Recent years have shown tendencies of European disintegration, with Brexit being the most prominent example. The UK’s leaving of the EU has laid bare the lack of a future plan for Europe and will especially bring the EU—non-EU relations to the foreground in the near future (see also the failed negotiations of the EU-Swiss Institutional Framework Agreement). In the context of little research looking into Europe’s future, the few extant studies focus on the future of the European Union internally or on its relations to specific other countries. Especially theoretical advancements regarding the concepts of “differentiated (dis)integration” or “EU external governance” – and related studies’ legal, institutional focus – should be complemented with public opinion research, that is, how people perceive that (future) EU—non-EU relations should look like. The latter gained in relevance due to an increased politicization of European integration and a related “constraining dissensus” about it. This study presents comparative evidence on peoples’ preferences across eight European countries from within and outside the EU (5 EU and 3 non-EU countries). We collected original survey data in which we asked respondents (N=4549) in an open-ended question format to describe their preferences about the future relations between the EU and non-EU countries such as the UK, Switzerland, or Norway. After manually recoding and classifying these answers, we provide insights about (different) preference patterns from a within and outside EU perspective. We further link individual preferences to attitudes regarding the economy, immigration, risk-taking or multilateral cooperation and sociodemographics including left-right ideology.