Here comes the flood: crisis learning and public support for EU disaster solidarity

This article investigates how satisfaction with the EU’s past crisis management shapes support for EU-level risk-sharing in response to natural disasters, termed ‘disaster solidarity’. Drawing on original cross-country public opinion survey data and a natural experiment conducted during severe flooding, the study distinguishes between inter-crises learning (based on prior experiences) and intra-crisis learning (triggered by an ongoing crisis). Findings reveal that satisfaction with the EU’s performance during the COVID-19 pandemic – a crisis managed with visible supranational coordination – is positively associated with support for disaster solidarity. The refugee and Euro Area crises have no such positive learning effect, suggesting that inter-crises learning depends on the respective policy responses adopted in the past. By contrast, intra-crisis learning reduces support for EU-level risk-sharing and weakens the influence of inter-crises learning. Overall, our results highlight the conditional nature of public support for supranational risk-sharing and the limits of inter-crisis learning under acute threat.