European Parliament opinion polls

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.

Post-electoral survey

This survey was conducted one week after the European elections held in June 2009. Over the period between 12 June and 6 July a total of 26 830 European citizens were interviewed in an effort to gain a better insight into the reasons why they had - or had not - voted.

The turnout was 43%. However, this EU 27 average must be viewed in the light of the individual country results, which show a significant increase in turnout in eight countries, very little change in eight others and a very sharp fall in the 11 others.

The survey was again notable for highlighting the clear disparities in voting behaviour among social groups: fewer women vote than men, fewer young people than elderly people, fewer unemployed people than senior managers, fewer early school leavers than graduates, and slightly fewer city dwellers than inhabitants of rural areas.

67% of Europeans remembered having seen a television or print media campaign encouraging them to vote. There is no way of distinguishing between exposure to the European or to the various national campaigns to encourage people to vote in the European elections, but those campaigns did have some effect. At the same time, one third of voters who said they voted in national elections stated that they did not vote in European elections.

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