The Future of the European Union in Eastern and Central Europe: How the 2015 Refugee Crisis Impacted Euroscepticism in the Visegrád Group

The European Refugee Crisis, a result of the Syrian Civil War, was a major event for the European Union that had a drastic effect on the opinions of the supranational state. The Visegrád Group (V4) specifically had some of the most inflammatory reactions out of the Member States in the EU. The V4 has always been perceived as ‘outsiders’ in the European Union and their stance on EU policies could be regarded similarly. Euroscepticism was already on the rise in these four Member States, however, after both the economic crisis and the refugee crisis, Euroscepticism has drastically increased in almost all of the V4 Member States. This can be seen statistically in the 2019 European Parliament results that although are not seen as a vital election in most of the states, saw an obvious increase in Eurosceptic party successes.