In the survey carried out by RAIT pollster for BNS news agency, respondents were asked to give their opinion about German Chancellor Angela Merkel's proposal to allow the EC to veto national budgets of member-states of the European Union (EU), if they fall short of EU requirements.
Some 29 percent of those polled said they supported the idea of granting such a right for the EC, while 33 percent said they were against the idea and 38 percent did not have an opinion or refused to answer the question.
According to the survey, the majority of those against such powers for Brussels were urban residents and higher-earners.
Ramūnas Vilpišauskas, director of Vilnius University's International Relations and Political Science Institute, said the results showed that many people were uninterested in developments in the EU.
The political expert said the negative attitude on the budget matter was mainly due to unwillingness to have "an outsider solve key political issues of our country."
"The negative attitude of a large share of the population to the idea of granting big powers to the European Commission signals distrust in someone from the outside who would participate in the process, as this has to do with liability and legitimacy," Vilpišauskas told BNS.
The survey of 1,020 residents of Lithuania between 15 and 74 years of age was carried out on 7-18 November. The margin of error is under 3.3 percent.
