Does immigration undermine public support for integration in the European Union?

Abstract

It is well established that negative attitudes towards immigrants are strongly asso-ciated with lower public support for European integration. But the impact of actual immigration levels on immigration attitudes is still contested. As a result, the rela-tionship between immigration levels and EU public support remains uncertain from a theoretical point of view. We offer an empirical study of the link between immigra-tion from the new EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) an