The New Europe Center presented the results of the poll “What is Ukraine’s perception in the EU?”, carried out in France, Germany, Italy and Poland.
In order to understand attitudes toward Ukraine, the New Europe Center carried out an opinion poll to learn more about the public opinion toward Ukraine as well as to determine the most common associations with Ukraine.The 2020 survey is a follow-up to a similar exercise carried out in 2015 — further amplifying the value of the collected data.
One of the key findings of the research, as noted during the presentation by Leo Litra and Alyona Getmanchuk, is that Ukraine is now much less associated with war (12% of respondents) and Russia (9%). According to a similar survey conducted in 2015, these figures were 49% and 18% respectively.
First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Emine Dzheppar noted that the MFA is currently actively working on the development of public diplomacy of Ukraine and proper communication of the state abroad.
This is especially important in the context of Ukraine’s integration into the EU, which is supported by 55% of respondents, and NATO, supported by 38%.
In general, according to one of the speakers of the event, Hanna Hopko, the top 10 findings of the New Europe Center research are a kind of tool for public policy and contain tips for joint work of the MFA, relevant committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Office of the President of Ukraine and the think-tanks community.
Distinguished guests of the event also shared their thoughts on how to communicate Ukraine abroad:
- Etienne de Poncins, Ambassador of France to Ukraine
- Andriy Melnyk, Ambassador of Ukraine to Germany
- Andrii Deshchytsia, Ambassador of Ukraine to Poland
- Dmytro Volovnykiv, Minister Counselor of the Embassy of Ukraine in Italy
The video from the presentation of the research is available in Ukrainian here.
Photo report from the event can be found here.
