SURVEY – Hungary seen in positive light in neighbouring countries

Citizens of neighbouring countries generally had a positive opinion of Hungary, according to a survey by the Nézőpont Institute published on Wednesday.

Nézőpont’s survey conducted for Charta XXI Movement, a central European NGO, also showed that Hungarian respondents had a similarly positive opinion of other counties in central Europe.

On average 63 percent of respondents in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria had a favourable view of Hungary.

The most positive views were from Bulgaria (85 percent) while Romania had the least (57 percent). In Romania, the highest number of poor views of Hungary were recorded (39 percent).

Hungarians had positive a view of Austria (73 percent), Croatia (68 percent), Slovakia (58 percent) and Slovenia (57 percent). Fully 35 percent of Hungarian respondents saw Romania in a positive light and 37 percent were negative. In the case of Ukraine, that ratio was 23 percent and 43 percent, respectively.

Hungarian respondents saw bilateral ties with neighbouring countries in a positive light, with the exception of Ukraine, the poll said.

They were especially satisfied with ties with Croatia (68 percent) and Austria (67 percent), while 38 percent of respondents were negative about ties with Ukraine. Nézőpont added that positive views of Ukraine have dropped by 8 percentage points over the past year, noting Ukraine’s education law and attacks against Ukraine Hungarians.

Nézőpont conducted the phone poll of 1,000 people in Hungary between Jan. 8 and 11. It surveyed 1,000 people in each of every other country between Jan. 18 and Feb. 13.

Source: MTI