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Title: Roberta who? Carles Puigdemont more familiar to Europeans than EU Parliament president
Summary: Catalan independence leader more recognizable at ground level than most big names from Brussels.

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Brussels Bubble bigshots beware: You may be famous in Place Lux, but outside the European Quarter you’re a nobody.



That appears to be the lesson from a new survey of 5,200 citizens of France, Germany, Denmark, Lithuania and Slovenia. While nearly three-quarters of respondents were able to correctly identify a photo of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, less than half recognized European Council President Charles Michel.



Meanwhile, almost 38 percent of respondents who participated in the survey were able to identify Catalan independence leader Carles Puigdemont — making him more recognizable than European Parliament President Roberta Metsola.



Is that surprising? Perhaps not, considering the survey was commissioned by the Catalan separatist Junts party delegation in the European Parliament.



According to the survey, Puigdemont is also more familiar to ordinary Europeans than  Socialists and Democrats (S&D) leader Iratxe García or European People’s Party chief Manfred Weber. The only place where Weber was better known than Puigdemont was in his home country of Germany, where 40 percent of respondents recognized his face.



Frustration with the EU



Survey participants were also asked to rate the EU’s responses to several recent crises. Over half of respondents expressed satisfaction with Brussels’ handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, with greater enthusiasm noted in northern countries such as Denmark and Lithuania.



When it came to the bloc’s approach to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, meanwhile, there was a nearly even split, with 49.85 percent of respondents believing the EU had responded well and 49.81 percent having a negative view of its actions in the crisis. Respondents in France, Germany and Slovenia were the most disapproving of Brussels’ strategies.



No such split existed in respondents’ view of the EU’s handling of the war in Gaza, however, with more than half of participants saying Brussels’ response had been “very or fairly bad.” The most critical evaluations came from Slovenia, where nearly three-quarters of respondents disapproved of the bloc’s actions.



The survey was similarly damning when it came to the migration crisis: 70 percent of respondents said the EU has done a bad job of addressing the issue.



Skepticism over independence



The survey revealed that although many Europeans take a favorable view of self-determination movements like that led by Puigdemont in Catalonia, few believe they will actually succeed.



Around three-quarters of respondents in Lithuania and Slovenia expressed support for Catalan independence, which was also backed by 63.9 percent in Germany and 53.6 percent of Danish participants.



In a grouping that included the Basque country, Corsica, Flanders and Galicia, Catalonia was seen as the region most likely to achieve self-determination. Despite that view, a majority of respondents expressed skepticism that the independence movement would succeed. 
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Author: Aitor Hernández-Morales
PublishedDate: 2024-04-05
Category: Europe
NewsPaper: Politico EU
Tags: Brussels bubble, European Parliament election 2024, Politics