What do you think about Europe?

ONLY 51 per cent of the population think Cyprus’ prospective entry into the European Union is ” a good thing”according to a new European Commission survey conducted throughout the 13 candidate countries.

But if it came to a referendum, 62 per cent of Cypriots would vote for membership.

The survey, co-ordinated by the Hungarian Gallup Organisation, is part of a project called the Applicant Countries’ Eurobarometer.

The results suggest that only 51 per cent of Cypriots welcome EU membership and that 31 per cent don’t care, leaving more than one in 10 opposed to the move.

The number of Cypriots who welcome EU accession lags eight per cent behind the candidate average, matched by Turkey at 59 per cent.

Some 15 per cent of Cypriots classified EU membership as ” very”or ” fairly”negative – compared to a candidate average of 18 per cent.

But only a quarter said they would vote against EU membership in a referendum, compared to an average of 35 per cent in places like Malta, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and the Czech Republic.

Nevertheless the statistics go some way to counterbalance the seemingly unanimous political support for Brussels.

Awareness of EU institutions could also be improved. Although 99 per cent of Cypriot respondents knew about the EU, only 68 per cent had heard about the European Parliament and only 54 per cent of the European Commission.

A fifth said they didn’t trust the EU and some 67 per cent claimed they were not well, or at all informed about EU enlargement.

The identical questionnaires were filled in by a proportional segment of the population in all applicant countries this October.

In Cyprus, this means the answers are based on the responses of 500 people. The survey was carried out locally by Cymar Market Research.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.