Support for greater financial means by individual Member States

Figure 9 shows highlighted examples of Member States whose citizens demonstrate opinions countering the dominant narrative of beneficiaries and contributors. Lithuania, Slovenia and Slovakia belong to the group of the net beneficiaries of the EU budget. Despite that, respondents from these countries consistently express much weaker support for increasing the size of the EU budget than the EU average. At the other end is Italy – a contributor Member State – whose citizens consistently voice stronger support for greater financial means than the EU average. Cyprus is also an interesting case, being one of the Member States that change their position between beneficiaries and contributors over the period 2005-2020. According to the net-balance or juste retour narrative, the Member States within that group should have rather moderate views compared to other Member States. Cyprus, however, has almost consistently had highest share of citizens supporting an increase in size of the EU budget. The data demonstrates that the status of the country as a contributor or beneficiary cannot be considered a determinant of the how respondents would answer the question regarding the size of the EU budget, even though it might have some effect.