Europeans Pick Least Hardworking and Most Corrupt

The Pew Research Center has just published a poll of citizens in eight European nations concerning views of the European Union.  There were 9,108 respondents in the month-long survey completed on April 16, 2012.

The conclusions were that European unity was being severely strained by the economic crises.

One of the most interesting and humorous aspects of the otherwise rather bleak results of the survey were the answers to questions which asked respondents to rate the countries, including their own, as most or least hardworking and most and least corrupt.

All countries, except Greece, believe Germans are the hardest working.  The Greeks believe they are.  The least hardworking reputation was shared by Greece and Italy.  The Greeks thought the Italians were and the Italians said the least hardworking were Romanians.

Italy dominated the most corrupt category, even the Italians agreed.  But, many countries elected themselves – Greeks said Greece, Poles said Poland and Czechs said Czech Republic.

Finally, the Germans were judged the least corrupt, even by the Greeks.