No pro-European majority in Ukrainian society
At present, there is no stable pro-European majority in Ukrainian society, Dmytro Shulga, Director of the International Renaissance Foundation’s European Program, said at the July 11 expert roundtable “Informational Support for European Integration: Needs and Methods” in Kyiv.
According to public opinion polls, 38% of Ukrainians support EU entry, while 36% are in favor of Ukraine joining the Customs Union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. However, the expert believes this isn’t the biggest problem. Far more troubling is the fact that most respondents can’t justify their choice, reports European Space.
Support for Ukraine’s European integration is polarized most by region, which, in Dmytro Shulga’s opinion, illustrates that European integration is perceived as a foreign policy alternative to relations with Russia. Moreover, the vast majority of Ukrainian citizens have never been to the EU and get information about European standards mainly from Ukrainian and Russian media.
According to Dmytro Shulga, Ukrainians are most interested in how Europeans live and how European integration will affect their own lives. However, Ukrainian media generally do not provide answers to these questions, and limit their coverage to current foreign policy developments.
European Program
Dmytro Shulga
(+38 044) 461 95 00
shulga@irf.ua
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The essential role of the European Program lies in promotion of Ukraine’s European integration, combining external pressure of the EU with the domestic one of the Ukrainian civil society, and thus contributing to promotion of open society values in Ukraine.
