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by vidarh
779 days ago
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The current round of negotiations were directly triggered by Switzerland trying to restrict freedom of movement and realizing they couldn't do that without cancelling all the treaties. The EU can afford to stick to its guns in this indefinitely. It's made it clear for a decade that any change to the treaties with Switzerland can contain minor concessions, but only in return for a bet reduction in the deviations from the EEA framework. With respect to euro scepticism, that largely fell apart thanks to Brexit - most of the parties arguing for the same for their countries have moderated their stances significantly, and support for the EU increased massively. Including in the UK where Brexit is widely seen as a massive mistake, and it's more a question of electoral calculus (neither of the big parties can afford to alienate the Brexit diehards yet; they're spread across the political labdscape) than anything else when rejoining gets in the political agenda. |
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As an addition re: the reduction in euroscepticism, according to Pew Research, between 2016 and 2019, the proportion of people with a favorable view of the EU rose 26 percentage points in Greece, 19 in Germany, 19 in Spain, 18 in Sweden 15 in the Netherlands, 13 in France, 12 in Poland, 10 *in the UK, 6 in Hungary. In 2022, a EU parliament survey showed overall support for the EU across member states was at a 15 year high, also much thanks to the Brexit bounce. In 2023, the European Parliament Eurobarameter - Autumn 2023 survey showed 72% of EU citizens think that their country has benefited from being a member of the EU, and only 22% thinks it has not.