1 Is the European Union responsible? EU support, accession, and macroeconomic situation. Abel FRANÇOIS EM Strasbourg Business School - University of Strasbourg (LaRGE) abel.francois@unistra.fr Cal LE GALL University of Salzbourg (SCEUS) cal.legall@sbg.ac.at Raul MAGNI BERTON Grenoble University (PACTE) raul.magniberton@iepg.fr Abstract A large body of evidence has supported the idea that citizens find the European Union accountable for the national state of the economy. Drawing on the economic-voting literature, it has been shown that individual EU support reacts to macroeconomic variables - mainly unemployment and inflation - exactly as in the case of support for national governments. However, to prove that the EU is deemed by citizens as a ruling body, we also need to prove that citizens‟ perceptions of the EU change with their country‟s accession into the European political system. Based on Eurobarometer surveys which were carried out three years after and before the 2004 wave of accession, we analyse economic support for the EU in the ten countries which joined European institutions on this occasion. We find that macroeconomic variables did not affect EU support before accession and that they considerably altered EU support after 2004, which strongly confirms the ruling position of the EU. Key-words: economic voting; EU support; popularity function; government accountability JEL Codes: D72; D78