Policy legacies and cueing in the European Union during COVID-19

How can government elites influence public support for EU crisis policies? Policy legacies (memories of ‘deeds’, i.e., policy interventions of the EU) are one such crucial channel, but so far we have little evidence of their effects. By contrast, the literature has marshalled solid evidence on cueing (‘words’, i.e., how politicians talk about the EU influences citizens’ policy attitudes). We look at a crucial policy which may have a lasting legacy: the adoption of the pathbreaking NGEU package during COVID-19. We operationalise policy legacy with past policy satisfaction and by priming individuals with information about the positive and negative effects of the policy. We operationalise cues by randomly assigning individuals to conditions where they are exposed to messages from their national government. Overall, we observe a negativity bias for both policy legacies and cues, underlining the fragility of positive legitimacy-building efforts through both policy legacies and cues. While the effects of cues and legacies may compound, they do not seem to depend on each other. Concerning effect heterogeneity, EU trust and attitudes towards EU integration moderate the effect of cues and legacies but not left–right political ideology. Finally, cue effects are also stronger in creditors states.