in Europe – Economic Fallout and Degrading Trust
Crisis in Europe – Economic Fallout and Degrading Trust

Summary/Abstract: Nowadays, the EU is faced with an unprecedented crisis. Originated in the Unites States of America (USA), the financial crisis soon became global through complex and subtle contagion mechanisms. EU’s economic and monetary union, understood as a hybrid governance model seeking the reconciliation between centralized monetary policy and national fiscal policy, is subject to many controversies and debates. In the light of the recent critical developments in the euro area, the focus of the key European institutions is on the economic and financial aspects of the crisis, in general, and on the role of the Euro, in special. The Euro is often perceived as a “Holly Grail” of the European crisis, as a means of rehabilitating the legitimacy of the European project. The Eurobarometer (EB) surveys carried out between 2008 and 2011 do not confirm this claim. The EB show that the European public opinion has not lost confidence in the Euro as a single currency, but in the European Union (EU) as an entity. Thus, the Euro crisis may be, in fact, the Europe’s crisis. EU communication has a big stake in advocating Europe and in recovering the citizens’ lost trust in the European project. However, the European Commission (EC) seems to elude past critical moments, when EU communication played an important role in solving Europe’s legitimacy crisis. The paper argues that it is time that the EC remembered that EU communication policy is a horizontal policy, which should be used at the benefit of the EU and its citizens.

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