The diverging effect of austerity policies on trust in the European Central Bank and support for the euro

Why did public support for the euro remain relatively stable in the wake of the euro crisis, while trust in the European Central Bank (ECB) plummeted? We would expect support for both to move in tandem because the ECB’s main tasks are to guarantee price stability in the eurozone and to safeguard the value of the euro. We explain the surprisingly different trends by the role of the ECB in the so-called ‘troika’ overseeing the bailout packages, that were implemented since 2010. The associated and unpopular austerity policies politicized the role of the ECB, while the common currency remained largely un-politicized because of its ‘banal’ character of a daily life object. Analyzing Eurobarometer survey data of nineteen euro-area countries between 1999 and 2023, we show that the divergent trend of ECB trust and euro currency support is indeed partially linked to the austerity policies that were implemented since 2010.