Prague, Jan 17 (CTK) – Czechs have a stable, best relationship with Slovakia of all countries, ranked as positive by almost 90 percent of them in a poll conducted by the STEM polling agency last December and released on Wednesday.
It is followed by Austria and the Netherlands.
The relationship with some Western European countries, evaluated worse over the migrant crisis in past years, is improving.
The worst rating, given on a one to five scale like in the Czech educational system while one is the best, was given to Turkey, China and Ukraine.
In the case of Slovakia, “marks” one and two were given by 89 percent of Czechs, in the case of Austria by 78 percent and the Netherlands by 74 percent of them. Almost 70 percent were also given to Croatia, France, Italy, Sweden and Denmark.
“In connection with the migrant crisis in 2015, we could see a major fall in the proportion of positive marks in some Western European countries compared with previous polls,” the pollsters said.
“In 2016, too, the positive evaluation of Germany and France was weakened,” they added.
Last year, Germany received 47 percent of positive rankings, but now the figure stands at 59 percent.
The ranking of the USA increased from 42 to 50 percent and that of France from 69 to 72 percent.
The positive relations with Hungary and Poland have also increased.
“Out of the countries in the poll, only Britain has a slightly lower proportion of positive marks than in 2016. This was certainly affected by results of the Brexit,” the pollsters said. The positive relationship with Britain fell from 72 to 69 percent.
On the other hand, only 16 percent of Czechs gave a positive mark to Turkey, while 48 percent of them gave a negative mark and 36 percent gave the neutral mark three.
China is seen negative by 37 percent, positive by 26 percent of Czechs.
Ukraine has 36 percent of negative marks and 27 percent of positive.
Russia is the last country with more negative (36 percent) than positive marks (30 percent).
The poll was conducted on a sample of 1,027 people between December 1 and 11, 2017.
