French public opinion on EU membership of the Western Balkans
In cooperation with the Brussels-based Open Society European Policy Institute (OSEPI), d|part conducted a public opinion survey on this topic in France. A representative survey of the French adult population was conducted to determine their attitudes towards their experience of EU enlargement to date, their views on enlargement in general and on specific countries that will join the EU in the near future, both in the Western Balkans and elsewhere.
This study shows that the majority of people in France have rather latent attitudes towards the EU’s Western Balkan enlargement. For most, the issue is not very salient. Three in four people in France believe that it would not affect their lives much or at all if Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia joined the EU. Although opposition to further EU enlargement is widespread among the French public, much of this enlargement fatigue is the result of wider concerns regarding European cohesion, evaluations of previous rounds of enlargement, the future of the EU, and, to some extent, France’s role in it.