Almost half of the citizens of Ukraine supports integration with the EU

In December 2012, 48% of respondents believed that Ukraine should join the European Union (29% were against it), accession to the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan was supported by 40% (37% – against), NATO membership was supported by 15% (60 % – against). These are the results of the poll, which was held by the Fund "Democratic Initiatives" named after Ilko Kucheriv together with Razumkov Center supported by the International Foundation "Renaissance", program "Matra" of the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Ukraine, the National Fund of Endowment for Democracy (USA), "PACT", UNITER project and the European Union.
The opinion on the integration path depends on the region: in the West (65%) and the Centre (50%) people prefer to join the EU, and in the South (50%) and the East (48.5%) – accession to the Customs Union. 
There is also a difference in the opinions on integration vector between supporters of different political forces: voters of "Batkivshchyna" (66%), "UDAR" (60%) and "Svoboda" (69%) support for EU membership, and the voters of the Party of Regions (59%) and CPU (71%) prefer to join the Customs Union. 
Joining the EU is supported by 52% of young people aged under 30, 51% – in the age group of 30-39 years, 46.5% – in the age group of 40-49 years, 37% – in the group of 59-59 years, and 29% – among people aged 60 years and older. Joining the Customs Union is supported by 23% of young people aged under 30, 22% – in the age group of 30-39 years, 31% – in the age group of 40-49 years, 36% – in the group of 59-59 years, and 45% – among people aged 60 years and older. 
Population in the overwhelming majority supports the conditions that were put forward before Ukraine to sign an Association Agreement with the EU: improving the electoral system, the introduction of the Election Code (69%), reform of the judicial system (76%), eliminating politically motivated court sentences (70%), execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (75%). Moreover, these requirements are supported by the majority of voters of all regions and all political forces represented in the parliament. 
However, only 23% are certain that Ukraine is fully capable to fulfill all the requirements put forward. The prevailing view (35%) is that Ukraine can fulfill some of the conditions put forward by the EU, others – can not. However, only 13.5% think that Ukraine is not able to fulfill these conditions at all, and 10% believe that the country should not fulfill the conditions put forward by the EU.
The prevailing opinion among the population is that last year Ukraine has not moved in any direction of integration (39%). 24% see a move towards greater integration with Russia and the CIS countries and only 19% believe that Ukraine is moving towards closer integration with the EU. This opinion is common for all regions except the South, where there are slightly more those who have seen active movement towards integration with Russia and the CIS (36% vs. 30% of those who did not notice any movement). Voters of the Party of Regions (39%) and CPU (38%) mostly believe that Ukraine is heading for closer integration with Russia and the CIS countries, but voters of "Batkivshchyna" (45.5%), "UDAR" (46%) and "Svoboda" (52%) believe that Ukraine is not progressing at all. 
  
The national survey was conducted from 21 to 24 of December 2012. A total of 2009 respondents aged over 18 years in all regions of Ukraine, city of Kyiv and the Republic of Crimea were interviewed with a sample representative of the adult population of Ukraine for key socio-demographic indicators. The error margin (excluding design effect) does not exceed 2.3% with a probability of 0.95.