Eurobarometer 78.1 (2012)

Since the early 1970s the European Commission´s Standard & Special Eurobarometer are regularly monitoring the public opinion in the European Union member countries. Principal investigators are the Directorate-General Communication and on occasion other departments of the European Commission or the European Parliament. Over time, candidate and accession countries were included in the Standard Eurobarometer Series. Selected questions or modules may not have been surveyed in each sample. Please consult the basic questionnaire for more information on country filter instructions or other questionnaire routing filters. In this study all question modules are in the standard Eurobarometer context: 1. Standard EU and trend questions, 2. Europe 2020 strategy, 3. Financial and economic crisis, 4. European citizenship, 5. Information on European political matters.<br>Topics: 1. Attitudes towards the EU (standard EU and trend questions): satisfaction with life; frequency of political discussions about national, local and European politics; assessment of the economic situation in the country, in Europe and the world, the personal professional, financial situation and the national labour market situation ; expectations on life in general, to the economic development of the world, the EU and the own country, financial situation of the household, the personal job situation and the employment situation in the country; important political issues at the EU and at the country as well as personal impact of these issues; future EU membership of the country as a good thing; favorability of EU membership for the country; full application of EU legislation for the Turkish Cypriot Community (TCC) as a good thing; advantages of the full application of EU legislation for the Turkish Cypriot Community; assessment of the general development trend at national level and in the EU; trust in certain institutions (media, political parties, national government, Parliament, European Union, United Nations, regional or local public authorities); image of the EU; personal associations to the EU; characterization of the EU as modern, democratic, protective, efficient, technocratic; knowledge of European institutions (European Parliament, European Commission, Council of the European Union, European Central Bank, Court of Justice of the European Union) and trust in these institutions; knowledge test about the EU (number of countries, direct election of the members of the EU Parliament, EU membership of Switzerland); consent to an economic and monetary union and to enlargement of the EU; personal understanding how the EU works; own voice counts in the EU and in the own country; EU´s voice counts in the world; globalisation as an opportunity for economic growth; ability of the own country to deal with the negative effects of globalisation; support for a common foreign policy, a common defence and security policy among EU Member States as well as presentation of the candidates for the post of European Commission President at the next European Parliament election; satisfaction with democracy in the own country and in the EU; consideration of national interests in the EU; EU membership increases sense of security of the country; EU protects its citizens from the negative effects of globalisation (split A) or enables its citizens to better benefit from the positive effects of globalisation (Split B); the country could better face the future outside the EU; development of the EU into a federation of Nation-States; current main objective for the building of Europe and preferred main objective in the future; personal optimism about the future of the EU.

2. Europe 2020 strategy: importance of promoting research and development, education, economic development by fast internet connections, support more environmentally friendly production, promoting entrepreneurship, modernising the labour market and promoting economically weak persons (social participation) (scale); assessment of the accessibility of political goals by 2020: full employment, increasing research funding, reduce EU greenhouse gas emissions by 20%, increasing the share of renewable energy by 20%, increase energy efficiency by 20%, reduce early school leaving rate to 10%, the slope of young people with higher education to 40%, reducing the poverty line by a quarter; development of the EU in the right direction.

3. Financial and economic crisis: impact of the economic crisis on the labour market reached its peak versus the worst is still to come; current situation of own household; most suitable actor to tackle the financial and economic crisis (national government, European Union, United States, G20 or international Monetary Fund IMF) ; set to the need for reform in the own country , for cooperation among EU Member States in addressing the crisis, to reduce the public deficit (Split: immediate versus later); the EU has sufficient power to defend the economic interests of Europe in the global economy; as a consequence of the crisis the EU will be stronger in the long run; feeling closer to other European citizens; requirement of closer cooperation between the EU countries; preferred measures to improve the European economy (increasing the number of working hours, improve education, investment in research and development, easier access to credit for companies, easier start-ups, using energy more efficiently, investments in transport as well as in environmentally friendly products and services, increasing the retirement age, reducing public deficits and debt, regulation of financial markets); assessment of the effectiveness of selected measures to combat the economic and financial crisis (a more important role for the EU in regulation financial services, stronger economic policy coordination among all EU Member States, stronger coordination of economic and financial policies among the countries of the euro zone); attitude to selected EU measures to reform the global financial markets (scale: tougher rules on tax avoidance and tax havens, tax on profits made by banks and on financial transactions, the introduction of Eurobonds and tighter rules for credit rating agencies).

4. European citizenship: expectations from the European Union; identification as a citizen of the EU; knowledge of civil rights of the EU; interest in civil rights; most positive achievements of the EU; frequency of visits to other EU countries and contact with people from these countries last year, reception of print media and television programs in a foreign language as well as internet in order to purchase a product or services from another EU country; personal benefit from selected achievements of the EU; probability of the personal use of the European Citizens´ Initiative and preferred areas.

5. Information on European political matters: assessment of personal and general knowledge of citizens on European issues; frequency of media use; preferred information source for news on national as well as European political affairs and preferred websites on the Internet; more trust in official websites or institutional websites; sources of information for information about the European Union, its policies and its institutions; assessment of the scope and the representation of the European Union in television, newspapers, radio and websites as positive, objectively or too negatively; preferred sites for information about the EU; attitude towards social networks in the context of political affairs: current level of information, cannot be trusted, arouse interest, a good way to have say on political issues.

Demography: nationality; family situation; age at end of education; sex; age; occupation; professional position; degree of urbanization; household composition and household size; own a mobile phone and fixed (landline) phone; possession of durable goods (entertainment electronics, Internet connection, possession of a car, a flat/a house have finished paying for or still paying for; financial difficulties during the last year; self-rated social position (scale); Internet use (at home, at work, at school, self-reported belonging to the working class, the middle class or the upper class of society (only EU27).

Also encoded was: date of interview; beginning of interview; duration of interview; persons present during the interview; willingness to cooperate; city size; region; weighting factor.