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A common concern regarding the viability of institutional reform of the EU is whether European citizens constitute a demos—a political community that facilitates democratic governance. One important aspect of this concern is whether or not public perceptions are structured so as to ease or impede political discourse across Europe. To investigate this question, we examine whether the EU mass public organizes its attitudes toward EU policy issues in systematic and meaningful ways. Specifically, we examine whether EU citizens' attitudes across a broad range of policies decided at the EU-level are structured consistent with several prominent models of the EU policy-space. Using Eurobarometer surveys collected in the 15 member states in 1996, we show that, for the mass public, policy positions on EU issues are systematically organized. Moreover, the substantive structure of this policy space is consistent with two common models of voter policy spaces at the domestic level: socioeconomic left-right and 'new politics'. However, while these two dimensions underlie citizens' attitudes on EU issues, they are so strongly inter-related that essentially they merge to create a single dimension. An interesting further finding is that, although the EU space appears to have the flavor of domestic policy spaces, this single EU dimension is not related to citizens' leftright self-placements.

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