BELGRADE, 6 November 2006 – Almost 70 percent of Serbian citizens support the European Union (EU) membership, 17.8 percent would not vote in the referendum on such issue and 12.3 percent of citizens are explicitly against the EU accession, shows the public opinion poll on European orientation of Serbian citizens, conducted in September, Tanjug agency reports.
According to the Director of the European Integration Office, Tanja Miscevic, the poll sample was 1.052 persons age 18 and above in the territory of Serbia, excluding Kosovo.
`Global opinion on the EU is more positive, because the poll shows that the referendum on our country’s EU membership would be voted positive by 69.9 percent of citizens, which is, in comparison with the situation in December 2005 a six-percent increase`, said Miscevic at the press conference in the Serbian Government.
However, she pointed out that the poll also indicated a „slow increase“ of the number of citizens who would remain neutral (17.8 percent relative to 16 percent), while the percentage of people explicitly against Serbia’s EU accession also showed the increasing tendency (12.3 percent relative to 12 percent).
According to Miscevic, the majority of citizens - 45 percent – still believe that Serbia will accede to the EU in 2006/7, `which is unrealistic`.
`The desired year for EU accession for 34.5 percent of citizens is 2010-2014, but half of the interviewed persons consider that Serbia will not become the EU member before 2015-2020`, Miscevic said.
When questioned on the existing image of the EU, 38.5 percent of citizens have „neither positive nor negative image“, 39.4 persons said that this was a `positive reaction` and 22 percent that such image is `negative`.
For Serbian citizens, the EU membership primarily implies right to work in any EU country (81 percent of young people between 18 and 29 and 73 percent of the total number of interviewed persons), the opportunity to study in the EU member states and the right to permanent residence in EU countries.
The poll showed that both young and mid-aged people, educated and from the urban areas, feel more like European citizens (42.6 percent), but also that 37 percent of citizens do not feel like European citizens at all, particularly those over 65 years.
`The resistance to changes is intensive, almost 50 percent of people are not willing to attend further education and specialisation courses, 41.2 percent of people are not prepared for maintaining the same unsatisfactory living standard for much longer, and almost 40 percent do not want to change their working habits`, Miscevic pointed out.
Miscevic was most surprised by the fact that only 38 percent of women said they feel like European citizens in comparison to 46 percentage of male population who feel that way, as well as by citizen unpreparedness for changes.
`We have to intensify citizen information regarding the EU association, which primarily implies leading the campaign 'Serbia in Europe' instead of 'Europe in Serbia'`, Miscevic added.
She estimated that the accession of new countries into the EU will not be ceased, nor the definition of deadlines for accession, underlining that Serbia is `still far from EU membership`, which does not imply that the `EU does not want to accept the West Balkan countries`.
