Candidate Countries Eurobarometer
European
Commission
EUROBAROMETER 2004.1
PUBLIC OPINION IN THE CANDIDATE COUNTRIES
Fieldwork: February - March 2004
Publication: July 2004
Candidate Countries Eurobarometer 2004.1 - Magyar Gallup Intézet
NATIONAL REPORT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
ESTONIA
This survey was requested and coordinated by the Directorate General Press and
Communication
This document does not represent the point of view of the European Commission.
The interpretations and opinions contained in it are solely those of the authors.
CANDIDATE COUNTRIES EUROBAROMETER 2004.1 – NATIONAL REPORT, ESTONIA
Executive Summary
The Eurobarometer of the candidate countries (CC-EB) collects information of societies, which
should become the members of the European Union in such way what is completely comparable
with standard Eurobarometer. CC-EB continually collects the information about supporting the
membership in every country and perpetuates the attitudes connected with the European Union.
The experiences of living in Estonia
The present summary gives a review of the research carried out in February-March 2004 in all
13-candidate and accrued countries as Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary,
Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Turkey.
The specification of the place of Estonia is not very simple because it is determinate by long-time
and short time historical experiences and by its role among the other countries. The very
important factor is the actual income of the inhabitants what specifies in large amounts the entity
of the future expectations. Estonia is the smallest of the countries that joined the European Union
on the 1-st of May in 2004 and by people’s opinion also the most vulnerable. Estonia has been
occupied for centuries and that experience makes Estonians to meet new challenges with some
prudence and scepticism, but at the same time with great hopefulness. As in Estonia live a great
number of stateless people and almost the same number of citizens of foreign countries (like
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the citizens of other countries) the present case gives the very
important nuance to the nature of the public opinion. The society of Estonia, in comparison to
other countries that joined the European Union in May, has passed through the most dramatic
economic reformation, which on the one hand has been served as a basis of the economical
success of Estonia but on the other hand has raised great pressures and tiredness in society.
The mentioned circumstances are in great amount the important factors to clear up the
development trends of the public opinion of Estonia.
Contentment with different areas of life
The Estonian inhabitant’s evaluation of the whole of their life after the following 12 months
turned 5 percentage points negative compared with the research in autumn 2003. 25% of the
respondents look optimistically to the future, 23% pessimistically. The same change took place
also in other candidate countries.
The analyses of the Estonian database showed that the higher is the average income of the
household the more optimistically the people look into the future.
Taken in age groups the most optimistic are the young people in the age of 20-29 (47% of them
hope that it gets better), a little lesser hope is shown out among the age group of 15-19 (43%).
With rising the age the amount of the optimists grows less, for example among the people over
60 it is only 10%.
The people who are living in the country compared with the ones living in towns believe more
that the future is going to be better (25% from town people believe it and 30% from country
people). The Estonians are more optimistic than non-Estonians (28% of Estonians and 23% of
non-Estonians believe that the life in generally is going to be better). Very large differences
appear between the citizens of the Estonian Republic and the stateless people if predicting the
life in the near future. 29% of the citizens believe that the life is going to be better but at the
same time only 17% of the stateless believe the same.
The prognosis of the poorer, elder, non-Estonians, the persons without citizenship and the
persons living in towns are more pessimistic compared with the other groups.
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The different opinions about the life in general during the next 12 months in different socialdemographic groups characterize also the other opinions that people think about different
spheres of life. It can be the evaluation of the state of economy in Estonia (22% thinks that it is
improving), the economical situation of the household (19% believes that it is improving), the
employment rate (17% believes that it is going better) and the working situation of the
respondent (17% sees the improvement after a year).
The prognosis of the economic situation of their household after 12 months reflects exactly the
typical attitude of Estonians during the past few years – people are more pessimistic about the
economic prognosis of their household than they are about the economic advancement of the
whole Republic of Estonia.
Due to the present research 25% of the inhabitants predict that the state of economy in Estonia
is going to be on the rise, the improvement of the economic situation of their household is
predicted by 23% of the population of Estonia. The last indicator is far higher than in most of the
new member countries (the average is 15%), but it still remains behind the average of the old
members of the European Union. In spite of such a positive background it must be said that the
number of these people who see the economic situation of their household to go worse (27%) is
larger than the number of those who find the situation to be on the rise (19%). That kind of
tendency is dominant in most of the new member countries (on an average 39% sees the
economic situation of their household going to be worse).
The majority part of the residents, both in old and in new member countries, is on the position
that nothing is going to change and everything is going to stay the same way.
The problems met by the inhabitants of Estonia
The problems that the Estonian society has met since 1991 have acquired the different
importance in different periods. For quite a long time the most mentioned problems were
pensions, health service, and the general economic problems. With switchover to market
economy the bottlenecks connected with economy have started to play the main role. If we
compare the structure of the problems in different countries we will see that the essence of
seeing the problems is the same but it is possible to assert many essential differences. Although
the unemployment has been noted as the most serious problem almost in every country we
cannot miss the fact that in Estonia the problem has been mentioned the least. In the countries
of EU-15 44% of the respondents have mentioned that problem, in NMS-10 61% and in Estonia
41%.
Estonia is distinguished also by the fact that compared to other state groups most of the
respondents mention the price increase, inflation – 37% (EU-15 – 19%, NMS-10 – 15%),
criminality – 37% (EU-15 – 28%, NMS-10 – 29%), pensions – 14% (only in Latvia the given
percentage is higher – 17%).
The main problems in Estonia:
Unemployment
Price increase
Criminality
The state of economy
Health service
41% of the respondents
37%
36%
25%
18%
As for the opinion of the Estonian population concerning the whole national economy it could be
said that in principal details the evaluations of economy coincide with the evaluations of their
whole life. After the Euro referendum the evaluation of the whole economic situation has
become less hopeful. For example in autumn of 2002 about 30% of the respondents thought that
the state of economy is going to improve, a year later the amount of those had fallen to 25% and
in 2004 the amount of those people was only 22%. The conception that the amount of stability
will decrease and the society has preceded into the new and important period of chances has
deepened.
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It is quite logical to expect that if predicting the near future of their household people be usually
on the same position as they were when they gave their opinion about the economy and the life
of Estonia. The database shows that tendency quite clearly. In autumn in 2002 there were 17%
of those who thought that life is getting worse, in 2004 the number of them has grown to 27%.
The increase was 10 percentage points. The number of those who were optimistic decreased 6
percentage points, from 25% to 19%.
Question: If you compare your present situation with the situation 5 years ago has it got better,
stayed the same or got worse? The evaluation of their situation in Estonia is almost the most
optimistic compared with the other countries. It does not make any difference which average
data of what country is taken into account, (EU-25, EU-15, NMS-10) the Estonians’ evaluation to
the past 5 years is the best.
Confidence in different institutions
The institutions that have got the greatest confidence in Estonia are television, the radio and the
defence army. The countries of NMS-10 trust the same institutions although the confidence level
is much lower. If the given data is compared with the average of EU-25 it is seen that besides the
radio and the defence army they seem to appreciate also police and charity organizations. In
Estonia and in NMS-10 countries police is trusted much lesser, especially in new member
countries.
Compared to the other countries it can be said that Estonia is also remarkable because of its
very high rate given to the government (45% trusts), especially as taken in NMS-10 context (17%
trusts).
Confidence into the European Union is the lowest among the Estonian citizens compared to the
other countries.
The population of Estonia compared to the other countries tends to be similar in confidence into
different institutions rather to EU-25 than to NMS-10. The similarity reflects in evaluating the
following institutions as law, trade unions, parliament, and parties. The great difference in
confidence level is in evaluating the following instances as television (Estonia – 75%, EU-25 –
54%), police (Estonia – 47%, EU-25 – 61%) and charity organizations (Estonia 48%, EU-25 –
59%).
If comparing which is the average confidence rate given by different states we can see that in
Estonia the institution gets on an average 46% of confidence, NMS-10 – 37%, EU-25 – 44%. So
it can be said that the population of Estonia trusts the institutions more than the other state
groups, and the new member countries give the least confidence to the institutions.
The confidence towards different institutions is directly connected with the problem of trusting
the political system. The trustworthiness of the government of Estonia has decreased during
the last two researches. It is not unusual, because only in April of 2003 after the election of the
State Assembly the new government, who had the great trust of the electors, started to reign.
While starting functioning the confidence of the government always decreases. If the present
government had 53% of the support of the electors when started, so a year later it has fallen to
45%. The same trend lies in trusting the State Assembly, when started the number of confidence
was 43%, but in spring 2004 35%. The confidence towards the parties is traditionally low even
though the confidence towards parties has developed the same way as the confidence towards
the government and the State Assembly. The highest rate was achieved during the elections
(28% trusted it) later it has decreased somewhat.
During the questioning in spring 2004 only 30% of the responders were satisfied with the
development of the democracy in Estonia. It was the lowest index number during the last three
years. 65% were not satisfied with it. In new member countries the contentment is only 24%
taken on an average, but in old member countries of the European Union the index number is
56%.
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Information about the European Union
The knowledge about the European Union is not very high among the population of Estonia. The
critical attitude to their knowledge and information shows it well. For example if we sum up the 3
outermost scale points on the 10 point scale (1,2,3) that show the very little level of knowledge
we will see that there are 34% of people whose knowledge is very low, in new member countries
it is 31% on an average and in the whole European Union (25) 33%. So the self-appraisal to the
knowledge of the average citizen of Estonia is not much lower than in other countries.
On the other hand there are not so much those people in Estonia who consider that they know a
lot about the European Union (summed up the scale points 10, 9, 8, 7). The present index
number is the lowest in Estonia (12%), NMS-10 it is 2 percentages higher (14%) and in EU-25 –
16%. All in all the knowledge of Estonian people is lower than the average knowledge by their
own self-appraisal.
In Estonia the self-appraisal of a person depends a lot on the amount of his/hers income. The
greatest is the income of the respondent the more resolutely he claims that he knows about the
European Union more than other people do. Lets take the percentage of these people who do
not know almost anything about the European Union (scale points 1-3). In the group with the
lowest income the amount of those who are less informed is 45%, in the group of the wealthiest it
is only 14%. It is possible to talk about the same tendency if we look the amount of well-informed
people in different income-groups. The mentioned connections are caused by the different
economic situations of different people that determine the access to various sources of
information. The poor have fewer possibilities to read newspapers and other publications due to
their high price.
If taking by different groups the most informed are the people between 20-29, the citizens of
Estonia, people living in towns and Estonians by nationality.
The trivial facts about the European Union: the real level of knowledge
The real knowledge of the Estonian inhabitants about the European Union is not very good. The
results of the research show that the information that is possible to get through everyday
experiences and what the person can meet in his life (for example the celebration of some
holidays, seeing symbols etc.) is also well known to people. It appears for example in knowing
the trivial facts about the European Union. In previous case it can be proved that the knowledge
of Estonian people is not lower than the knowledge of the people of other countries.
The knowledge of symbols and sometimes the knowing of facts is much more higher than the
knowledge about the operating mechanisms of the European Union. For example straight before
the elections to the European Parliament only 39% of the Estonian inhabitants knew that the
members of the parliament are elected directly. It rises a question what causes such a low
knowledge. One of the important reasons is the great amount of non-citizens in Estonia who do
not take part in these elections and so they are not interested in that theme. Consequently their
whole knowledge about the European Union is lower.
The Estonian respondents could give the right answer only to 3,75 from 10 questions. The
average number of knowledge in new member countries was 4,1 right answers from 10.
Information about the enlargement
Generally it can be said that the population of Estonia do not valuate their knowledge about the
enlargement of the European Union very high. Only 32% of the respondents said that they are
well informed or very well informed about that process. That index number is lower than in new
member countries in an average (38%), but little higher than in EU-15 (29%). The people of the
neighbour countries, Latvia (40%) and Lithuania (41%), feel themselves more informed than
Estonian people.
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The popular information sources about the European Union
11% of the Estonian population is not interested in information about the European Union. That
index number is a bit higher than in other new member countries (10%), but the same as in EU15 and EU-25. The rest of the population of Estonia is interested to get that additional
information. The most important information sources where the Estonian people want to get
information about the European Union are first of all the electronic media, television – 73%, radio
56%, and daily newspapers – 42%. Plenty important are also the discussions and debates with
relatives and friends (25%). If we compare the priorities of Estonia with the priorities of other
countries it is not possible to talk about great differences. Still we can talk about one special
aspect connected with one information source that is different in Estonia. In Estonia we can say
that the Internet is much more important source than in any other country. In Estonia it is
preferred by 25% of the respondents, in new members of the European Union only by 18% and
in EU-15 countries by 16% of people. In that sphere the differences are quite large. It can be
explained with the matter that the Internet has spread very widely in Estonia. For example in
2004 46% of the grown-up persons have an access to the Internet. Estonia has reached the
good distribution of Internet with its official and private programs and it has become the very
important channel to get information about the European Union. The really weak knowledge of
Estonian people indicates to the fact that the web pages about the European Union are not such
attractive yet that people want to approach to them.
The subject-matter of the European union is important to Estonian inhabitants because the
amount of those who found that there has been talked about it too little (26%) is twice bigger
than the amount of those who say that it has been spoken about too much already (13%). The
insufficiency of information about the European Union is the same among the population of the
15 countries of the European Union (too little refection 42%) and among the new members (37%
on an average).
If examining the questioning from the point of view of the dominating aspect then 51% in Estonia
think that the amount of information in media is in right capacity. In NMS-10 the index number is
43% and in EU-15 - 42%.
The institutions of the European Union
In Estonia there are three most well known institutions of the European Union, which are the
European Parliament (87%), the European Commission (74%) and the European Central Bank.
Beside all the other institutions that people know they also recognize their important role. As
regards the confidence we can say that it is much lower than the importance of their role or their
reputation. The confidence of the European Central Bank is proportionally lower compared with
the confidence of the other institutions. The less known are the following institutions: European
Court of Auditors (24%), the Committee of the Regions of the European Union (26%), the
European Ombudsman (31%) and the European Economic Interest Grouping (32%). With less
known institutions the definition of their role is also smaller and due to that the confidence less.
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Supporting the membership of the European Union
In spring 2004 the Eurobarometer showed that the greatest support to the European Union
among the new member states was in Lithuania (52% said that it is good to be the member of
EU), the next was Malta (50%). 42% of the population of Poland and Malta supported the
membership, 41% of Czech Republic, 40% of the population of Slovenia, 33% of Latvia and 31%
of Estonia. Estonia has played the role of the so-called red lantern during the long years with its
little support to the Union. Comparing the average support of NMS-10, which is 43%, and of EU15 that is 48% we can see that the index number of Estonia is much more smaller.
Changes in supporting the membership of the European Union
Looking back to the five year ago trend in question if joining the European Union is a bad or a
good thing it is possible to talk about the following changes. If we take into account the
benchmarks of the measurement, the years of 1999 and 2004, it could be seen that the support
of NMS-10 has fallen from 47% to 43%. That kind of change has not taken place in Estonia.
What touches the negative evaluation that the membership is a bad thing it can be said that the
amount of the supporters of that kind of opinion has increased during the last 5 years also in
Estonia. In 1999 the number of those people was 13%, in spring 2004 it was already 21%. There
has been a consistent slow rise. The campaign before the Euro referendum was quite efficient
because the concept of the part of the population who though that joining the European Union is
a good thing for Estonia increased from 31% to 38% with some months in 2003 during the spring
summer and autumn and achieved the highest rate in that category during the last 5 years. The
last measuring showed that the support has again fallen to the usual level.
The expected advantages of membership
Joining the European Union means always an analysis from the aspect what kinds of
advantages the state gets from that step. The attitude of Estonian people has always been one
of the most sceptical among the other new member states. The Euro referendum has not
changed that attitude in principal. The greatest amount of the Euro referendums in the candidate
states took place from spring to autumn in 2003. Because of that the attitude towards the
European Union of the NMS-10 countries was the most positive of that time. That happened
mostly due to the great Euro Campaign. The inhabitants of Estonia left untouched of that
campaign because our referendum took place in September. The influence of the advertising
campaign and the discussion was measured by CC-EB in autumn 2003 and it showed that the
number of people who thought that Estonia can benefit by joining the Union had raised if
compared to the spring indicators: rise from 42% to 45%. The last index number is the highest of
the last five years.
After the Euro referendum the number of people who expected the advantages decreased a lot.
The same tendency took place also in Estonia. The number of optimists fell from 45% to 41% in
spring 2004. The bigger change took place in new member countries – from the top amount of
people which was 64%, who expected the benefit by joining the European Union on the days of
Euro referendum the number decreased to 52% in spring 2004. The population of Estonia and of
other member countries has got to the lowest index number of the last 5-year period. At the
same time the population of Estonia achieved the highest indicator among the people who
thought the joining of the European Union a non-profitable affair (in spring 2004 there was
already 38% of those people who thought so).
Support to the key policies of the European Union
The European Union is totally different from that union, which it was during the days when it
started the negotiations with Estonia about how one of the smallest candidate states can become
the member of the union. From that time the European Union has come out with several
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initiatives and suggestions, some of them have already been realized but not yet for the new
member countries. So it is important to know which the attitude to the new policies of the
candidate states of that time would be.
Attitude towards the European Monetary Union. The Estonian kroon was bound to the
German mark. So the devolution to Euro meant only the change of the course of exchange.
Before it you could get 8 kroons for one German mark, now you can get 15,64 kroons for one
euro. It is a fixed course so the Estonian people are quite acquainted with that subject already.
Which is the support of the people towards the European Monetary Union where is the united
money – euro? The five researches that have been carried out through the past two years in
Estonia show that during the recent times the amount of the supporters of the monetary union
was larger than the amount of the opposites. But the spring research in 2004 showed that the
number of opposites (47%) and the supporters (46%) has equalized. The number of opposites
has grown since the second questioning in 2003. The number of supporters was unchangeable
during the first three questionings (53%), during the last two questionings in April 2003 and in
January 2004 the number of the supporters decreased to 46%. The decrease is conditioned
primarily by the discussions in media about the certainly happening price advance when going
on Euro. These discussions took place simultaneously with the general discussions about joining
the European Union when people were asked about the fears connected with the price advances
of sugar and other products.
Support to the united foreign policy in the European Union concerning the other countries is
quite high. The Euro referendum and the discussions over the constitution, which took place at
that time, have increased the percentage of the people who support the foreign policy concerning
the other countries. The amount of the opposites is noticeably smaller and it has not changed
during the last periods. There are 2,5 times fewer opposites than supporters.
The greatest support from the Estonian inhabitants is given to the conception of the united
defence and foreign policy. The top support was given to it during the discussion period before
the Euro referendum (82%). Even though the support has fallen by some percentage points it is
still higher than two years ago. The amount of the opposites in this matter is generally stable and
has not practically changed. Due to the research of 2004.1 it was 13%.
Even though Estonia was only the candidate country the enlargement of the European Union did
not find the strong single-valued support among the population. There were quite a lot of
opposites to that kind of politics (due to the research of 2004.1 20%), but the supporters of that
were 58% of the respondents.
The image of the European Union
The image of the European Union is briefly neutral from the viewpoint of the population of
Estonia, something between positive and negative. Comparing with the other candidate states
here is the largest number of people who describe the image of the European Union as neutral
(45% of the respondents). In NMS-10 the percentage is 32 and the average number of them is
also the same in EU-15 countries. The positive and negative evaluations are in balance in
Estonian society (26% of the respondents say that the image is positive, 25% declares it in the
contrary). In NMS-10 the positive evaluations are on an average about 40% and in EU-15 much
more. So the Estonian society can be called balanced in context of giving positive and negative
evaluations. In other states the positive position is clearly higher.
What does the European union mean to the Estonians, what does it at first associate with?
Above all the other facts is the possibility to travel, learn and work everywhere in the European
Union (51%). This is the strongest part of its image in Estonia. The appearance of the other
aspects is appreciably smaller. The next places by frequency are taken by euro (32%) and
bureaucracy (29%). All the other elements stay far behind with their appearance (30%). The
social economic sides as social defence, unemployment, wasting of money form an extra group.
The Estonian inhabitants compared to the inhabitants of NMS-10 and EU-15 are in minority in
finding qualities to describe the image of the European Union.
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Which are the greatest differences with the image of the other new member states of the
European Union? The Estonian people associate considerably little such kind of image signs as
euro (Estonia – 32%, NMS–10 - 45%), peace (Estonia 23%, NMS – 37%), democracy (Estonia
17%, NMS – 31%), cultural variety (Estonia 18%, NMS – 30%), the more right of speaking in the
world (Estonia15%, NMS – 26%), the economical boom (Estonia15%, NMS – 30%) with the
inhabitants of the other countries. The image of the Estonians does not differ so much in its
structure but compared to the other countries it is less intensive and less positive at the same
time
Understanding of the European Union and the advantages arising from it
There are a great number of people among the Estonians who do not understand how the
European union is functioning (47%). In the new member countries of the European Union the
number of those people is 35%, hence appreciably less than in Estonia. We referred to the
results of it in our media analyses.
The Estonian society considers the advantages of joining the European Union primarily on the
level of statehood. First of all it means the stabilizing of Estonian politics (46%) and also the
stability of the development of economy (43%). These are the only fields where the Estonians
see more advantages than disadvantages. When comparing the positions of the new member
states and the so-called old member states in that question we will see that the new member
states see more advantages than disadvantages but the EU-15 countries are on much more
pessimistic positions, rather disagreeing. For example in new member states 49% of the
respondents rather agree and 32% rather disagree with the statement that the politics of the
country is going to be more stable. In EU-15 countries the same average index numbers are
39% and 49%. The answers of the two state groups are much more different in questions about
political stability.
In direct questions about people’s personal postures we meet rather pessimism than optimism.
38% of the respondents agree that with joining the European Union their life will become more
secure, but 44% of the respondents are in opposition. The average index numbers of the new
member states are 51% and 34%, so their perspectives are more optimistic. Least and least
people agree with the statement that their opinion is heard in the European Union. Only 9% of
the respondents agree with that statement. Comparing it with the answers of the new member
states we can see that in NMS 27% of the respondents agree with that statement and in the
countries of the European Union the number of those who agree is 30%. The attitude of the
Estonian population can be improved only by the practical life in the European Union and by
media communicating that kind of life.
The role of the European Union
The population of Estonia considers the work of the environmental protection the most positive of
the politics of the European Union (58% of the population consider it positive), on the following
places stay fighting with terrorism (54%), and the defence- and foreign policy (both spheres are
rated positively by 52% of the population). So the role of the European Union is seen at first from
the aspect of the foreign politics. The next group is formed by the economic areas, where 43% of
the population thinks the role of the European Union positive in economy and 35% in
unemployment area. There are also four more areas where the part of the positively thinking
people is larger than the part of the negatively thinking. These are education, health services,
housing constructions and pensions. In other areas the role of the European Union is handled
rather negatively than positively. These areas are price advance (71% define it negative), taxes
(52%) and immigration (47%). The public transport is the area where the position is neutral
(64%).
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The fears connected with the membership
The Estonian population is most afraid of the international criminality (67%) and the lost of their
own money (63%). The structure of fears of Estonian population differs from the fears of the new
member countries and EU-15 countries. In new member countries the difficulties of the farmers
and the growth of the international organized crime are put on the first two places. The people of
the EU-15 countries see the problems in transferring of jobs to the countries where the product
costs are lower and in international criminality. The last fear is similar in different countries. The
other fears are rather more local. When comparing the fears with other state groups the
Estonians are least afraid of the business depression or of the possibility to lose the social
benefits. At the same time these are the greatest fears of the countries of EU-15. When
comparing with other state groups the Estonians are more afraid of losing their money, also of
the fact that the smaller states will lose their power or of our language to be used more and more
less. With emphasizing the national aspects stronger than others the Estonians contrast with
other state groups.
The budget of the European Union
By the opinion of the Estonian population the 60% of the budget of the European union is divided
equally between four areas: agriculture, administrative and staff costs, employment and social
policy and foreign policy. The financing of these areas is seen somewhat differently by the new
member states and by the population of the 15 European Union countries. Although the Estonian
people think that administrative costs is the biggest expense item in the budget of the European
Union the index number is smaller compared with the rate of the other state groups (Estonia
15%, NMS-10 19%, EU-15 24%). The expectations in employment policy are higher in Estonia
than in other state groups. As agriculture plays the very important role in NMS-10 countries the
expectations about the budget are higher in that area.
Identity of Europe
Estonia is a multinational country that due to the Soviet occupation could not develop to a normal
multinational country, so the national identity is a very difficult and not directly defined
phenomenon for a great number of non-Estonians. That is also the reason why 52% of the
Estonians define themselves only as Estonians and only 27% of non-Estonians do that. The
greatest number of people who define themselves first of all as Estonians and then as
Europeans (37%) is also among the last category. The different kind of identity is seen also in
the fact that 19% of non-Estonians define themselves only as Europeans not putting Estonian
even on the second place. There was only 2% of such kind of people among Estonians.
Institutional reform in the European Union
There are quite a lot of institutional reforms going on in the European Union. One of them is
connected with the constitution of the European Union. There are many discussions taking
place and the enactment of it has delayed. The new member countries could also participate in
those discussions. The problems of the constitution were exposed also in Estonian media. The
main problems, which are handled in Estonian media, are the problems of representation and the
federative circumstances. Irrespectively of the substance of it the idea has the support of 54% of
the Estonian population. During the research period since 2002 when there was virtually no
information about the constitution 2/3 of the population have supported the idea. The substance
of it is quite a different question. By the results of the last research there was only 15% of the
respondents who were against the idea, 30% could not say anything. Due to the questioning in
spring 2004 the support to the constitution was lower in Estonia (54%) than in new member
states (63%). There are also some more opposites in Estonia.
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CANDIDATE COUNTRIES EUROBAROMETER 2004.1 – NATIONAL REPORT, ESTONIA
Another important reform in the European Union is connected with veto power in adopting
decisions. The public opinion, (both in new and in old member countries of the European Union)
prefers the preservation of status quo which substance is to defend the important official
interests. This position is supported more strongly by the new member states than the 15
members of the European Union. That kind of approach is quite natural because the old member
countries are afraid of lessening their sovereignty and of weakening their positions in the future.
The population of Estonia seems to be more reserved in this question and tends to resemble to
the position of the 15 states of the European Union. With evaluating these answers it is useful to
consider the fact that the population of Estonia is not yet enough informed in this question to
complete their own opinion. It can be read out from the matter that the number of those people
who did not have their opinion in this question is quite big. So in a current situation it could be
taken as the embryonic state of the public view in this particular question.
Similarly we can take up a standpoint to the opinion of the public view how to vote in the Council
of Ministers. From the last and the present question it is possible to read out the so-called
principle of the equality of treatment when the smaller states have the same opportunity to give
their swing vote while discussing the questions that are important to their country. The new
states want to defeat the formation of the ideas that could be familiar to the unitary states.
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