ZAGREB, February 26, 2019 – The proportion of Croatian citizens with a positive image of the European Union has grown over the past year, and Croatians consider freedom of movement to be the EU’s greatest achievement, shows a Eurobarometer survey published on Monday.
Thirty-nine percent (39%) of Croatians have an entirely positive image of the EU, an increase of eight percentage points over a period of one year, 42% have a neutral image and 18% a negative image.
Seventy-three percent (73%) of Croatians believe that freedom of movement for people, goods and services is the EU’s biggest achievement, followed by peace among member-countries and the EU’s economic power.
The autumn Eurobarometer survey covered the 28 member countries, five candidate countries and the Turkish community in Cyprus.
The survey included 1,011 Croatians aged above 15.
Asked what the EU meant to them personally, 55% of Croatian respondents cited freedom of movement, work and study in the EU, 29% cited economic progress, and 28% cultural diversity.
Forty-three percent (43%) of Croatians believe unemployment is the biggest problem the country is faced with, 9% less than in the previous survey. Unemployment is followed by the economic situation in the country (28%) and inflation (27%). EU-wide, unemployment is cited as the biggest problem by one in four respondents, followed by price growth and immigration.
Asked about the biggest problems the EU was currently faced with, 48% of Croatians said immigration, followed by terrorism (32%) and the state of public finance in the member-countries (19%).
Support for EU enlargement in Croatia has increased to 61% while most Croatians (56%) are against the introduction of the euro.
As for confidence in the media, Croatian and European respondents trust radio and television the most (each 50%), while trust in the internet and social networks is declining.
Three in five Croatians believe they are poorly informed about European issues even though the number of those who consider themselves well informed is eight percentage points higher than last year, at 41%.
Croatians continue to be dissatisfied with the country’s judiciary and political system.
More than two-thirds of Croatians do not trust the judiciary. Trust in police has grown (58%) while trust in the army has declined from 79% to 68%.
There are still more Croatians who prefer the left side of the political spectrum than those who consider themselves rightwing, however, the difference in their number has dropped over the past year from eight to only two percentage points, which is also probably owing to conflicts in the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
More news about Croatia and the European Union can be found in the Politics section.
