You're reading: Poll: Almost half of Ukrainians back Ukraine’s accession to EU

Forty-eight percent of Ukrainians support Ukraine's accession to the European Union, while 40% would like to see their country in the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, according to a survey conducted by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Razumkov Center.

According to the survey, 15% of Ukrainians support Ukraine’s entry to NATO.

In addition, according to an alternative survey, 42% of respondents supported Ukraine’s accession to the EU, 32% to the Customs Union, while 10.5% believe that Ukraine should not join any of these organizations and 15% were undecided.

When asked where the country was moving in the past year, most respondents (38.7%) said nowhere. Another 24.4% believe the country is increasing its integration with Russia and the CIS countries, 18.7% think that the country is increasing its integration into the EU, and 18.2% of those polled were undecided.

The study found that the opinion of voters of different political parties as to where Ukraine is moving had split, with the voters of the Regions Party (39%) and the Communist Party (38%) mostly believing that Ukraine is moving towards closer integration with Russia and the CIS, and the voters of Batkivschyna, UDAR and Svoboda thinking that Ukraine is moving nowhere.

In addition, according to the survey, only 22.5% of Ukrainians said they could judge about life in developed democracies based on their own experience, as they have been to the EU countries, Canada and the United States. A total of 77.1% have never been to these countries, and 0.4% of respondents were undecided.

The survey was conducted from December 21 to December 24, 2012.A total of 2,009 respondents aged over 18 from all regions in Ukraine, Kyiv and Crimea participated in the survey. The poll’s margin of error does not exceed 2.3% with a probability of 0.95.