Eurobarometer 77.2 (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 the following modules are included: 1. European Parliament Eurobarometer, 2. Telephone numbers and helplines for social services, 3. Railway competition, 4. Europeans and agriculture, 5. Cyber security.

Topics: 1. European Parliament Eurobarometer: reduction of public spending or public investments as a way out of the crisis; evaluation of possible measures of the EU Parliament as a way out of the crisis; preference for national or EU-wide measures; attitudes towards a tax on financial transactions; most important reasons for or against a tax on financial transactions ; attitude towards assumption of public debt of allEU member states (scale); attitude towards a common EU budgetary policy; preference for automatic fines or reducing funding for the enforcement of debt settlement; knowledge of and attitudes towards Eurobonds and credit rating agencies.

2. Telephone numbers and helplines for social services: knowledge of the different emergency numbers; knowledge of the emergency number for children; knowing the phone number for emotional support (telephone counseling); awareness of the EU initiative to provide free telephone counseling services and hotlines; sourcesof information about counseling services; knowledge of the number in other Member States; knowledge of organizations that operate the 116-advisory services; usefulness of selected counseling services (scale); sufficient knowledge of citizens about counseling services.

3. Railway competition: frequency of travel by trains; purpose of using national and regional trains; most important motivation for increasing frequency of traveling by train; satisfaction with the rail system; attitudes towards privatization of the railways; expected impact of privatization on rail transport (scale); expected beneficiaries or losers of privatization (passengers, operator or employee); expected change in public funding due to increased competition in the rail market; expected changes in rail traffic through competition; importance of services from a single service provider.

4. Europeans and agriculture: concern about sufficient food production in the future;; advocacy of a food supply in the EU by imports, self-sufficiency or with export surpluses; EU agricultural production (scale); most important criteria when buying food (scale: quality, price, geographical origin, brand); attention to quality labels for food; awareness of food label; attitude to agriculture (scale: environmental, protection, and landscape management).

5. Cyber security: frequency of internet use; locations of Internet access (work, home, internet cafe); type of device to access the Internet; online activities; Rating of the general safety of activities like online banking and online shopping; concerns about using the Internet for online banking or buying things online; habit change because of concerns about security issues using the Internet; information on cybercrime; self-rated of knowledge about cybercrime; frequency of self-experienced cybercrime; personal concern to be victims of selected forms of cybercrime; preferred points of contact in the case of becoming victim of cybercrimes; concern about cybercrime (scale); change of password during past 12 months for selected online services.

Demography: nationality; self-rated position on a left-right continuum, family situation; age at end of education; sex; age; occupation; professional position; degree of urbanization; number of persons in the household aged 15 years and older; number of children in household less than 10 years and 10 to 14 years; own a mobile phone and fixed (landline) phone; have durable goods (entertainment electronics, Internet connection, have a car, a flat/a house have finished paying for or still paying for; Financial difficulties last year; self-assessment on social position (scale); Internet use (at home, at work, at school, university or internet café).

Also encoded: survey date; survey beginning; interview duration; presence of third parties; willingness to cooperate; city size; region; interview language; weighting factor.