INSCOP poll: More than 70 pct of Romanians believe Romania is heading in the wrong direction

Romanians are pessimistic when it comes to their own country's future direction and more optimistic when it comes to the direction in which Europe is heading in, showed an INSCOP Research poll, which was conducted between March 5 and 13, commissioned by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. According to the poll, whose main theme was the population's opinion on the direction Romania and Europe are heading towards, 72.8 per cent of the Romanians believe that the direction our country is heading in is the wrong one, 17.8 per cent believe that it's heading in the right direction and 9.4 per cent of the respondents didn't know what to answer or chose not to answer. According to INSCOP Research, compared with last year, there was noticed a "significant" increase in the number of Romanians who think Europe is heading in the right direction. Moreover, the perception of the direction Romania is heading towards is still "strongly negative," without significant variations compared with the previous month. Compared with a similar poll published last month, the percentage of respondents who believe our country is heading the wrong direction has slightly increased, the same as that of those who think that our country is head in the right direction. Compared with 2017, the percentage of optimists went down to a half, shows INSCOP. Thus, from 36.6 per cent of the Romanians who believed in July 2017 that Romania is heading the right direction, only 22.8 per cent still believed that in November 2017, 19.9 per cent in February 2018, 19.1 per cent in October 2018, 18.7 per cent in November 2018 and 16.9 per cent in January-February 2019. Most respondents (46.7 per cent) think that Europe is heading in the right direction, while 35.3 per cent think it is heading in the wrong direction. 17.9 per cent didn't answer at all to this question. The same research showed that, compared with February 2019 and November 2018 respectively, a "clear" trend remains of increasing optimism with respect to the direction in which things are heading in Europe, and less pessimism, specified INSCOP Research. Against the end of last year (October-November 2018), a diminished perception regarding the wrong direction things are heading towards Europe is more significant, from 42.5 per cent down to 35.3 per cent. In five months, the number of pessimists when it comes to the direction Europe is heading in diminished by 7 per cent. Similarly, the percentage of those who believe Europe is heading in the right direction increases by 5 per cent in the same period. Basically, if in November 2018, the number of those who believed things in Europe are heading in the wrong direction is by 1.3 per cent higher than the number of those who believe things are heading in the right direction, while in March 2019 the situation reversed, with the number of those who think it is heading in the right direction being higher by 11.4 per cent than the number of those who think things are heading in the wrong direction, explained the makers of the poll. The sociological research shows that the upcoming European Parliament elections and also the recent developments in which the activity of the European institutions in Romania was strongly covered by the media institutions - the taking over by Romania of the presidency of the Council of the European Union and the series of events generated by this event, the procedures regarding the appointment of the future European prosecutor seem to have "significantly" favoured an improvement in the perception on the direction things are heading in Europe, says INSCOP. The poll was conducted over March 5-13, being commissioned by Konrad Adenauer Foundation, based on a questionnaire given to the respondents at their domicile. The sample, of a multi-stratified type, probabilistic, was of 1,053 persons, being representative for the non-institutionalized population in Romania, aged above 18 and more. The maximum admitted error for the data is of plus/minus 3 per cent, with a trust degree of 95 per cent. AGERPRES (RO - author: Catalina Matei, editor: Claudia Stanescu; EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Adina Panaitescu)