Thursday

28th Mar 2024

Most Europeans don't know their union has 25 states

Most Europeans don't know the EU has 25 member states and don't think that countries such as Georgia or Syria are EU "neighbours" a fresh European Commission opinion poll on the EU's so-called "neighbourhood policy" has shown.

Fifty two percent of people said the EU has less than 25 states while a further 25 percent believed that it has more or said they simply don't know, with just one in four Europeans displaying knowledge of the most basic fact of the European Union.

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  • Europe: likes to giggle at US geography clangers, but faces surprising levels of ignorance and apathy at home (Photo: Wikipedia)

The levels of knowledge were the highest in new member states such as Cyprus and Slovenia but the vast majority of Dutch people (78%), Finnish, Swedish and German respondents didn't have a good handle on the 2004 round of enlargement, saying the EU has less than 25 members.

The survey also cast light on ordinary Europeans' relationships with Mediterranean, eastern European and Black Sea countries, most of which are currently included in the EU's so-called "neighbourhood policy" of enhanced financial and political integration.

Over 50 percent of people feel that only those countries - Russia, Ukraine, Belarus - with a physical border with existing EU members are EU "neighbours", while slightly more remote countries such as Moldova, Georgia or Armenia scored as low as Mediterranean states Morocco and Tunisia on about 30 percent.

On top of this, just 51 percent said they were interested in what is happening on the EU's fringe, while almost one in two Europeans - 48 percent - indicated that they do not care or care little about events on the other side of the EU's borders.

The country breakdown on interest levels threw up some surprising results with over 60 percent of Poles, Czechs, Slovakians and Lithuanians displaying little interest despite their government's strong campaigning for EU integration of Ukraine and democracy in Belarus.

Despite the high levels of apathy and worries over the financial costs of intervention abroad, two thirds believe that EU assistance to nearby countries helps reduce the risk of war.

The survey also contributed to answering the vexed question of what are "European values" - a phrase often wheeled out in defence of democracy or gay rights but never strictly defined in a bloc of 25 different countries and at least six major faiths.

Human rights (39%) came in as the EU's strongest common value, followed by peace (38%) and democracy (37%) with market economy gaining 26 percent approval.

But for countries such as Turkey, Croatia and Macedonia (official EU candidates) the other Western Balkan states (officially on the road to accession) and Ukraine (which has said repeatedly it wants to join the EU) the survey's message on public support for enlargement is less than clear.

Seventy two percent of Europeans said the EU should keep on getting bigger but "not too fast" and 70 percent also support the creation of special relationships (that fall short of accession) with third countries.

But 52 percent answered "yes" to the question if the EU should stop after the "current round of enlargement" - suggesting Romania and Bulgaria - and give no special treatment to its neighbours at all.

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