After the 2005 referendum, when the Dutch said “no” to the new EU Constitution, the academic world started to wonder about the reasons and the road that led to this fairly surprising event in the history of European integration. So did the academics of the European Outlook with Ms Charlotte Wennekers leading a research project on the Dutch public opinion in EU matters.   The reason why the study of Ms Wennekers and her colleagues gives a comprehensive view of the situation is that during their research, they did not only map out the current leading opinions, but also tested their durability in three different methods. They did so because different methods had given different results and a comprehensive analysis was needed to explain the confusion.

In her presentation, she firstly stressed that the negative result of the referendum came as a surprise since the Netherlands  - as being one of the founding members - has always been a very pro-European country. As Ms Wennekers pointed out, this historically positive attitude was exactly the reason why European integration and politics were never really neither in the centre of public debate, nor a part of general knowledge or interest in the Netherlands.

During the research, on one hand, they used surveys, which showed that party politics (preference) had a huge effect on opinions. On the other hand, the focus group results showed economic and psychological factors and a general fear of an other EU enlargement. Also, during the focus group tests, it turned out how low is the general knowledge and interest in European matters in the Netherlands. The narrative method was used so as to avoid test questions leading to certain answers. In all three methods, there were follow up-s made to test the durability of opinions. The results showed that opinions were relatively stable; even if during the narrative test, interviewers managed to change some of the opinions, the people turned back to their original opinion in the follow up.

Ms Wennekers summed up her findings saying that one of the most important information she gained from the empirical data is the low general knowledge/interest of the Dutch people in EU matters. Secondly, she also stressed that it is very difficult to change the opinions of the people even if they are not based on knowledge.