Three in four European Union (EU) citizens believe that people with a different ethnic, religious or national background enrich the cultural life of their countries, according to the results of a survey released Tuesday.
Member states where people tend to have most frequent contacts with people of different backgrounds -- Luxembourg, Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands and Britain -- are among those where citizens often consider such contacts as a boost to their country's cultural life.
The highest levels of disagreement with this opinion were found in Malta, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania. But even in those countries, more than half of the respondents think that people with different cultural backgrounds enrich their everyday life.
Overall, young people, people with the highest levels of education and those living in cities are more likely to think that cultural diversity is an asset to a country's cultural life, according to a survey commissioned by the European Commission.
A remarkably high number of EU citizens (83 percent) value the benefits of intercultural contacts, and two-thirds think that family or cultural traditions should be followed by the younger generation.
The survey, conducted in November 2007 among 27,000 citizens from 27 EU member states, also reveals that day-to-day interaction among people belonging to different cultures is a reality in Europe.
Two-thirds of respondents were able to recall interaction with at least one person of a different religion, ethnic background or nationality than their own in the seven days prior to being questioned.
The highest ratios of citizens having contacts were reported from Luxembourg (82 percent), Ireland (77 percent), Britain (76 percent) and Austria (75 percent). The countries with lowest level of interaction were Estonia (43 percent) and Romania (44 percent).
Source: Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article