Brussels, 28/07/2003 (Agence Europe) - 55% of citizens of the current Member States have never heard of the Convention on the Future of Europe, revealed a rather alarming result of a survey conducted by “Eurobarometer Flash” immediately after the Thessalonica European Council. 45% of people in the enlarged EU have at least heard of the Convention, compared with only around 30% in March. The same survey will be conducted for a second and last time at the beginning of October, to coincide with the launch of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC).
The survey, conducted for the European Commission by “Taylor Nelson Sofres/EOS Gallup”, covered the period 23 to 29 June, and took in 25 000 people from all the countries in the enlarged EU. The people best informed about the Convention turned out to be the Greeks (81%), followed by Luxembourgers (66%) and Finns (65%). At the other end of the scale, fewer than 30% of British people, Hungarians or Latvians had heard of the Convention chaired by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
Asked about the text produced by the Convention, 38% of respondents said they would like to read a summary, while 11% were keen on seeing the full text, and 40% had no intention of reading it (just over 1% said they had already read it). 9% of people thought the draft Constitutional Treaty should be adopted unamended by heads of state. 43% were in favour of partial revision, while 8% wanted a radical reworking and 11% thought the draft should be rejected and the current Treaties should remain in force. More people thought the Convention had come up with satisfactory results than unsatisfactory.
68% of those polled were in favour of having a truly European Constitution (with more than 80% in Italy, Spain and Hungary, and fewer than 45% in Denmark, the United Kingdom and Sweden). 69% wanted the European Parliament to have the right to vote on all decisions concerning the future of the EU; 52% were in favour of an elected European Foreign Minister (78% in favour in Spain and 75% in France, compared with only 23% in Sweden and 24% in Poland). 55% wanted the President of the European Council to be elected by the Heads of State and Government (more than 70% approval from Hungarians, Greeks and Belgians; less than 30% support from Poles, Swedes and Finns), while 34% said they were against the idea. 40% of those questioned thought there had to be a referendum on the draft Constitution, while 43% thought a referendum useful but not essential, and 12% were against a referendum.