Gallup Europe

Figures that Count

The Flash Eurobarometer run by The Gallup Organization is the premier tool of European political decision-makers to rapidly collect and analyze policy-relevant information from the citizens in the European Union and beyond. Each quarter we will present published statistics that attracted our attention. This quarter we looked at the Flash Eurobarometer on EU attitudes in UK.

British are more knowledgeable about EU than they think

Even though the United Kingdom has been a member of the European Union since 1973 most residents of the UK admit to being largely ignorant about the EU policies and institutions. According to this latest Flash Eurobaromater self-perceived knowledge about the EU among the British public is indeed low. The majority (56%) of the population admits that they know only a little about the EU and an additional 29% of the population say that they know nothing at all.

Nevertheless when the residents of the UK were asked to answer a series of factual questions designed to measure real knowledge about the EU the average respondent answered five questions out of the eight correctly. Especially the questions relevant to the British public were answered correctly such as questions on EU related jobs (72% correct answers) regional funds (72%) the EU-independent British income tax rate (68%) and cleaner local beaches (61%).

Although UK citizens perceive their knowledge of the EU as limited this study found a strong indication that several EU related issues and facts are relatively well known to the British public.

For the full report of the Flash Eurobarometer on EU attitudes in UK see http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/fl_185.pdf

Contributions • Femke De Keulenaer Consultant responsible for the section «Figures that Count» •
Newsletter Coordinator • Aurélien Renard Business Development Manager •

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