Eurobarometer 77.4 (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. Development aid, 3. Social climate, 4. Discrimination.<br>Topics: 1. European Parliament Eurobarometer: cast ballot at the European elections in June 2009; awareness of the European institutions: EU Parliament, European Commission, Council of the EU, European Council, European Central Bank, European Court of Auditors, the Court of Justice of the European Union, European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions; image of the EU; importance of the role of the European Parliament within the EU; knowledge about the daet of the next European elections; knowledge about the institutions of the EU (direct election of the members of the European Parliament, the EU budget is determined jointly by the European Parliament and the member states, European law agreed jointly by the European Parliament and the member states, each member state has the same number of members in the European Parliament); policy priority for the EU; policy priority do manage crisis; identity as nationality (only), nationality and European, European and nationality or just as European; most important elements of the European identity; factors strengthening identification with Europe; self-rated knowledge about the functioning of the EU and its institutions; knowledge test on the institutions: European Commission, European Parliament and the Council of the European Union; test your knowledge on the appointment of the President of the European Commission; Institution that best represents the EU; incitation to vote if major political alliances present a candidate for the President of the European Commission; awareness of European Citizens´ initiative; attitudes towards European Citizens´ Initiative (will be difficult to bring together a million citizens in 27 Member States, effective way of getting European citizens directly involved in the EU’s decisions); prefered mode to suggest ideas for the European Citizens´ Initiative; areas to use the European Citizens´ Initiative; awareness of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU; Europe´s most important civil rights; political efficacy (voice counts in the EU, in the own country and the country´s voice counts in the EU); Country´s membership of the EU is a good thing; best forms of political participation in the EU.

2. Development aid: importance of EU development assistance; attitudes towards increasing development aid in light of the economic situation; policy area with the biggest impact on developing countries; most important areas of development policies; main obstacles successful development of developing countries; attitudes towards aid for emerging markets; attitudes towards social and ethical responsibilities of private companies from developed countries for investments in developing countries;EU should enforce compyance with social and ethical standards for private companies operating in developing countries; types of private companies that are the most important for the country’s development; role of private sector companies in developing countries; willingness to pay more for groceries or other products from developing countries (fair-trade products); self-rated knowledge about usage of EU development aid; priority EU development assistance for countries with conflicts or natural disasters versus development aid regardless of difficult situations.

3. Social climate: life satisfaction; assessment of the current situation and expected development in selected areas (residential area, health care, provision of pensions, unemployment benefits, cost of living in the country, multicultural relations, dealing with social inequalities and poverty in the country, affordable energy and housing, the way public administration runs, national economic situation, personal job situation, financial situation of the household, (national labor market); changes in the aforementioned areas compared with five years ago.

4. Discrimination: perceived discrimination in the country: ethnic origin, sexual orientation, age (being over 55, being under 30 years old), religion, disability, gender identity and gender; personal feeling of discrimination during the past 12 month; reasons for discrimination; suspected characteristics that could be detrimental when applying for a job; feeling about persons from specific groups elected into the highest political position in the country (woman, gay, lesbian or bisexual person, other ethnic origin, younger than 30 or older than 75 years, other religion than the majority of the population, disability, transsexual, scale); attitudes towards selected measures to foster diversity in the work place (training on diversity issues for employers and employees, monitoring the work-force composition to evaluate the representation of groups at risk of discrimination, monitoring recruitment procedures); assessing the effectiveness of national efforts to combat discrimination (scale); knowledge of the rights of victims of discrimination; fewer funds for equality and diversity due to the economic crisis; expected increase of discrimination in the labor market for ethnic origin, sexual orientation, age, religion, disability, gender identity and gender; sufficient measures to promote diversity at the workplace for discrimination due to ethnic origin, gender, etc.; preferred contact for reporting discrimination (trade Unions, non-governmental association, court or tribunal, equal opportunities organization, lawyer or police); perceived discrimination outside working life; difficult or denied access to goods and services for people with disabilities and older people as discrimination; perceived effectiveness of measures for the integration of the Roma population (scale); perceived attitude of the citizens about their children having Roma schoolmates (scale); the Roma are a group of people at risk of discrimination; the society could benefit from a better integration of the Roma; friends from potientially discriminated group; subjective membership of a minority group; denomination; chronic physical or mental health problem; country of birth; origin of parents.

Demography: nationality; left-right self-placement; 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).

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.