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Awareness of European Union and completion of Croatia's accession negotiations among university students

The Completion of the Croatian accession negotiations with the EU was marked as one of the most exposed media issues in the past period. After the initial euphoria of realization one of the most important foreign policy goals, the public expressed deprecation and criticism addressed to the political elites which were driven by lack of transparency of the process together with the insufficient information of the citizens about the content of negotiation chapters. The elements which created the strengthening of Euro- skepticism idea together with the negative sentiment towards the EU and European integration in general, can be find in education deficit, which was based on lack of information, along with prejudices and stereotypes. Previous studies made on the same target group shown, that young people are certainly one of the most favorable group to communicate about EU topics. Their knowledge were often overestimated about it. Young people generally has pro-European orientation which has based on the posibility to move toward EU what are giving them new opportunities and prospects primarily in terms of education and employment in the area of the EU. Those are not surprisnig results specially in the content of their nearby future living in the EU as equal citizens. A survey was conducted during the late October 2011. Results were given by 105 respondents, students of communication science who analyzed the information about the functioning of the European Union, which included enlargement policy and the internal market, together with the special emphasis on the European integration path of the Republic of Croatia and completion of accession negotiations. Results showed that students (young people) are very well informed about each step of Croatian’s Euro-integration process and the completion of negotiations. Furthermore, contrary of expectations, the results showed that the participants are also well informed about the enlargement policy. In the field of the functioning of the internal EU market the results were little bit weaker which creates more space for improvement which should be delivered by the media and political elites.

EU ; completion of negotiations ; awareness ; youth ; media

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