P-1655/07EN Answer given by Ms Wallström on behalf of the Commission (23.4.2007)
The Commission would like to inform the Honourable Member that Eurobarometer surveys, which have existed since 1973, are one of the tools available to assess citizens' knowledge, concerns, views and expectations on European issues.
The contractors charged with realising Eurobarometer surveys, which were selected through open calls for tender, were compelled to demonstrate either that they belonged to ESOMAR, WAPOR or an equivalent body or to undertake, on their honour, to comply with the following codes of conduct1: ICC/ESOMAR International Code of Marketing and Social Research Practice or equivalent and WAPOR/ESOMAR Guide to Opinion polls or equivalent. This requirement, which was a selection criterion, is the guarantee that contractors meet the quality standards of the profession.
The results of Eurobarometer surveys are available to all European and national institutions, political organisations, journalists, academics and citizens. The data files are available to all those interested or specialised in social research and the Commission has not received complaints from the academic world regarding the reliability of data files. Besides, the published Eurobarometer reports contain a technical note providing the surveys details, i.e. time of the fieldwork, population covered, size of the sample, sampling and interviewing methodology used.
For these reasons, the Commission is confident as to the reliability of Eurobarometer data.
Several surveys on energy issues have been carried out, with many questions relating to nuclear energy. Without knowing to which survey the Honourable Member is referring, it is difficult to provide a comment on this specific issue. Furthermore, the Commission can only comment on the opinion polls it has carried out.
However, as opinions expressed by citizens may vary over time and from country to country, the results of Eurobarometer surveys have to be interpreted very carefully as they first and foremost represent a snapshot of the state of the opinion, at a certain point in time. Their purpose is not to serve as a justification for EU policymaking but obviously their results are one of the means to assess citizens' opinions on European issues and hence they constitute one of many elements that are taken into consideration when the Commission defines a policy. Other elements are Green papers, White Papers, conferences, scientific reports etc.
Thus interpretation of the results of Eurobarometer contribute to the political debate and make the polling part of the listening exercise between the European Union’s institutions and citizens described in ‘Plan D for democracy, dialogue and debate’2.
The Commission is at the disposal of the Honourable Member to further discuss the questions and replies of Eurobarometer surveys on nuclear energy.
1 These codes are available on the ESOMAR website at http://www.esomar.org/ 2 Plan D : COM (2005) 494 final