Eurobarometer 75.3 (2011)

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, 3. Financial and economic crisis, 4. EU budget, 5. Common Agricultural Policy.<br>Topics: 1. Attitudes towards the EU (standard EU and trend questions): life satisfaction; frequency of political discussion on national, local and European politics; self-rated opinion leadership; assessment of the economic situation in the country, in Europe, the personal professional and financial situation and the labor market situation; expectations of life in general; expected economic development in the world, the EU and the own country (economic outlook) as well as the personal financial situation and the employment situation in the country; most important political issues at EU level, country level and at the local; personal impact of these issues; assessment of the EU membership of the country as a good thing; benefits of EU membership for the country; evaluation of the full application of EU legislation as a good thing; assessment of the application as advantages or disadvantage; assessment of the general trend of development at national, European and global levels; trust in the national government, national Parliament, EU and UN; Image of the EU; personal associations with the EU; knowledge of European institutions (European Parliament, European Council, European Central Bank) and trust in these institutions; knowledge test about the EU (number of Member States, direct election of members of the European Parliament, and Switzerland is a member country); approval of monetary union, a common foreign policy, the enlargement of EU and a unified defense and security policy; attitude towards an increase of the European budget; agreement with the following statements: personal understanding about the functioning of the EU, good representation of interests of own country in the EU, voice counts in the EU; the European voice is globally relevant, globalisation as an opportunity for economic growth; designation of the areas that need more support; personal optimism about the future of the EU.

2. Europe 2020: importance of promoting research and development, education, economic development through high speed internet connection, environmental protection, supporting innovative enterprises, labor market, and supporting economically weak persons (scale); assessment of the probability of attaining policy objectives by 2020: full employment, high research funding, reduction of the greenhouse gas, 20% energy from renewable sources, increased energy efficiency, increasing the education achievements of young people, and reducing the poverty rate by a quarter; preferred support for innovation in environmental research by strengthening the cooperation of researchers or by increased funding for research; prefered support sheme for young people: support for studying abroad, raising the level of education or employment provision; preferred support in Internet issues: extension of Internet services for citizens (e-government), consumer protection or broadband access; preferred objectives for energy policy: reduction of CO2, more efficient energy consumption or renewable energy ; preferred EU policy: facilitation of business start-ups, industrial structural change or green economies; perferd EU labor marked policies: support adaptation to new working conditions and career changes, the right to live and work in another European country, support education and training opportunities (lifelong learning); preferred EU policy to fight poverty: improve education and employment opportunities, improve social protection systems, or reduce discrimination of vulnerable groups; EU develops in the right direction.

3. Financial and economic crisis: expected development of the economic crisis on the labor market; future perspective of one´s own household; best actor to overcome the crisis and to regulate the financial markets (national government, EU, USA, G20 or the IMF); positive impact of the euro on the economic crisis; preferred initiatives to improve the European economy; attitudes towards reform, perception of need for reforms in the own country; attitudes towards cooperation of EU Member States to overcome the crisis, towards reducing standard of living for future generations, towards reducing the public deficit (Split: immediate versus later), and towards raising the public deficit for job creation. Perceived effectiveness of economic and fiscal policy measures to fight the crisis; advocacy of tax and financial reforms (prevent tax evasion, financial transaction tax, regulation of the financial sector and of bonus payments, hedge fund regulation, transparency of financial markets); preferred actor to reform the global financial markets (national government, the EU, the USA, G20 or IMF); attitude towards a stronger (Split A) or a less strong (Split B) role in the development of new rules for the financial markets; sufficient power of the EU to defend its own interests in the world economy; assessment of national governement’s (EU, USA) success in fighting the crisis, the EU and the USA.

4. EU budget: knowledge of the largest EU member budgets and preferred budget use in the economic, political, cultural or social field; assessment of a balanced cost-benefit relationship between the EU budget and citizens; identification as citizens of the EU as well as knowledge of civil rights; interest in information about civil rights.

5. Common Agricultural Policy: attitude towards limiting direct payments to farmers; advocacy of direct payments for environmentally sound cultivation; reasons for the simplification of the CAP regulations (common agricultural policy and policy for rural development) to support smaller farms; attitude to agricultural and food products from the region and especially from mountain regions (scale); attitude to the publication of names of the recipient and the amount of EU subsidies.

Demography: nationality; left-right self-placement; family situation and marital status; age at end of education; sex; age; 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, 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).

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