By Nikos Marantzidis and George Siakas*
The survey was conducted by PORU (fielded on 15-17 September, 2017) and it was presented in the Greek newspaper Kathimerini (http://www.kathimerini.gr/).
Survey’s findings reveal that the Greek society is expressing a favorable opinion towards Russia (57.5% positive opinions) and President Putin (67% positive opinions). On the contrary, 56% have an unfavorable view of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and 73% of the Greek population expresses a negative opinion for President Trump.
With regard to the question “Who is better supporting the Greek interests” 41.5% answere Putin, 27.5% Merkel and a significant minority of 5% say Trump.
This favorable position of the Greek public Opinion towards Russia shifts when it comes to democracy, institutions and education. A noticeable majority of 59.5% replies that there is a democratic deficit in Russia and human rights are not respected (51.5%).
Furthermore, when it comes to the question of education and work beyond Greek borders, an outstanding minority of the Greek population (3.5%) say that they would choose Russia for their studies and only 4% declare that Russia would be their option for professional purposes. On the other hand, the significant majority (68%) would more likely choose a European country for educational purposes as well as for professional ones (65%). Finally, 23.5% would choose USA for education and 21% for professional reasons.
* Nikos Marantzidis is teaching Political Science in the University of Macedonia and George Siakas is the Research Director of Public Opinion Research Unit.
*The official report was presented in Greek and you could retreive it from here: https://goo.gl/7kxebL
