ABSTRACT
Despite its recent fiftieth anniversary and an impressive record of successful economic and political integration, the European Union (EU) is increasingly being confronted with debates questioning its legitimacy. More precisely, this development started with the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, a milestone in the history of European integration, which is also described as the end of the ‘permissive consensus’ (Kohler-Koch et al. 2004: 206). In fact, it is exactly the EU’s success story itself, with its breathtaking processes of economic and political integration, which seems to challenge most Europeans’ willingness to accept and adapt to these major changes (de Vries and van Kersbergen 2007; Eichenberg and Dalton 2007; McLaren 2007). As van Deth (2008b) observes, European citizens do not only show a lack of interest in EU affairs and a lack of EU related knowledge; they are also rather distrustful of the EU and do not feel particularly attached to it (compared to other mainly national political objects of reference).
