Research has shown that public opinion affects how governments act in international negotiations. We focus on the way in which the polarisation and salience of public opinion in states affects their approach to policy making on the international level. While we would expect debates in policy areas with polarised domestic public opinion and high salience to be highly conflictual, deliberations should be much more harmonious when salience and/or polarisation are low. We combine public opinion measures across policy areas in the member states of the European Union with a novel dataset of debates in the Council of the European Union between 2014 and 2022. Our paper contributes to scholars’ understanding of how domestic audiences’ preferences shape outcomes at the international level.