Tribes of Europe: How Europeans View the EU and its Future

The Martens Centre is honoured to host a public debate in Brussels to discuss the main findings of Tribes of Europe, a recent research project by Chatham House that explores cross-national attitudes to the future of the EU. After a decade dominated by political and economic challenges – from the Euro crisis, to managing flows of refugees, to Brexit – the debate in Europe has turned towards the long term future of the European Union. Frequently, this discussion has been reduced to a binary debate: ‘more’ or ‘less’, ‘open’ or ‘closed’, ‘leave’ or ‘remain.’ But what sort of EU do people in Europe really want?

Tribes of Europe identifies six political ‘tribes’ across Europe that transcend national boundaries and whose members share similar opinions and life experiences, traversing a spectrum from ‘EU Rejecters’ through to ‘Federalists.’ The panel will analyse the make-up of these tribes and ask what policymakers and the institutions of the EU can do to connect and engage productively with these disparate groups, in the context of the 2019 European elections.