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Poll: 77 pct of citizens in Macedonia supports EU membership

Xinhua, February 18, 2017 Adjust font size:

Although the support to Macedonia's European Union membership has witnessed an ongoing decline in recent years, still, around 77 percent of citizens in Macedonia backed their country's EU integration drive, a public opinion poll showed Friday.

EU membership is still considered to enjoy overwhelming support in Macedonia, said that the poll, which was presented by the Institute for Democracy "Societas Civilis" in cooperation with Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

Speaking to media about the findings of the poll, Ivan Damjanovski of the Institute for Democracy said that the high public support was as a result of the citizens' expectations from economic benefits once the country joined the Union.

According to him, the drop in the support to EU integration can't be called a euro skeptical energy.

"The key factor for EU support to start dropping gradually lies in the implications over our identity that stem from the name issue with Greece," Damjanovski told a press conference.

If the name row was put aside, then EU support amongst the citizens in Macedonia would be close to 90 percent, according to him.

The opinion poll was conducted on a representative sample of 1,100 respondents who were interviewed by phone in November 2016. Endit