Crisis Management and Citizens Protection

Public opinion on European Union consular protection and assistance overseas. Descriptive Spain Country Report (2025)

On October 7, 2025, EUGLOB’s researchers Mervé Biten-Butorac and Ana Mar Fernández Pasarín published a policy brief presenting the findings from the survey experiment Public Opinion on EU Consular Protection and Assistance Overseas, conducted in Spain in June 2025. The study examines citizens’ awareness, legitimacy perceptions, and governance preferences regarding the EU’s evolving role in consular protection, particularly in light of the 2023 proposal to reform Directive 2015/637. Based on a representative survey of 1,200 respondents, it shows citizens’ information conditions (travel behavior and rights literacy), the visibility of political versus operational actors, legitimacy indicators (trust, responsibility attribution, confidence), and baseline preferences for how consular protection should be governed.

Partners

This project builds upon the work developed by the Jean Monnet Chair in European Policies (EUPOL) between 2018 and 2025 at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and aims at its structural consolidation. It also builds upon the outstanding track and project leadership developed by the Institute of European Studies, the Government and Governance Consolidated Research Group, the Global Intel Research Group, and the Observatory of European Foreign Policy for the last 15 years. The project also aims to reinforce the extensive inter-universities collaboration and joint activities already developed by the EUPOL Jean Monnet Chair within the framework of the Jean Monnet Spanish Partnership (BACE’s Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, Universitat Pompeu Fabra;  MACIES Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, Universidad Carlos III Madrid and the Jean Monnet OpenEUdebate Network, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and) launched in 2022, to strengthen the Jean Monnet epistemic community in Spain.