GOALS, VALUES AND OPINIONS ON THE EU

GOALS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

The goals of the European Union are:

  • Promote peace.
  • Offer freedom, security and justice without internal borders.
  • Sustainable development based on balanced economic growth and price stability.
  • Combat social exclusion and discrimination.
  • Promote scientific and technological progress.
  • Improve economic, social and territorial cohesion and solidarity among EU countries.
  • Respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity.
  • Establish an economic and monetary union whose currency is the euro.

VALUES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

These values are an integral part of our European way of life:

  • Human dignity: human dignity is inviolable. It must be respected.
  • Freedom: freedom of movement gives citizens the right to move and reside freely within the Union.
  • Democracy: being a European citizen also means enjoying political rights. Every adult EU citizen has the right to stand as a candidate and to vote in elections to the European Parliament.
  • Equality: equality is about equal rights for all citizens before the law.
  • Rule of law: the EU is based on the rule of law. Everything the EU does is founded on treaties, voluntarily and democratically agreed by its EU countries.
  • Human rights: these cover the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation, the right to the protection of your personal data, and or the right to get access to justice.

OPINIONS ON THE EU

The European Union gets mostly favorable marks from the countries surveyed, but not everyone is happy with the Brussels-based institution. Across the 14 EU member countries surveyed, a median of 67% hold favorable views of the European Union while 31% have an unfavorable view.

Many of the Central and Eastern European countries surveyed hold strongly positive views of the political union.

While more people see the EU in a positive light than in the UK, Greece, the Czech Republic and France, these countries also have sizable portions of the public, more than four in ten, who express negative views. In Russia, 44% have a negative view of the EU, while 37% give it the go-ahead.