This paper analyses the determinants of people’s support for European institutions,
mainly focusing on the impact of European identity, after the economic
crisis and in a moment in which – after profound uncertainty for its immediate
future – there is a new feeling toward European integration. Previous research
on support for European institutions, before the economic and financial crisis
which had hit Europe since 2008, found that people’s evaluations followed
mainly an instrumental logic – support being contingent on a perception of personal
or national benefit accruing for EU membership – with an additional role
played by European identification. This contribution expands the analysis after
the beginning of the economic crisis, so to assess whether the former has affected
the structure of such support, and deepens the analysis of the impact of EU
identity on European institutional confidence. Using a recent Eurobarometer
survey (86.2, 2016) and combining both individual and contextual data, the
paper shows that European identity plays a crucial role in explaining European
support also after the crisis
