How Young People See EU and Enlargement
First Question Interpretation - Knowledge abou EU - Group work: Cuoco,Longo Angela and Annamaria
Trying to analyse the results of the answers, we decided that every group had to analyze all the answers related to one of
the five questions. I asked the five question to five people between 16 and 30 years of age. In order I understood the level
of information of young generation about the European Union.
I process the data of question number one. From analysing results, appears that the knowledge about the European Union or
their information is superficial. It appeared that a lot of the people interviewed have very poor knowledge about the EU.
Only few people show knowledge very detail.
In own project we started analysing some aspect of EU and the different concept of Europe and EU. The former is
traditionally related to a geographical point of reference, the latter refers to an institution which was born after the
second world war.
The European Union was born to share economical and political interests in view of keeping peace. European leaders such as
Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet determined that never again should a war devastate the countries of Europe. The reason for
integrating new states into the EU remains the same as those on which the EU was founded: guarantee peace and prosperity
on the European continent. The european union wants to promote respect of human rights, stable democracy, protection of
minorities and besides it focusses on the interests of the common market.
Along its history the European Union has accepted a larger number of Member States: from six founder members (Italy, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands) to nine in 1973 with the accession of Denmark, Ireland and United Kingdom, ten in 1981 with the accession of Greece, and then twelve Member States in 1986 when Spain and Portugal joined the Community. So 1995 saw the adhesion of Austria, Finland and Sweden brought the EU to the fifteen Member States to end with2004 further 10 States mainly from the old Soviet Union.
The enlargement process has not stopped yet and it finds now a new direction towards the Mediterranean area.
It is the Union of citizens that seems to matter more to politicians who are afraid the distance between the Union and the common people may put all the Union forerunners at risk.
Lookingnow back to the data we could gather you cannot help recognizing that if they can be interpreted as an oversimplified representation of a more generalized situation they are however a proof of the very low level of knowledge about the European Union.
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