Unraveling romance: An assessment of candidate countries’ support for the EU

This study addresses the decrease of support for the EU at individual level in 3 recent years (including the accession year) among the Bulgarian and Romanian citizens. On the basis of citizens’ economic evaluation, confidence in national political institutions and the knowledge about the EU conventional explanations for cross-national and longitudinal variations of support for the EU are tested. Results indicate that the attitudes of late joiners’ citizens towards the EU positively correlate with prospective economic evaluations, whereas neither trust in national institutions nor levels of knowledge explain the support for the EU in these countries.