A unique cross-national and cross-temporal survey program

Since the early seventies the European Commission's Standard Eurobarometer are regularly monitoring the public opinion in the European Union member countries at times. Interviews are conducted face-to-face, in each spring and each autumn. At all times the surveys are based on new samples. They are identified by a continuous main wave number and dot-separated sub-numbers for each individual survey, in the case of special (multi-)topical supplements. Special topical report numbering differs from survey numbering. 

The standard modules ask for attitudes towards European unification, institutions and policies, complemented by measurements for general socio-political orientations, as well as by respondent and household demographics. Some trends already count more than 50 measurement points. Intermittently Eurobarometer extensively address special topics, such as environment, technology, health or family issues, social or ethnic exclusion etc. To some extent topical questions are also replicated. 

• The main results are regularly published by the Commission in official standard and special topic reports.

The archive products                                 

The data checked, formatted and comprehensively documented in accordance with archival standards. Initially this was accomplished by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), until GESIS started sharing the archive workload in the early 90s.

• Edited data and documentation are successively published for online retrieval, browsing, elementary analysis and data download via ZACAT, recent data sets only for meta data browsing and data download. The complete collection can be obtained on CD-ROM.
• The Eurobarometer trend File integrates selected standard trends and demographics across space and time. It is produced and maintained in cooperation with the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES). The data set can be downloaded via ZACAT.