In recent weeks, several polling institutes released their data on attitudes towards the EU in the V4 states. We collected some of them in an attempt to find common patterns and draw some conclusions – whether with success or not, judge for yourself.First, let’s have a look at the Eurobarometer data, collected several times a year by the EU itself. In general, respondents expressed trust in the EU: two separate surveys reported a rate of approval of between 46-30% and 57-35%. According to the first survey however, even the most EU-enthusiastic Hungarians are more anti rather than pro – but the region overall is nevertheless more optimistic about the union’s future than not. [...]
Back to Eurobarometer. Comparing the optimistic outlooks for the future to the respondents’ trust in their own governments seemingly confirms the slight dominance of EU-enthusiasm: the less a country trusts their government, the more they tend to trust the EU. Except the Czechs, who trust no one.
True though, that “trust” is pretty vague – and the surveys do enquire about attitudes more specifically, too. For example, the V4’s vast majority would support a common EU foreign policy (except for the Czechs, who are only mildly intrigued), and the support for a common security and defence policy is even stronger. [...]
So here’s a disappointingly banal conclusion: People are confused. The stark differences between polls attest to how unstable the political discourse – on the future of the EU, on refugees, etc. – is in the region. Domestic events, such as the mind-numbing hostility and ubiquity of anti-EU and anti-Soros propaganda in Hungary, or the sweeping wave of nation-wide anti-government protests in Poland, are also showing limited results.
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