Following are the key results from the Eurobarameter survey conducted in October 2001 in the 13 candidate countries: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey. The survey is very broad, and covers a large number of different questions.
On average, the public of the candidate countries would like to be European Union citizens by the year of 2004. Two thirds of the public in the candidate countries consider that membership of their country to the European Union is ‘natural’, historically and geographically justified (65%). The majority of candidate countries' citizens feel that membership would help their national economy and the Union will be more important in the world if it includes more countries (69%).
While the negotiations have been deciding the details of accession, the past years have witnessed an increasing constant process of citizens getting to know each other: despite their widespread fluency in a tongue other than their own,many citizens of the candidate countries are learning languages of the EU
Member States; many are visiting the EU Member States, with 74% of teenage or adult Slovenes, 53% of Czechs and 52% of Cypriots having visited an EU Member State over the past 2 years.
The idea of European identity is fairly widespread and is often not seen as in
conflict with national identity – 52% see themselves as both European and national, almost as high as in current Member States.
The people living in the candidate countries generally tend to feel positive as to how their personal situation will develop in the course of the next 5 years, although less optimistic than EU citizens. 37% of those questioned believe their
personal situation will improve, 26% feel that their personal situation will stay about the same, and 26% believe it will get worse.
The picture of life in the candidate countries indicates that the changes that have taken place over the past 10 years, including much that was required as a condition for accession, have left certain minorities of the population feeling less
than confident about their own personal situation. They feel less optimistic about
the future and are less in favour of accession. The Union has to do more to explain the benefits of accession to these groups, such as older people, farmers and rural communities.
The majority of people in the candidate countries have a positive image of the Union. 38 % of all respondents, when asked about the first thoughts of the European Union, came up with a statement expressing positive expectations regarding the economy of their country, 27 % of the respondents gave us at least one neutral, factual response (e.g. the flag, enlargement), and 23 % responded
with general positive statements (saying, for instance, that the EU was a "good thing"). On average, 52% of candidate countries citizens have a positive image of the European Union (of which 16% view it ‘very positively’) which is 10 percent
higher compared to the figures Eurobarometer found within the European Union (42%). 69% of them say that the EU is a ‘way to create a better future for young people’ – only 28% of the young people living in the Member States shared this
opinion.
More than half of the people living in the candidate countries (55%) agreed that
the EU is a way to create jobs, and 49% see the EU as the guarantee of the lasting peace in Europe. Relatively few, one in five respondents, said that the EU is a risk to preserving cultural diversity in Europe, or that the EU is “just a big
bureaucratic organisation”. And finally, not many more than one in ten respondents consider that the EU is just a utopian idea (13%). While European youth sees the EU dominantly through its ‘physical presence’, the EU means ‘European government’ only for 34% of the applicant citizens.
The knowledge of the EU among citizens in the current and future Member States is roughly similar: 22% of candidate countries' citizens, as against 21% in the current Member States, feel they know quite a lot to a great deal about the
European Union. Those who support their country’s membership to the EU are more likely to be well-informed (26%), while the undecided among the population are the least well-informed.
On average as of October 2001, a convincing majority of the candidate countries,two thirds (65%) of the respondents of voting age in the candidate countries declare that they would support their country's membership to the EU if a
referendum were to be held on this issue. 18% would cast a vote against the membership, 9% would not go to vote, and a further 8% could not decide howshe or he would vote.
47% of those asked think that they would personally benefit from EU accession,as against 32% who think that they would not benefit, with 21% unsure. In every single candidate country most people think that accession would bring
advantages for their country. (80 % in Romania, 73% in Bulgaria, and 71% in Hungary). Malta also registered more optimism than pessimism regarding
expected advantages from future EU membership for the country. However, less than half of Estonians, Maltese, and Latvians agree that their country would benefit from European Union membership.
Although most of the current candidate countries, and directly their citizens, have had access to various European Union funds for almost a decade now, the fact that the EU supports the candidate countries financially remains relatively unknown in the majority of the candidate countries. More than one third (35%)have simply no idea if the EU has funded their country or not, 45% think their
country is already receiving funding from the European Union, whilst 21% say the opposite. There is only one candidate country where awareness of European funding is relatively high, and that is Hungary (68%). In each of the remaining twelve countries the awareness of the influx of EU money remains below 50%,ranging from 26% in Malta to 49% in Slovakia and Slovenia.
Every second respondent in the candidate countries believes his or her country
has a lot to offer to the European Union, and 62% believe that their nation’s voice will be heard more in Europe once joined.
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