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Eurobarometer says goodbye to social Europe
Working conditions are an important topic, in particular in the weeks before the EP election. The election campaign has started in many countries and voters are confronted with Eurosceptic arguments as well as with support for the European Union. Many MEPs try to sell the activities with which they were involved in the last 5 years and strong criticisms of the Troika policy are voiced regularly, for instance that the Troika actively contributes to the worsening of working conditions. In some countries the discussion gets quite turbulent with candidates attributing all evils to “Brussels” – for instance Marine Le Pen on Mayday accusing Brussels of downsizing French industry….
The newest Flash Eurobarometer 398 focuses on working conditions and was published on the same day - 28 April - as a Conference of the European Commission on the same topic. The Commission announced that this survey was carried out in the 28 Member States in early April 2014 and that 26,571 respondents from different social and demographic groups were interviewed via telephone (landline and mobile phone) in their mother tongue.
The survey reveals that “more than 80% of respondents in Denmark, Luxembourg, Finland and The Netherlands consider working conditions in their country to be good” – so a Commission press release states. The Eurobarometer poll tries to give the impression that an overwhelming majority is satisfied and bad working conditions are an exception. Indeed some responses could support the impression that workers are happy with their working conditions. If you read it carefully, however, it shows that this is not the case. Looking closer at the questions asked and the responses given, it becomes clear that the terms of reference are somewhat biased: the question/answer are as follows: