Eurobarometer 44.0 (Oct-Nov 1995)

Judgement on the European currency; health questions; European Union;
school and further education; family and provision for old age.

Topics: interest in politics; personal opinion leadership; attitude to
unification of Europe; judgement on membership of one´s own country in
the EU.

1. European currency: attitude to the European currency; reasons for
or against introduction of a European currency; self-classification of
extent to which informed about the European currency; knowledge about
the Maastricht criteria for introduction of a common European currency;
knowledge about the countries that do not want to join the currency
union; expected year of introduction of the common currency; expected
economic consequences of the common currency; preference for
introduction on one day or a longer transition phase in introduction of
the European bank notes; desire for a longer transition period for dual
pricing in stores, on bills, on bank statements and salary statements;
expected conversion problems; preference for a special information
campaign on the introduction of the European currency; preferred
institutions and media for such an information campaign.

2. Health: knowledge about the European week against cancer; media
through which the respondent received this information; knowledge about
the European program against cancer; opportunities for cancer
prevention through corresponding precaution; judgement on selected
consumer habits as cancer-causing; attitude to medical check-ups for
women for early diagnosis of breast cancer; personal participation in
such medical check-ups.

3. Europe questions: advantageousness of EU membership for one´s own
country; assessment of the necessity of a common currency for the
European integration process; attitude to the term EURO with appending
the name of the national currency; attitude to the fight against
organized crime, illegal immigration and to formulating a defense
policy on the European level; persons who would be suitable to push
European integration; personal knowledge of a foreign language and
assessment of the most significant foreign languages; trust in the
people of individual European countries as well as in the Americans,
Russians, Poles, Hungarians and Czechs (country image); assessment of
the significance of German-French cooperation for the European
integration process; interest in information about Germany; preferred
media and information channels about Germany; Federal Chancellor Kohl
as integration figure for Europe; associations with Germany.

4. School and education: primary task of the school; school-age
children; satisfaction with personality development and social
development in school; importance of selected personality
characteristics; judgement on the role of parents, the school and the
working world in view of development of these personality
characteristics among children; adequate inclusion of parents and
companies in school decisions and in school training; satisfaction with
personal training; missing aspects in personal training; judgement on
the school as facility to prepare for demands of today´s society;
influence of a rapidly changing society on one´s own training plans and
decisions; attitude to life-long learning and preferred ways to improve
personal education level; reasons for termination of one´s own further
education; sensibility of further education for the working world and
personal life; voluntary or involuntary participation in measures for
further education; judgement on selected recommendations on government
support of measures for further education; preference for nation,
state, city, company or participant to finance further education;
personal willingness to pay a share of the costs of further education;
possibility of the European Union in further education; necessity of
life-long learning for the respondent himself and significance for
one´s own employment situation; assessment of adequate preparation of
schoolchildren by school for today´s information society; influence of
modern communication technologies on the quality of education and
expected basic change in conveying knowledge.

5. Family and provision for one´s old age: desirability of population
growth in one´s country; attitude to government support of families
with children; scountry or individual as primarily responsible for
provision for one´s old age; preference for an increase in social
security contributions or reduction of pensions in case of lack of
government support possibilities; preference for housing older persons
in houses for seniors or their own family; government or individual
responsibility for nursing care of older persons; personal number of
children; ideas about one´s own family planning; normative ideas about
parents´ being married and the age span (separate for men and women) in
which they should become parents; preference for the choice of name of
women at marriage; with married people the following questions were
posed, whether the respondent (female) or, in the case of a (male)
respondent, his partner used her maiden name, the name man or both
names.

6. Questions on the structure of the EU: attitude to a European Union
with common foreign and defense policy; preferred supervision of the
European Government by the European Parliament or the Council of
Ministers; attitude to a federally organized European Union; preferred
conduct with non-unamimous stand of the countries on such a federal
organization structure. Self-classification on a left-right continuum;
possession of durable economic goods; possession of a telephone;
religiousness. Also encoded was: date of interview; length of
interview; time at start of interview; presence of other persons during
interview; willingness of respondent to cooperate. In Luxembourg,
Belgium and Finland the language in which the interview was conducted
was recorded.