How supranational institutions benefit from crises: Member states’ solidarity and the EU's image during the COVID-19 pandemic

In this article, we demonstrate how solidarity between member states can have a positive effect on the image of the EU, even if the latter's actions in handling a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic are deemed unsatisfactory. Employing data from a special Eurobarometer survey enriched with data from the Oxford's COVID-19 government response tracker, we show that European citizens who are more satisfied with interstate solidarity have to a greater extent a positive image of the EU compared to citizens who are less satisfied. We also show that this effect is further pronounced in the case of EU citizens who are less satisfied with institutional solidarity, which is the solidarity going from EU institutions to the member states.

. Linear mixed model that includes an interaction between satisfaction with interstate solidarity and a dummy that takes the value of 1 if the respondent is an Italian citizen and 0 otherwise.

Operationalization of variables
The dependent variable, 'the EU's image' is primarily encompassed in the Eurobarometer survey in the question: 'In general does the EU conjure up for you a very positive, fairly positive, neutral, fairly negative or very negative image?' (The variable is reversed so that high values indicate a positive image).
The main independent variable 'Interstate solidarity' is captured with the question 'How satisfied are you with the solidarity between EU member states in fighting the Corona virus pandemic?' (not at all satisfied/rather not satisfied/rather satisfied/very satisfied). The analysis also includes a set of COVID-19 related variables that are measured on both country and individual levels such as 'stringency index', 'debt relief', 'institutional solidarity' and 'impact (of COVID-19) on income'. Both the 'stringency index' and 'debt relief' are country specific variables that draw from the Oxford's COVID-19 government response tracker (OxCGRT). The 'stringency index' is an aggregate score, from 0 to 100 that OxCGRT calculated by summing up the values of different policy indicators 1 such as school closing, workplace closing, cancel public events, restrictions on public gatherings, close public transport, stay at home requirements, restrictions on internal movement, international travel controls and a variable capturing presence of public info campaigns. Incorporating the 'stringency index' in our dataset we capture the strictness of lockdown for each of the 27 countries, the date that each respondent was interviewed in the Eurobarometer data. The 'debt relief' is a dummy variable that indicates if the government halted financial obligations for households and as in the case of the 'stringency index', the variable is also country and time specific.
The Eurobarometer's question 'In general how satisfied are you with the measures taken to fight the coronavirus pandemic by the European Union' (very satisfied/ rather satisfied/ rather not satisfied/ not at all satisfied) is an important one as it distinguishes between satisfaction with institutional and interstate actions. This variable allows us to test whether the effect of satisfaction with solidarity between member states on the EU's image still holds sway when the analysis controls for a strong determinant such as satisfaction with the measures taken to fight the coronavirus pandemic by the European Union. Additionally, whether personal income has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic can also affect one's perspective on the EU's image. Personal income is encapsulated in the Eurobarometer data with the question: 'Thinking about your personal income, which one of these statements comes close to your current situation'? The coronavirus has already impacted my personal income/coronavirus has not yet impacted on my personal income, but I expect it to in the future/coronavirus will have no impact on my personal income. The analysis lastly controls for a set of idiosyncratic variables such as ideology (from 1 to 10 where 1 stand from left and 10 for right), marital status (married or living with partner/ living alone 2 ), social class (working class/ lower middle class /middle class / upper middle class / higher class), education (primary/ secondary/ post-secondary/ tertiary), gender (male/female), employment status (unemployed/self-employed or employed) and age.
The following table provides the Mean and number of cases (N) for the main variables employed in the regressions of Table A2.