On line on December 19th, 20th and 21st, an experiment from SIR Daily News in English. The service will officially start on January 9th 2006
While two European citizens out of three are convinced that the EU needs a Constitution to continue the process of integration, "49% think the text of the Constitutional Treaty should be renegotiated". The surveyors of Eurobarometro, in presenting today the autumn survey on the citizens’ opinions, also collected information on the problems that European citizens are most concerned about: unemployment, crime, rise in consumption prices, health care system, immigration, terrorism are top of the list. The "belief that being a member state is positive" to cope with daily problems is however slightly decreasing, from 54% at the latest poll (spring 2005) to today’s 50%. The results are different from country to country: those most convinced of the benefits of the EU are those people who live in the "euro zone", while those least convinced are generally those of the countries that have joined the EU the last. Then, according to Eurobarometro, "the opinion that the EU looks positive has decreased, and is now at about 44%". People in favour of the EU are still the majority, compared with people who have a "neutral" (34%) or "negative" opinion of the EU (20%). According to the public-opinion company, "this ‘dampening’ in the image of the EU is understandable, since we are coming from the French and Dutch "no" to the Constitution and the diatribes between the member states about the EU budget". The survey shows that the EU institute that people consider most reliable is Parliament; finally, one interviewee out of two due would like a new extension of the EU.
