Finns are "numerically-challenged" on European Union membership

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Europeans often mock citizens of the United States for being geographically-challenged and not knowing what is going on outside their borders. Finns at least may not be in much of a position to laugh, if we are to believe the results of a recent EU survey.
      Only 15 per cent of Finns know that there are 25 members of the European Union. This is the damning evidence that emerges from a Eurobarometer survey on "The European Union and its Neighbours" published by the European Commission on Tuesday.
      The Finns were beaten only by the British for the title of the least well-informed. People in The Netherlands and Germany showed an equal lack of knowledge of just how many members were in the club they belong to.
     
The lapse was put down to apathy as much as anything. There was plenty of material available on the ten countries joining in the last phase of enlargement, but if people were unaware that there had been fifteen members to start with, including Finland (which joined in 1995), then the task of adding 15 and 10 was clearly beyond them.
      Among all member countries, the situation was admittedly not a great deal better: around one in four respondents could answer the question correctly. It would seem that the enlargement that took place in May 2004 has not really struck home, as slightly more than 50 per cent said there were now fewer than 25 members.
      Among the Finns this figure was noticeably higher at 71 per cent.
     
Another question asked was whether the respondents felt that the EU and its neighbouring states, including Russia and Ukraine, had "shared values". An average of around a third agreed with this, but the Finnish figure was not much more than 20 per cent.
      Furthermore, the new countries waiting in line for EU membership do not seem to be very well known. Among all respondents to the Eurobarometer survey, just three per cent could name at least four out of five of the prospective new members.
      The Finnish score was also three percent, although a creditable 76 per cent could at least name one to three of the countries (they are Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Macedonia, and Turkey - with the first two scheduled to join at the beginnig of 2007).
      Roughly 1,000 people from each member state were interviewed for the survey in May and June, with half that number from Malta and Luxembourg, and the margin of error was between two and three per cent.


Links:
  Eurobarometer

Helsingin Sanomat