Eurobarometer 69.1 (Feb-Mar 2008)

Discrimination in everyday life and in professional life. Knowledge about radioactive material. Opinion on the management of nuclear waste in the own country and at European level. Purchase of products and services. Experiences with misleading or fraudulent advertising. Rights of consumers in consumer contracts via the Internet, by phone, and by post. Cross-border shopping. Consumer protection.

Topics: 1. Perceived general extent of discrimination at present and 5 years ago with regard to: ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, disability; own experience of discrimination as well as witnessed discrimination against other persons due to the aforementioned characteristics; assumed extent of multiple discrimination in the own country; social proximity: attitude towards immediate vicinity of Sinti or Roma, disabled or homosexuals, persons of different ethnic origin or with different religious affiliation (scale); adversely acting characteristics of candidates in a concurrent application situation: name, address, way of speaking, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, religious belief, smoker, physical appearance; acceptance of a person with the following characteristics in the highest political position: woman, homosexual, different ethnic origin, aged under 30, different religious belief, disabled, aged over 75 (scale); approval of measures to ensure equal opportunities; approval to monitoring the composition of the work-force and the recruitment procedures; assessment of the efforts of the own country to fight discrimination; knowledge of the own rights in the case of an experienced discrimination.

2. Radioactive waste: personal knowledge about radioactive waste; attitude towards nuclear energy in general and approval of nuclear energy in case of a safe solution for the management of radioactive waste; opinion on nuclear energy: diversifies the energy sources of the EU, reduces the dependence on oil, lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to other energy sources; knowledge test on radioactive waste: knowledge of the different categories of radioactive waste, production of low-level radioactive waste in some hospitals, non-nuclear industries, and scientific research centers, production of high level radioactive waste only in nuclear reactors, production of radioactive waste in similar quantities to other waste, e.g. chemical waste, hazardous nature of any radioactive waste; knowledge about the handling of radioactive waste in the own country: storage deep underground at special disposal sites, some radioactive waste is put into solid form and packed in steel drums, final storage in other countries, temporary storage, dumped at sea; opinion on the handling of nuclear waste: pass the development of the solution of the waste problem to future generations, there is no way to find a safe solution for the disposal problem, deep underground disposal as the most appropriate solution; most trustworthy source of information on the management of nuclear waste; most important reason for concern in the case of a construction of an underground disposal site near the place of residence of the respondent; desired approach in the decision process for constructing an underground disposal site; management of nuclear waste in the EU: responsibility of each member state for its own nuclear waste, development of common methodologies within the EU, development of management plans with fixed deadlines in each member state, monitoring of national practices for managing radioactive waste by the EU.

3. Cross-border shopping in the EU: purchase of products and services in the past 12 months: via the internet, by phone, by post, from a sales representative; purchases made in the last 12 months: travel abroad for shopping, shopping during a holiday or business trip, failed attempt to purchase products in another EU country due to the fact of living in a different country, knowledge of the European Consumer Centre; total value of goods and services purchased; frequency of perception of advertisements from sellers located in other European countries; experience with advertisements: received unsolicited advertising, noticed misleading advertisements, responded to an advertisement which has been found to be misleading or deceptive, noticed fraudulent advertisements; coercion to purchase a good or sign up a contract; perception of unfair terms in consumer contracts; experiences with shopping via the internet, by phone, or by post: delayed or no delivery at all from a seller or provider located in the own country, within or outside the EU; use of the right to return a product or to cancel a contract (cooling-off period) for purchases made on the internet, by post, by phone, or at home; use of warranty services; complaints to the seller; satisfaction with the management of the complaint; actions taken in the case of inadequately treated complaints; cross-border shopping: preparedness to purchase products in another EU language, knowledge of information sources on cross-border shopping, intention to spend more money in the future for cross-border purchases, no interest due to the preference for local purchases, no interest due to lack of internet connection, general lack of interest; more confident making purchases in another EU country or in the own country: via the internet, by post or phone, from sales representatives, on a trip; likelihood of selected difficulties regarding shopping in the own country compared to shopping in another EU country: resolving problems such as complaints or return of a product, falling victim to frauds, delivery problems, disregarding of consumer protection laws, returning a product within the cooling-off period; comparison of products and services over the internet; best ways to protect consumers; attitude towards consumer rights in the own country (scale: easy to resolve disputes with sellers by an arbitration, mediation or conciliation body, and by court, trust in independent consumer organisations and public authorities, willingness to defend the own rights in court if joining with other consumers who are complaining about the same thing, adequate protection by existing measures, sellers respect consumer rights); purchase of financial services via the internet, by phone, or by post; usefulness of a standard information sheet to allow the comparison of financial services; main barriers in purchasing financial services from a provider located in another EU country compared to providers in the own country; purchase of a package holiday from a company based in the EU; experience with package holidays: sufficient information by the package holiday operator prior to travel, holiday exactly as offered by the operator; buying criteria of non-food products; assessment of the general safety of non-food products in the own country; knowledge of non-food products recalled from the market, and personal affection from product recalls; injury or accident suffered from a defective product.

Demography: nationality; age; left-right self-placement; marital status; age at end of education; sex; occupation; professional position; type of community; household composition and household size; own a mobile phone and fixed (landline) phone; possession of durable goods (entertainment electronics, internet connection; national provenance of the respondent and his parents (migratory background); minority contact and own belonging to an ethnic, a religious, a sexual minority or a minority in terms of disability; religious denomination; chronic physical or mental health problem.

Also encoded was: date of interview; beginning of interview; duration of interview; persons present during the interview; city size; region; language of interview (only in LU, BE, ES, FI, EE, LV and MT); weighting factor.