TÜRKİYE KAMUOYUNDA AVRUPA BİRLİĞİ ALGISI - 2015
12
32.5% of participants have a relative or an acquaintance
living in Europe and almost half of them are of first or second
degree relatives.
MAIN OUTCOMES
According to the results, while 4 out of 5 persons that
participated in the public opinion survey have stated that
they have heard of the EU before, 85% of participants
declared that they have “none” or “little” knowledge of the
EU. This indicates a lack of general information as regards to
the EU within the Turkish public opinion.
It can be observed that in geographical terms, the level of
knowledge on the EU is decreasing when moving from the
western to eastern regions. It can be observed that the level
of knowledge on the EU is more important within the young
population (18-30 age group) in contrast to older age groups
(such as the 45 and above age group).
The public opinion survey shows that main sources of
information as regards to the EU are traditional media tools
such as television, newspapers and radio. The internet is
also a widely used tool to find information related to EU. In
contrast, the official institutions of the EU and Turkey are
not considered as primary source of information among the
public opinion.
According to the public opinion survey, 61.8% of the Turkish
public opinion is supporting Turkey’s EU membership.
The belief for Turkey’s EU membership has decreased
for 73% of the participants in the public opinion survey.
Furthermore, while 30% of the participants believe that
Turkey will become a member of the EU and 23% expect
that Turkey will join the EU within the next five years.
As regards to the level of support granted to Turkey’s
EU membership, there is a rather mixed picture from the
geographical point of view. With a rate of 47.7%, the South
Eastern Anatolian is the region with the highest rate of belief




