Parlemeter 2011

At the mid-term 2009-2014, this new Parlemeter reviews the perception of Europeans on the European Parliament, policies and values they wish to see promoted and defended.

The fieldwork was led by TNS opinion between 3 and 20 November 2011, in a particularly difficult European context: let us remember, amongst others, the failed referendum in Greece, the change of Prime minister in this country as well as in Italy, the increase in the interest rate of the sovereign debts in several countries of the Euro zone, the general elections in Spain, the G20 summit, etc.

The main findings of this analysis are:

• Regarding the priority policies that Europeans want to see promoted by the European Parliament, tackling poverty and social exclusion remains the first concern (49%)

  Given the current crisis, it is the coordination of the economic, budgetary and fiscal policies that ranks second with a sharp increase of responses within the euro zone (37%)

  However, all policies that are not directly related to the current crisis have for some experienced a significant decline: combating climate change, the agricultural policy, combating terrorism, immigration policy.

• Concerning values, the number of responses in which each of them figures is decreasing. The protection of Human Rights comes in first position (56 %), followed by the gender equity man/woman (33 %) and of the freedom of expression (32 %).
• As for the role that respondents attributed to the European Parliament, it is important to note the large augmentation of those who want it to play a similar role. On the contrary, as for those who want the European Parliament to play either a more important or a less important role, they are decreasing.
• In this context of crisis, the image of the European Parliament does not evolve positively. Neither does the image of the other European institutions, the parliaments and the national governments.
• In what concerns the powers of the European Parliament, the election of MEPs and the allocated number of MEP's by Member state, a majority of respondents gave a positive answer.

The European Parliament regularly commissions surveys on public opinion in the Member States.

This is a means of keeping Parliament in touch with people's perceptions and expectations of its work and that of the European Union generally. The surveys are also extremely useful at the preparation, decision-making and evaluation stages of parliamentary business.

Readers will find them a source of information not only about attitudes in the EU to climate change or the current economic situation but also about how people see - and what they expect from - European elections, the European Parliament and European integration in general.