Ukrainians want to know more about European integration

Although our compatriots know almost nothing about the process of Ukraine’s integration into Europe, they favor integration into the European Union. This paradoxical information was made public April 16 at the Ministry for Economy by experts of the International Center for Public Policy Research. They presented the results of a poll taken of workers of NGOs, educational institutions, mass media, state officials, businessmen, et. al. About 600 residents of Kharkiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, Ternopil, and Chernihiv were surveyed.

According to the data, 93% of those surveyed assume that entering the EU would be useful for Ukraine, but only half of them were able to explain what exactly the positive consequences would be: wider economic ties and markets, economic reform, a broader range of goods, liberalization of foreign trade and the flow of capital, etc. It appeared more difficult for those surveyed to define the advantages on regional level. Only one-third of those polled have any opinion on this issue, mostly western Ukrainians (for example, 70% of the Lviv residents taking part in the poll expect from European integration new possibilities for developing cooperation in border regions, improving migration and customs policies, etc.). There are also 7% skeptics who, in their turn, expect increased migration, growing prices, increasing imports, and closing borders (sic!).

The gap between specific ideas about the pluses and minuses of the European integration and expectations of something good is made up for on the level of associations. Here differences between the regions in their way of thinking (or in the knowledge about the EU) are less obvious. For 44% of Lviv, 50% of Kharkiv, and 42% of Dnipropetrovsk residents the EU means “stability.” Only 20% view it as “freedom.” However, many connect the European Union with “democratic society” (from 30.4% in Kherson and Ternopil to 45% in Lviv and 48% in Dnipropetrovsk). Residents of virtually every oblast understand that the EU means “freedom of movement” (with their number ranging from 36.7% in Kherson to 52.5% in Kharkiv), with the exception of Chernihiv (7%). There the EU is associated primarily with “economic and political security” (53%), while only 20% see it as “securing civil rights” (compared to 56% in Lviv).

Simultaneously, the situation with people’s awareness of the “European standards and norms” in Ukraine is still not too encouraging. 75.4% those surveyed could not give a positive answer on their familiarity with these issues. Even more telling is the fact that, say, in Kharkiv where only 37.5% indicate an awareness of EU standards, 70% try to have some relationship with them.

76.5% of those polled (people with higher or incomplete higher education) consider the level of Ukrainians’ knowledge about integration processes in Ukraine inadequate, while 66.3% are of similar opinion about people’s awareness of the political discussion about our country’s integration with the EU. 98% are interested in obtaining information on these issues. 63.9% draw information from local and central television, 50.3% from newspapers, 44.3% from the Internet, 42% from analytical center materials, and 24.8% from the radio. 36.3% wish to know about the European Commission’s activities, 58.4% are willing to learn about the experience of other countries entering the EU, 51.7% are interested in materials from the Ukrainian government, and 46.3% in the data of independent research organizations.

Thus, it is inappropriate to note that the more Ukrainians know about the EU and government’s talks on this issue and the more concrete their knowledge is, the closer Ukraine will come to Europe and its standards. So far, one can only state that, taking into consideration Ukraine’s repeatedly officially proclaimed course in favor of integration with the European Union, the state’s information campaign on this issue is inadequate. The bodies responsible for it (primarily, the Ministry for Economy and European Integration) act, to put it mildly, with insufficient success (incidentally, such is the opinion of 70% of those polled). Only 3% of the 6% of the survey participants who turned to the Ministry with official letters of inquiry received any answers, with only 6% of them “within the appropriate period” and 3% “fully.”