Europeans' Views on the Priorities of the European Union

Download or read book Europeans' Views on the Priorities of the European Union written by and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 15 July 2014, Mr Jean-Claude Juncker presented before the European Parliament his proposed priorities and political guidelines for the new European Commission, which was to take up office in November. This report focuses on Europeans' perceptions of the European Union's policies and the European Commission's priorities. These perceptions are approached through three main indicators: § The first indicator measures Europeans' support for the principle and the implementation of common policies. European public opinion has expressed a clear desire for greater integration of the policies of the 28 Member States. They are themselves broadly in favour of common European energy, defence and foreign policies. An absolute majority (even stronger in the euro area countries) support economic and monetary union and the single currency. However, Europeans remain opposed to the enlargement of the European Union to include other countries in future years.^§ The second indicator attempts to assess perceived realism of the quantitative social, educational, industrial and environmental targets set by the Europe 2020 strategy driven by the European Commission since 2010. The prevailing opinion is that each of the targets tested is realistic, although this view has lost a little ground. § Lastly, the third indicator quantifies the Europeans' approval of the direction taken by the EU to emerge from the crisis and face new global challenges. Although the majority of respondents approve of the European Union's policy for the crisis, in this survey there has been an evident decrease in support, reversing the trend recorded in Eurobarometer surveys since autumn 2011. The full Standard Eurobarometer report (EB84) consists of several volumes. The first volume presents the state of public opinion regarding the European Union.^Three other volumes present Europeans' views on other subjects: the EU's priorities, European citizenship and media consumption habits within the EU. This volume focuses on the European Union's priorities. This Standard Eurobarometer survey (EB84) was conducted between 7 and 17 November 2015 in 34 countries or territories: the 28 Member States of the European Union (EU), the five candidate countries (the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania) and the Turkish Cypriot community in the part of the country which is not controlled by the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.