According to the Center for Fundamental Rights, the main question in the series of debates on the future of the European Union is what direction Europe should take among the member states: “towards a community that seeks to create a United States of Europe or a nation-based organization that respects them”? According to research, the Hungarian people support the strengthening of the intergovernmental Union which favors individual member states, in contrast to the supranational concept of Europe.
According to 74 percent of the Hungarian population of voting age, it is important that EU decisions continue to be made jointly by state leaders, while only 15 percent of those surveyed disagreed with this statement. All of this means that three-quarters of Hungarians consider the European Council, the EU body of heads of state and government, to be a legitimate decision-maker.
There was also an overwhelming majority who said that European integration did not mean that individual members had to give up their national values. Nearly seven out of ten (68 percent) took this position and only 17 percent of respondents said the opposite. According to the data, advocating national values is more important for Hungarians than European integration.
Two-thirds of Hungarian adults (65 percent) also sympathize with support for state sovereignty, according to which the role of national parliaments in European decision-making should be increased. One-fifth of respondents (21 percent) disagreed with the former statement, as they do not consider state self-determination important.
One of the central issues in the series of debates on the future of the Union is what dangers the European continent will face in the future. Two-thirds of Hungarians (66 percent) say one such threat will be mass migration, while 27 percent say there will be no significant immigration in the future.
Title image: EU flags. (EU/Etienne Ansotte)