Today, at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Banja Luka, the results of a new survey on the attitudes of the citizens of Republika Srpska towards the Euro-Atlantic integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina were presented, including the findings of a comparative analysis of five rounds of the research.
Some of the most important research findings are as follows:
- Entry of BiH into the EU is supported by 29.6% of respondents, and NATO’s accession by 5.2% of respondents;
- Conditional support for the EU, i.e. if Serbia does the same, gave 15.3% of respondents, while in the case of NATO integration conditional support is 3.4%;
- In the period from October 2019 until today, there has been a constant decline in unconditional support of the citizens of Republika Srpska for EU accession (from 67.8% to 29.6%);
- Unconditional resistance to joining NATO after growth in 2020 returned to the original value measured in September 2021 (from 63.4% to 63%), and by May 2022 it was again recorded moderate growth (68.2%);
- The main reason why the majority of Republika Srpska citizens do not support BiH’s entry into NATO is the role of that alliance in this area during the war in the 1990s;
- A significant part of the citizens of Republika Srpska is indifferent to current political events in the world and Bosnia and Herzegovina (armed conflict in Ukraine, i.e. the status of the OHR in BiH)
The research in the local language is available here: https://bit.ly/3yd0D0I
The research was conducted during 5 working days in May 2022, using the CATI method (telephone survey) on a multi-phase cluster sample of 1000 adult citizens of the Republic of Srpska.
The event also featured papers prepared by teaching staff and students about Euro-Atlantic integration. The papers, which preparation was awarded by scholarship within the project, were presented by professors Mr. Vlade Simović and Mr. Nevenko Vranješ, and a master’s student Ms. Danijela Miodragović.
This is the final research within the project “Expanding the debate on NATO integration in Republika Srpska”, which is jointly implemented by Eda – Enterprise Development Agency and the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Banja Luka and funded by the US Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
