This database contains the files needed to reproduce the results reported in:Sánchez-García, Álvaro; Rodon, Toni; and Delgado-García, Maria (2024) Where has everyone gone? Depopulation and voting behaviour in Spain, European Journal of Political Research

Does the performance of the EU compared to neighbouring countries affect popular support for the EU? Following the benchmarking approach, we argue that people compare the performance of their country inside the EU with that of a country outside the EU and, as a result of this comparison, form their attitudes towards the EU. The COVID-19 vaccine rollout in 2020 represents an ideal scenario to test this benchmarking expectation. While the pandemic challenged countries across the globe simultaneously, the speed at which governments launched their vaccination programs differed. The UK rolled out its vaccines weeks before EU countries, and we study whether this affected popular support for the EU. We conduct an Unexpected Event during Surveys Design (UESD) based on a Eurobarometer survey in the field when the first vaccine was administered in the UK. Our results show that the start of the COVID-19 vaccination in the UK led to a significant decrease in specific policy support for the EU, while there is no consistent evidence of change in diffuse support for the EU. Our article has important implications for understanding attitudes toward European integration and performance evaluations.

Materials necessary to replicate the figures, tables and supplementary materials of the article.