Population, countries & regions

In all European Union (formerly European Communities) member countries Standard and Special Eurobarometer samples were initially drawn among the national population, aged 15 and over. Starting with Eurobarometer 41.1 the target population is the population of any nationality of an European Union member country, aged 15 years and over, resident in any of the Member States. For test purposes Eurobarometer 41.0 included a non-national European Union citizens oversample. Other oversamples have been drawn intermittently if required by the topic (youth, elderly, unemployed).

The regular sample size (in the sense of completed interviews) in Standard and Special Eurobarometer surveys is n=1000 respondents per country, except small countries like Luxembourg or Malta. The 44.2bis MEGA-survey increased the standard sample up to 6000 respondents for the largest countries in order to achieve more confidence for analysis on subnational (regional) level.

Separate samples are drawn for Northern Ireland and Great Britain starting with Eurobarometer 3 (1975) and up to Eurobarometer 89.1. Starting with Eurobarometer 89.2 Northern Ireland is covered as a part of the United Kingdom sample. Until Eurobarometer 33 (Spring 1990) only West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) is covered. After the re-unification of Germany and starting with Eurobarometer 34 separate samples are drawn for West-Germany and East-Germany (former German Democratic Republic). Berlin is split up between West and East until Eurobarometer 71.2, starting with survey 71.3 (June 2009) Berlin is completely allocated to East-Germany in accordance with the practice in official statistics.

The most detailed geographical subdivision level on which Eurobarometer data sets can be broken down usually correspond to the country specific regional levels applied in the sampling procedure. These GEOGRAPHIC UNITS are coded in the REGION variable (P7). For each country the relation to the official NUTS classification (EUROSTAT Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) is documented in the variable description. Further documentation is available for Eurobarometer surveys 62 to 77, including SPSS syntax for recoding the original variables to the official NUTS codes (if applicable) [PDF (167 kB)].

Initially the Eurobarometer surveys were only conducted in EU/EC member countries and in accordance with the enlargement process. In addition and starting with Eurobarometer 62 (2004) Accession (AC) and Candidate Countries (CC) are included intermittently, replacing the Candidate Countries Eurobarometer series. Occasionally one or more EFTA countries are also surveyed. The United Kingdom is being surveyed in the framework of the Standard Eurobarometer surveys since its withdrawal from the European Union.

Chronological overview of countries, sample sizes, fieldwork dates & institutes, and lowest available NUTS regions in all Standard, Special and Candidate Countries EB [EXCEL (278 kB)]
 

Eurobarometer in the course of the EU enlargement
EU6 European Communities founder members
  European Communities Study 1970
  France (FR), Belgium (BE), Netherlands (NL),  Germany West (DE_W), Italy (IT) n=1000
EU9 1st northern enlargement of the European Communities - 1973
  European Communities Study 1973
  Luxembourg (LU) n=300/500
  Denmark (DK), Ireland (IE), Great Britain (GB) n=1000
  Eurobarometer 3 (1975)
  Northern Ireland (GB_NI, separate sample up to EB89.1) n=300
EU10   1st southern enlargement of the European Communities - 1981 Eurobarometer 14 (1980)
  Greece (GR) n=1000
EU12 2nd southern enlargement of the European Communities - 1986  
  Eurobarometer 24 (1985)
  Spain (ES), Portugal (PT) n=1000
EU12+ The European Communities after the re-unification of Germany - 1990
  Eurobarometer 34 (1990)
  Germany East = former German Democratic Republic (DE_E) n=1000 (EB62 ff.: 500)
  Eurobarometer 34 (1990)
  Norway (NO) (intermittently in selected parallel surveys) n=1000
  Eurobarometer 39.0 (1993)
  Finland (FI) (in advance in selected parallel surveys) n=1000
EU15 2nd northern enlargement of the European Union - 1995 The EUROPEAN UNION was established by the Treaty of Maastricht (TEU) in November 1993.
  Eurobarometer 42 (1994)
  Finland (FI), Austria (AT), Sweden (SE)   n=1000
  Eurobarometer 51.1 (1999)
  Switzerland (CH) (independent, in parallel to selected waves and topial modules) n=1000
  Eurobarometer 59.0 (2003)   
  Iceland (IS) n=600
EU25 1st eastern enlargement of the European Union - 2004
  Eurobarometer 62 (2004)
  Rep. of Cyprus (CY), Malta (MT) n=500
  Czech Republic (CZ), Estonia (EE), Hungary (HU), Latvia (LV), Lithuania (LT), Poland (PL), Slovakia (SK), Slovenia (SI) n=1000
  EU AC: Bulgaria (BG), Romania (RO) (until 2007 in selected surveys only) n=1000
  Turkish Cypriot Community (CY_TCC) (standard and selected topical modules) n=500
  EU CC: Croatia (HR), Turkey (TR) (standard and selected topical modules) n=1000
EU27 2nd eastern enlargement of the European Union 2007
  Eurobarometer 67.2 (2007)
  Bulgaria (BG), Romania (RO) n=1000
  EU CC: Macedonia (MK) (standard and selected topical modules) n=1000
  Eurobarometer 73.1 (2010)  
  EFTA: Norway, Switzerland (selected modules)EU CC: Iceland (Standard EB 73 ff.) n=1000 n=500  
  Eurobarometer 75.3 (2011)  
  EU CC: Montenegro (ME) (standard modules) n=1000
  Eurobarometer 77.3 (2012)  
  EU CC: Serbia (RS) (standard modules) n=1000
EU28 3rd eastern enlargement of the European Union 07/2013  
  Eurobarometer 80 (2013)  
  Croatia (HR) n=1000
  Eurobarometer 82.3 (11-2014)  
  EU CC: Albania (AL)(standard modules) n=1000
EU27 EU after withdrawal of United Kingdom 01/2020  
  Eurobarometer 94.3 (2021)  
  Bosnia and Herzegovina (BA) and Kosovo (RS-KM) (2021) n=1000
  United Kingdom (GB) (standard modules) n=1000
  Eurobarometer 98.2 (2023)  
  Moldova (MD) n=1000