‘Common system of social security’ IntUne Elite Survey – Hungary (2007) Gabriella Ilonszki* and György Lengyel** * Institute of Political Science ** Institute of Sociology and Social Policy 1. Sample 2. Interviews 3. Social Background and Position For political elites a quota sample of MPs was selected according to the guidelines. In the case of the business elites the sampling method was a two-step purposive rolling down convenience sample. Ten highly motivated and well-prepared interviewers took part in the project who wrote a field report after finishing F2F interviews. The majority of both political and economic elites consist of late-middle-aged highly educated males. 1/3rd of them (and half of the business elite) got foreign educational experiences. More than half of the MPs and three-quarters of the business elite arrived to their present position after high leadership experience. (n=122) (n=121) (n=117) (n=113) 4. Results 4.3. National or European Army? 4.1. Identity 4.2. Redistribution There is no significant difference between political and business elites in terms of their relationship to the EU, the majority is “very” or “somewhat” attached. However there is a difference in terms of the scale of attachment to the country. Intensity of European attachment of the Hungarian elite – together with the French and Polish cases - is one of the strongest among the European elites. The preferences of the Hungarian population - both on the national and supra-national level - are similar but less intensive. The Hungarian elite would redistribute slightly less than half of the tax on national, nearly two-fifth on regional, and one-sixth on European level. This view is far from the current and real structure because both the sub-and supranational levels would be entitled to get more than they do now. In this respect the Hungarian case doesn’t differ from the average of the European national elites. The opinion of the Hungarian population (source: Omnibus GPS of Tarki 2007 May) is slightly different. They would prefer significantly higher sub-national redistribution. But even in their case the fair supra-national redistribution is approximately five times higher than the actual one. The majority of the Hungarian elite – just like other European elites - is for a European (or combined) solution. In this respect the countries with totalitarian and authoritarian tradition would prefer a supra-national solution while elites of the countries that belonged to the Allied Forces during WW II emphasize the importance of the national army. Political elites (n=80) Business elites (n=42) Together (n=122) 4.6. Attributed Influence 4.4. Preferences 4.5. EU and National Interests The majority of the Hungarian elite agrees upon the common social security system but business leaders are less certain about it. There is a significantly higher support on behalf of business leaders towards unification of the tax system. In this respect they have more supportive and polarized views than politicians. More than half of the Hungarian elite think that the country’s interests are not properly taken into account in EU decision making processes. Politicians have more elaborate and more polarized views in this respect than business leaders. A battery of optional questions addressed the issue of how much influence is attributed to different elite layers and to an average citizen according to the interviewees. The questions were answered in four countries. The Hungarian results show that according to this self-rating there is a large variation in the level of attributed influence, which should be taken into account during further steps of the research. ‘Common system of social security’ ‘Unified tax system’ ‘Those who make decisions at the EU level do not take account of the interests of Hungary’ 5. Further Steps A volume of working papers is to be edited on the first results of the Hungarian INTUNE elite survey. Eight papers have been written in Hungarian covering the issues of identity, support of integration, trust, representation, constituency and cross-segmental comparisons. Further publications in refereed journals and volumes are planned.