The project HEUREC ("How Europeans understand fairness, reciprocity and cohesion") was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) from 2021-24. It investigated which expectations of reciprocity citizens in nine Eurozone countries have towards other European countries and the institutions of the European Union. The difficult question of ‘who owes whom what’ – e.g. which member states or which levels are responsible for providing support in the EU – has only become more controversial, especially in the wake of the Euro-area sovereign debt crisis and, most recently, the stimulus packages passed in response to the COVID-19-pandemic. Perceptions of transnational justice and reciprocity are embedded in narratives; their patterns can be asessed best in focus groups. Accordingly, the project conducted focus groups in the selected Eurozone countries: Finland, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain. The focus groups included individuals from various socio-demographic groups who discussed problems of reciprocity and distributive justice in the EU context. The goal of the project was to determine narrative patterns and thus to gain better understanding of the societal requisites for realizing solidarity at European level.