Ukraine is number one favourite candidate to accession in all European countries .

The second phase of the survey on "Europeans and Ukraine's membership of the European Union" - following that of March 2005 - was conducted by the institute TNS Sofres from 24 October to 9 November 2005 in the most populated countries of the European Union (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Poland, representing 75% of the EU's total population) plus, for the first time, in Ukraine itself, with a representative sample of 1000 people in the EU countries and 1,200 people in Ukraine.

The key conclusions of this second phase are as follows:

1. Despite recent political events that shook both the European Union and Ukraine, Europeans still show continued support to the idea of the accession of Ukraine

51% of Europeans are in favour of Ukraine joining the European Union (-4 pts compared to March 2005). After a six months period that has been traumatic for both the European Union (rejection of the European Constitution Treaty by France and the Netherlands) and Ukraine (aftermath of the Orange Revolution), there is a strong tendency towards decreasing support for enlargement in all of the six countries.

Ukraine is now ranking as the number one favourite candidate to accession , not only at global level (51%), but also in each of the six countries. As in March 2005, the strongest support to the accession of Ukraine is to be found in Poland (64%), and the weakest in Germany (40%).

In Ukraine itself, favourability towards accession is 47%, slightly lower than in the six countries (51%). Opponents are just as many in Ukraine as in the six countries (34% both), but opposition is stronger in Ukraine since the Definitely against account for 21%. Opinions towards Ukraines accession are thus more polarised in Ukraine . As in the other countries, favourability is higher amongst the men, the young and the better educated. But there are strong discrepancies based on area and nationality. While in the West 75% of the population favours the accession, the East and, to a lesser extent, the South are regions that gather more opponents than supporters (47% vs. 35% in the East and 41% vs. 40% in the South). The majority of Ukrainians of Russian descent are against the accession to the EU (51% against, 30%), while the proportion is exactly the reverse amongst Ukrainians of Ukrainian descent (30% vs. 52%).

2. Willingness of Europeans to open negotiations with Ukraine stands the test of recent political events in Europe

52% of the Europeans in the six countries are in favour of opening negotiations with Ukraine (39% favouring both Ukraine and Turkey, 13% favouring Ukraine only).

3.  Europeans believe that Ukraine s accession could become a reality before a new generation is born

One has to mention that the percentage of dont know/no answer was quite high for this question (21% overall in the six countries, up to 31% in Ukraine).

That being said, 51% of the respondents in the six countries believe that Ukraine s accession could materialise in the forthcoming ten years . Only 8% of them think that Ukraine will never be part of Europe a result that fuels the idea of the inevitability of Ukraines accession being already set in European minds.

42% of the Ukrainians believe that their country will join the European Union in the forthcoming 10 years .

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