The share of Croatians who see the European Union as a positive thing increased over the past year, with freedom of movement considered to be the EU's greatest achievement, a Eurobarometer survey published on Monday said.

About 39 percent of Croatians have an entirely positive image of the EU, an increase of 8 percentage points over the last twelve months, with 42 percent reporting perceiving it in neutral light, and 18 percent saying they have a negative image of the bloc.

When asked to list the EU’s greatest achievements, 73 percent of Croatians polled put the freedom of movement for people, goods and services on top, which was followed by peace among member countries, and the bloc’s economic power.

Eurobarometer survey polled people in all 28 EU countries, five candidate countries, as well as the Turkish community in Cyprus. In Croatia, the survey polled little over a 1,000 Croatians aged 15 or above.

When asked a multiple choice question what the EU meant to them on a personal level, 55 percent of Croatians cited freedom to move, work, and study in the EU, 29 percent cited economic progress, and 28 percent listed cultural diversity.

In terms of problems that Croatia is struggling with, 43 percent said unemployment is the most important issue, a 9 percentage drop from the previous survey 12 months ago. Unemployment was followed by the country economy (28 percent) and inflation (27 percent).

On the entire EU level, unemployment was cited as the biggest problem by a quarter of all people polled, followed by increase in the cost of living, and immigration.

Asked about the biggest problems the EU is currently faced with, 48 percent of Croatians said immigration, followed by terrorism (32 percent) and the poor state of public finance in EU member-countries (19 percent).

About 61 percent of Croatians said they support further EU enlargement, although the majority (56 percent) are against the country’s introduction of the euro.

Three in five Croatians said they believe they are poorly informed about European issues, even though the share of those who self-described as well informed was 41 percent, or 8 percentage points up from last year.

Croatians traditionally don’t trust the judiciary and the political system, and the low levels of trust in those systems were recorded yet again.

More than two-thirds of Croatians said they do not trust the judiciary. Some 58 percent reporting trusting the police, while the share of Croatians trusting the military has declined to 68 percent, or 11 percentage points down from last year.

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