'I just hope the whole thing won't collapse': 'understanding' and 'overcoming' the EU financial crisis from the citizens' perspective

Based on qualitative research conducted in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom, the article analyses the citizens' perspective on the EU financial crisis as it is communicated in the European public sphere. With reference to this aim, we argue in the following steps: After a general introduction into the research field we describe our overall theoretical approach on the citizens' role in the process of a communicative construction of the European public sphere. The following section introduces the methodological approach, triangulating qualitative interviews, a half-standardised questionnaire, qualitative network maps and media diaries. We go on to present our research results on the citizens' constructions of the EU financial crisis. On the one hand, they are struggling to understand the crisis, a process that is marked by perplexity, anxiety, and speculations. On the other hand, the citizens develop their own view on how to overcome the crisis, either in a national way, a European way, or by re-negotiating European cooperation. Based on such an analysis we conclude by a general reflection whether the crisis is a problem for the EU and its public sphere.