At the beginning of December 2003, 57 % of respondents of the “Czech Society” survey said they would participate in elections to the European Parliament. On the basis of these data it would be possible to expect the participation in these elections of about 32 - 36 % of voters. The number of those that stated they would not participate in the elections grew from 16 % in October 2002 to 27 %.

All respondents having the right to vote were asked an open question (i.e. without a list of political parties being used) investigating which party they would vote for if an election to the Chamber of Deputies took place the following week. The structure of the answers given is summarised in the table.

The question ‘Imagine that an election to the Chamber of Deputies is held next week. Would you participate?’ was answered yes by 65% of those surveyed having the right to vote (‘definitely yes’ by 30% and ‘probably yes’ by 35%), while 29% said no (15% ‘probably not’ and 14% ‘definitely not’) and 6% did not know.

In our November survey we asked several questions concerning unemployment; 7 out of 10 respondents indicated that the current level of unemployment in our country was too high, one quarter of Czechs believe that it is adequate and only 1% of our inhabitants consider it to be too low. One quarter of Czech citizens think that the unemployed in our country cannot find any work. A half of respondents think that the unemployed cannot find suitable work and the opinion of the remaining quarter of respondents was that the unemployed were simply not interested in finding work.

Similarly, as in the previous two years, even this year citizens consider media to be the main guarantor of providing information about the integration of the country in the European Union. They also find the function of the government to be very important. More than two fifths of respondents included elected representatives of both chambers of the Parliament, and also scientific and educational institutions among the most important entities.

One of the fields, which was researched within the section “Historical and Ethnic Regions in the CZ”, were ideas of people about differences in inhabitants of individual regions compared with foreigners and ethnic minorities. The results show that compared with other surveyed options the fewest people dare to claim that they would recognise inhabitants of their own region, most of them are convinced they would recognise foreigners on a short-term stay in the CZ.

During the November survey carried out within the project Czech Society 2003 we among other things were finding out the opinion of citizens concerning the importance of historical and ethnic regions. The first question was to establish general viewpoints of whether historical and ethnic regions were important, the second question surveyed opinions concerning the significance of regions from the point of view of identity strengthening and culture development.

This time the interviewees were expressing their confidence in leaders of the political parties represented in the Chamber of Deputies. At the top of the popularity chart Miroslav Topolánek appeared in between ČSSD representatives Stanislav Gross and Vladimír Špidla. These are followed by the new KDU-ČSL leader Miroslav Kalousek, the Chamber of Deputies chairman Lubomír Zaorálek, KDU-ČSL members Jan Kasal and Foreign Affairs minister Cyril Svoboda.

Those surveyed believe that especially the situation in the health sector must be tackled now. They hold the opinion that crime in the country requires exceptionally urgent action too. Moreover, unemployment and social policies also belong to the dominant social problems. In terms of the importance of an urgent solution, the environment and taxes are considered a slightly less important issue. The problem of coming to terms with the past (vetting), and moral and ethical issues, such as abortions and registered partnership, are viewed as less important among the monitored areas.

After entering the EU, the Czech public expects that changes for the worse in the social and economic sectors are more likely than not. The only exception in the areas monitored in the survey is represented in this aspect by wages, which are more often expected to grow by people (35 %), than to drop (11 %) after entering the EU. The negative expectations clearly dominate in the price area, whether it concerns grocery (82 % anticipate price increases), energy prices (74 %), land (71 %) or public transport (60 %).

In comparison with the previous month, the level of citizens’ confidence in constitutional institutions remains practically unchanged. The highest level of the public’s confidence traditionally belongs to the president of the republic, who is trusted by two thirds of all the interviewees. The Senate of the CR enjoys confidence of only one fifth of the inhabitants. That means the level of confidence in the Senate is currently the lowest of all the monitored institutions within the whole monitoring period.