EU visa-free travel not important for slight majority in Ukraine

Gaining a visa-free regime with the EU is “very important” for 19.2% of respondents of a poll conducted in mid-September by Ukraine’s Razumkov Center, a Western-financed political think tank. The visa-free regime is “rather important” for 25.7%, or 44.9% combined. It is “not at all important” for 26.7% and “of little importance” for 22.3%, or 49% combined.

Ukrainian relations with the EU should be the top foreign policy priority in the view of 45.8% of respondents, while 12.6% said relations with Russia should be at the top. Nearly half of those polled, or 49.7%, think Ukraine needs to join the EU, while 35.3% are against. 56% of Ukrainians aged 18-29 support EU membership, compared to 41.1% of those older than 60 years. The poll was conducted of 2,018 respondents between Sept. 9 and 14.

Zenon Zawada: These poll figures are consistent with previous years, but no clear breakthrough in favor of the West has occurred, even with the war in Donbas. This indicates that the current government, led by President Petro Poroshenko, hasn’t done enough to impress those Ukrainians who are skeptical of Western integration. They haven’t seen the benefits of Western values, standards and institutions.