74% of EU citizens think that their country has benefited from EU membership
Source can be downloaded from the EU website: https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/api/deliverable/download/file?deliverableId=97983
It's linked to on this page (near the bottom in the "infographics" section): https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/3492
From what I notice in the Netherlands. The people who think the EU does not benefit them are mostly people that work (or own companies) in industries that the EU regulates harshly (think farmers here). Ofc these people think its not beneficial to be in the EU, their livelihoods are at risk because of it.
I do think the EU is basically necessary for the EU countries to thrive.
if the netherlands is anything like sweden, farming is likely heavily subsidised by the eu. that's the annoying part; there are valid criticisms of the union (inconsistency, inertia, advisors, lobbying) but anti-pollution regulations with appropriate compensation is not it.
The Dutch government has botched implementing these environmental reforms quite a bit in the past, which has caused right wing / anti enviromental parties to swoop in and claim the bigger environmental rules are the problem, instead of the way they were implemented.
There’s this one big ‘farmer’s party’ and a lot of farmers have bought into their lie of representing actual farmers, but the party was founded by lobbyists and their biggest donators are chemical companies who would benefit a ton from being allowed to pollute
You're correct on your analysis, older governments and the farming industry alike essentially ignored the problem hoping it would go away (spoiler: it didnt).
Luckily that farmer party is not big anymore. They do still hold quite some seats in the Dutch senate from the 1-2 elections they were big (which they will lose in a couple of years), but not in the house anymore, where they are essentially only a small party now and hold / are projected no more than 2-4 seats of 150 seats in total. (Sadly most of their voters jumped ship to the next group of populists, the anti immigration party 🥲)
I think EU didn't benefit my country on a lot of points. One big point though is the forces capitalism everywhere; like forcing to open energy selling to competition, leading to dismemberment of previously public sectors to the benefit of private company with absolutely 0 added value