Euroscepticism up a bit

Photo: 4liberty.eu

As evidenced in poll ordered by Government Office, for the first time since 2011 the satisfaction of Estonians with belonging to the European Union has shrunk. 

While last year Estonia had a record number pleased to be in EU at 84 percent of respondents, this year it was down to 78 percent. About the same amount of inhabitants were in favour of belonging to the union two years ago.

At that, 19 percent said they were not pleased with being in EU and the rest had no definite opinion.

Initially, pollster Faktum & Ariko project manager Liina Märtin thought the slight drop was due to the migration crisis, the data confirmed that not.

«The migration crisis is a weighty topic but it is important both for those who are for and those who are against. No link was evidenced in the data as to this being the reason for the fallen support,» she said.

Therefore, thinks Ms Märtin, this is no notable fall but primarily the reason is the remarkably strong satisfaction last year.

Further talking about the last year’s results, she said the satisfaction was especially high among those aged 60–74. This year, in that target group it had notably declined.

«Last year, these people underlined the importance of security. As in that year the Ukrainian crisis was very actual, one may assume the 60–74 group felt EU was guarantee of security in the context of the crisis,» said Ms Märtin attempting to interpret the readings.

«Always, the studies include discrepancies and other nuances which may sway the results. Therefore, makes no sense to draw overmuch conclusions from one change,» she said.

«But if next year a further drop of support of EU occurs, then we can talk about a decline. In this instance, we have just backslid to the last year but one,» added Ms Märtin.

The Faktum & Ariko poll was conducted in November and 500 permanent Estonian residents were interviewed, aged 15–74.