When the EU Council responds to public opinion: Negotiating European policy integration

Nikoleta Yordanova, Anastasia Ershova, Aleksandra Khokhlova, Saad Obaid Ul-Islam and Goran Glavaš
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Nikoleta Yordanova: Institute of Political Science, 4496Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
Anastasia Ershova: School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, 1596Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK
Aleksandra Khokhlova: Institute of Political Science, 4496Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands
Saad Obaid Ul-Islam: Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science (CAIDAS), 9190University of Würzburg, Wurzburg, Germany
Goran Glavaš: Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science (CAIDAS), Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, 9190University of Würzburg, Wurzburg, Germany

European Union Politics, 2025, vol. 26, issue 3, 453-476

Abstract: While the Council of the European Union has long been deciding on EU policy insulated from public scrutiny, we argue that enhanced transparency and EU politicisation have strengthened the linkage between its positions and public opinion. We further expect the Council to be more responsive to public opinion in member states, in which citizens view EU policy action as salient and are relatively united in their stance on it. To assess these expectations, we used semi-supervised machine learning to estimate the Council's positions on the expansion of the EU policy authority in legislative acts during the post-Lisbon period (2009–2019) and the Eurobarometer to measure public support for EU action in 21 policies across member states. The results offer evidence of territorial responsiveness of the Council.

Keywords: Council of the European Union; responsiveness; public opinion; governmental preferences; machine learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:26:y:2025:i:3:p:453-476

DOI: 10.1177/14651165251340212

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