Radio Praha: Czech EU support most lukewarm in Central Europe

Amid recent heightened talk about the possibilities a Czech exit from the European Union or a referendum about it, a survey of five Central Europe countries has sought to gauge how positive local populations are towards the European concept.

The main takeaway headline from the survey appears to be that most Czechs are still positive towards Europe. In fact, 54 percent of Czechs would like to stay in, 34 percent would like to leave, and 12 percent couldn’t say.

But those results from the survey carried out in November and December still show the Czech Republic with the weakest levels of EU support and highest levels of opposition. Support in Hungary was, for example, 84 percent; Slovenia 79 percent, and Slovakia 69 percent.

Our Christian Kvorning Lassen was responsible for the Czech part of the survey:

ʺThe Czech Republic is the most Eurosceptic country at least according to this survey and compared to the other surveyed countries, which were Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, and Austria. Something that stands out in the Czech findings is that just like in Brexit young people are generally pro-European but contrary to Brexit, the older generation, the 66 plus year old people, are also predominantly positive towards the EU. What we found instead is that the 36 to 50 year olds are predominantly anti-European or Eurosceptic at least, followed by the next age group, 51-65 years old.ʺ

Full article and the interview in english can be found at the Radio Praha website.

Christian Kvorning Lassen
Deputy Director & Head of Research

Expertise: Migration/European migration crisis, EU foreign policy, Scandinavian politics, populism, EU enlargement policy