Each year more and more Slovaks take a positive view of membership of NATO and the European Union, according to a public opinion poll in seven Central and Eastern European countries, Globsec Trends 2019, Globsec researcher Daniel Milo informed media on Monday. "Support for the EU is clearly growing," Milo told a press conference. According to him, a vast majority of respondents would say no in the event of a referendum concerning exit from the EU. In the case of Slovaks they made up 71 percent of respondents. At the same time, however, the survey showed that 65 percent of Slovaks think that the EU dictates its policies to its member states, without any possibility of influencing this. The survey's average of all seven countries says that 69 percent of people think that Germany and France are in control of the European Union.
The support rate for NATO membership is 56 percent in Slovakia. Despite this number, Slovakia is on the more sceptical side of the issue of confidence in NATO among the countries monitored. However, support for membership has increased by 13 percent as compared to 2017. According to Milo, the Foreign Ministry's successful campaign as well as the tense global security situation is are reasons for the increase in support for membership. None of the seven countries surveyed wants NATO to be replaced by a hypothetical EU army.
The poll was carried out by Globsec in Slovakia in co-operation with the Focus agency, on a sample of 1,025 respondents. The survey was conducted in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria.
