International Relations

According to the June survey of Public Opinion Research Centre, only 21% of Czech citizens approve the adoption of euro as legal tender in the Czech Republic, 68% oppose it. Since April 2010 a support for adoption of euro fell by 17%, while share of disapproval increased by 13%.

In April 2011 Public Opinion Research Centre investigated trust in the European Union, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the President of the European Council and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Another two questions deal with the issue, whether Czechs believe, that decisions of the EU are in behalf of the Czech Republic and ordinary people (like themselves).

In April 2011 CVVM probed, how Czech citizens evaluate membership of the Czech Republic in European Union. Besides satisfaction with membership, Czechs also talked about measure of their pride in context of being citizens of European Union. Then Czechs evaluated helpfulness and harmfulness of European integration in these areas - economy, politics, culture, country defence and ecology. On one hand, most of Czechs supposed that European integration is useful in area of defence (72 %) and ecology (70 %).

According to the April survey of Public Opinion Research Centre, only 21% of Czech citizens approve the adoption of euro as legal tender in the Czech Republic, 75% oppose it. Since April 2010 a support for adoption of euro fell by 17%, while share of disapproval increased by 20%.

April survey was focused on attitudes of Czechs to some representatives and institutions of international politics. 69% of Czechs trust the US President Barack Obama (21% distrust him), 58% trust the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (25% not), 48% trust the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel (26% distrust her) and 21% trust the Great Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron (20% distrust him, 24 % are undecided and 35 % do not know him at all).

According to the April survey of the Public Opinion Research Centre, 44% of Czech citizens are interested in current events in the Middle East and Northern Africa. 66% of Czechs expect a negative impact of these events on global economy, 60% share the same expectation in relation to security situation in the world. 27% of Czechs approve the international coalition’s military operations in Libya, 44% oppose it and 29% are undecided on this matter.

In April 2011 CVVM investigated on the membership of the Czech Republic in the European Union. Informants were asked to evaluate positive and negative efects of membership and the impact of membership on chosen areas of public life.

77 % agreed that EU membership helped Czechs to work, live and study in other EU countries. 79 % said that membership increased the level of bureaucracy in Czech republic.

According to the March survey of the Public Opinion Research Centre, 53% of Czech citizens are interested in current events in the Middle East and Northern Africa. One third (33%) of Czech public thinks that international community should participate more actively in solving of current situation in Arab countries where people rose up in protest against authoritarian regimes, a half (51%) of Czechs opposes the idea of external meddling into current events there.

In January 2011 Public Opinion Research Centre carried out a survey about NATO and national defence. Within the project were examined satisfaction with membership in NATO, judgments about the consequences of membership in NATO and there was also examined opinion on national defence.

In January 2011 the CVVM regular survey included a block of questions related to NATO and national defence. There was examined opinion on the current need for NATO as a military-political organization and how the existence and actions of NATO influences the safety of members, the relationships within and outside the organization, peace and stability and ability to address the threat of terrorism.

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