Eurobarometer 73.5 (Jun 2010)

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 the following modules are included: 1. Standard indicators on living conditions and expectations, 2. European Social Fund (ESF), 3. Civil justice and commercial legal proceedings in the member states and the EU, 4. Attitudes towards development aid, 5. Africa: problems, image and relation to the EU, 6. Risk issues regarding food.<br>Topics: 1. Standard indicators on living conditions and expectations: life satisfaction; assessment of the current situation in different areas (personal living area, national health care, retirement benefits, unemployment benefits, cost of living, relations between people of different culture, religion or nationality, dealing with inequality and poverty, affordable energy, affordable housing functioning public administration, national economic conditions, personal job situation and financial situation and national employment situation); expected development of the personal life situation in general and in the areas mentioned above and compared to the period five years ago.

2. European Social Fund (ESF): most important general issues and based on social policy and employment policy, which the European Union should address as a priority; preference for the solution of social issues for the whole EU or focus on the poorest regions and countries of the EU; awareness of the European Social Fund (ESF).

3. Civil justice and commercial legal proceedings in the member states and the EU: own involvement in civil or commercial legal proceedings with a person or a company from an EU Member State and from a non EU country; difficulty to access civil justice in another EU Member State; need for additional measures to support citizens in obtaining their rights; type of personal experience in civil or commercial legal proceedings abroad (based on marriage, children or contractual disputes); non-EU country in which the respondent had personal experience in civil or commercial proceeding; most important obstacles to start legal proceedings in another EU member State; perceived difficulties in the enforcement of a positive judgment for the respondent in another EU country; perceived encouragement by a judicial declaration (exequatur) to institute legal proceedings against a person in another EU country; importance of EU measures to simplify the procedures for enforcing court decisions in another country; knowledge of the procedure introduced by the EU to recover cross-border small claims; source of information about this process; knowledge of the European order for payment procedure (European Payment Order); source of information about this process; knowledge of common standards in the EU to qualify for legal aid (Cross-Border Civil Case); source of information on this standard; preferred EU measures for cross-border family law areas (international distinctions, control of financial matters in connection with a marriage, control of financial matters for unmarried but officially recognized couple); attitude towards the automaticall validity of an agreement on the distribution of the belongings of a divorcing couple in all other EU member states; personal experience with the presentation of documents such as birth certificate, marriage certificate or death certificate in another EU country; need to submit a translation or legalization of this document; attitude towards a universal recognition of civil status documents in the EU; preference for an automatic recognition of documents or the issuance of standard formats or improvement of mechanism for translating these documents; attitude towards general system for the recognition of adoptions.

4. Attitudes towards development aid: biggest challenges facing developing countries; attitude towards development aid; personal involvement in development aid (donations or volunteer activities); preference for international organizations or individual countries as best actors for development aid; attitude towards changes in the scope of official development aid and towards a cooperation of the EU Member States in development aid; preferred political guidelines for the alignment of development aid.

5. Africa / problems, image and relation to the EU: expected increase in the importance of Africa as a partner for the EU; most important areas of cooperation between the EU and Africa; most important problems for African countries to tackle together; areas that characterize the positive image of Africa.

6. Risk issues regarding food: most important criteria that are associated with food and eating (satisfying hunger, enjoying a meal with friends, selecting fresh and tasty foods, looking for affordable prices, checking calories and nutrients, concerns about the safety of food); probability of certain dangerous events (being a victim of a crime, food and environmental pollution damages the own health, negative effects of the economic crisis, being injured in a car accident, getting a serious illness); most important problems and risks associated with food and eating; perceived anxiety associated with food (BSE, genetically modified food, allergic reactions, additives, food poisoning from bacteria, pesticide residues, antibiotic residues and pollutants in meat products, substances in plastic coming into contact with food, unbalanced diet, diet-related disease, weight gain, new viral diseases such as avian flu, animal cloning, the welfare of farmed animals, the quality and freshness of food, nano particles in food); trust in sources of information about food risks (media, scientists, national and european authorities for food safety, European institutions, the state government, consumer groups, environmental protection groups, farmers, food manufacturers, supermarkets and shops, health professionals, family and friends, information found on the Internet); attitude towards food safety (scale: increasing food security, greater safety of food produced in the EU, strict EU laws guaranteeing food security, quick action of public authorities, public authorities as consumer representatives, negligent authorities, using the most recent scientific evidence by public authorities in the EU, authorities in the EU are doing a good job for food safety, dependence of scientific advice on commercial and political interests, development of unhealthier food over the years, demand for more information about healthy diets and lifestyles by public authorities in the EU, public authorities take into account citizens’ concerns regarding food safety); probability of personal measures to avoid certain risks and judgment on the efforts of European authorities to protect consumers from these risks (contamination of food by pesticides or pollutants such as mercury, bacterial contamination of food such as salmonella, diet-related health risks by fatty diet, risks of new technologies such as aninmal cloning and nanotechnology, transmission of animal infections to humans such as BSE); last time of the reception of information on unsafe food containing chemical substances (Split A) or on unhealthy food containing too much fat or salt (Split B); personal reaction to these information regarding unsafe or harmful food.

Demography: nationality; age; marital status and family situation; regional origin; age at end of education; sex; occupation; 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; interview language; city size; region; country; weighting factor.