Policy Document: Economic Hardship on the Rise: Yet, Strong Faith in Leadership and EU Accession Optimism, January 2011

EMA has the pleasure to share with you the key findings of survey entitled: “Gallup Balkan Monitor: Voices of Balkans”. This survey and its analytical report is implemented by the European Fund for the Balkans (EFB) and Gallup Europe. The survey is conducted every year and it measures perceptions of public opinion in the Balkan countries towards the European perspective of the region.

Survey highlights:

Material situation:

  • Share of respondents who said that they could rely on friends or family outside of the country, when they needed to, has decreased by nine percentage points since 2009 (to 45%).
  •  A third (34%) of respondents felt that Albania’s economic situation was getting worse, rising from a quarter (26%) in 2009.

Attitudes toward the EU:

  • Albanian support for the EU remained among the highest in the region at 81%, but that represents a drop of eight percentage points since a year ago.
  • In the case of an EU referendum, a vast majority (93%) of Albanians would be ready to vote ‘Yes’ to accession to the EU.
  • On average, Albanians believed that their country would join the EU in 2014.
  •  A rising share of Albanian respondents (69%) believed that people in the EU wanted their country to join.

Satisfaction and confidence in institutions:

  • 48% of Albanian respondents said they approved of their leaders.
  •  A parallel development was the increasing proportion of Albanians that felt represented by a party or a politician  currently 60% felt as if someone was speaking on their behalf: the highest rate in the region.
  • NATO and EU remained the most trusted institutions in the country, while the judiciary recently experienced a drop in citizens’ confidence and was trusted by 31% of respondents (- 13 percentage points).
  • The societal role of religion appears to be growing: since 2006, the share of people stating that it played an important part in their lives has risen from 33% to 44%.

Perceptions of corruption and organized crime:

  • Despite a slight decrease, Albania still has the highest rates, by far, of people stating that they had to bribe someone in the year prior to the survey interview: half of respondents (49%) had been in this position.
  • A significant share of Albanians (35%, more than anywhere else in the region) found that the level of organised crime was decreasing and people were increasingly convinced that their government was effectively combating organised crime (40%, up 3 points).
  • Despite a slight decrease, Albania still has the highest rates, by far, of people stating that they had to bribe someone in the year prior to the survey interview: half of respondents (49%) had been in this position.

Migration and Mobility:

  • 42% said that they would emigrate if the circumstances were right.
  • Only around 6% of Albanian respondents, however, had concrete plans to leave in the year after the interview, which would amount to roughly 135,000 people (based on survey results being extrapolated to the total Albanian population).
  • Two-fifths of Albanians believed that visa liberalisation would lead to a strong increase in emigration.

Balkan challenges:

  • The support for the creation of Greater Albania – a country made up of Albanians from Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia – has decreased
  • Share of people stating that ties with neighbouring countries were too strong has risen steeply (from 15% to 30% between 2009 and 2010).
  • Absolute majority of respondents (42%) were convinced that neighbourly ties needed further strengthening.

About the survey

The results are available in two forms:

  1. In a major report – Summary of Findings 2010 – that highlights the main findings and focuses on key topics (life satisfaction, the EU and the Balkans, governance, corruption, migration and job prospects) with year-on-year comparisons. The report can be downloaded at www.balkan-monitor.eu/files/BalkanMonitor-2010_Summary_of_Findings.pdf.
  2. Via the Balkan Monitor dashboard, a facility that includes enhanced graphics, time-series capability and sub-country level break-downs: www.balkan-monitor.eu/ index.php/dashboard.
  3. The fourth wave of the survey, conducted in July 2010, consisted of a representative sample of at least 1,000 respondents per country in Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Where to find more information?
News and events around the Balkan Monitor are constantly updated at http://www.balkan-monitor.eu/

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