Client: European Research Infrastructure Consortium” (SHARE-ERIC) – Max Planck Institute

The Balkan Monitor is Kapa Research’s own longitudinal survey of public opinion across Southeastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, running since 1993. Five waves have gathered the views of more than 30,000 people. The 2019 wave covered twelve countries, Albania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Turkey, on nationally representative samples of about 600 people in each and 1,202 in Greece. The 2021 wave covered nine countries and 6,818 interviews.

The survey tracks socio-economic conditions, institutions and governance, trust, security and relations between neighbours, in each country’s own language. Comparison across waves is what makes it useful, because it shows which shifts in the region are real and which are noise.

• Economic hardship following COVID-19 was the primary concern across the region, with unemployment, poverty and high prices the issues most often named. Education featured strongly as a proxy for prospects and mobility.
• Respondents in Greece and Cyprus were the most optimistic about their economies. Respondents in Turkey were the most pessimistic.
• Traditional alliances held, defined by religion, ethnicity or perceived threat, but the sense of friendship between peoples declined across almost every country.
• The United States and Germany were the partners most often named as ideal. Respondents expressed little interest in closer ties with Russia or China.
• Confidence in the EU’s role in the region fell in this wave, with respondents critical of the handling of the pandemic.

Read the Full Report here