The majority of citizens from six European Union (EU) member states are in favor of Ukrainian membership of the bloc of 27, recognizing that there are risks involved, but there is also strong opposition to Turkey’s integration, according to a report a study released today.
According to a survey by the European Council on International Relations, there is broad support for Ukraine’s accession to the EU, with Denmark taking the lead in this intention (50% of respondents are in favor of integration), followed by Poland (47%) . In Germany, 37% of respondents support the integration of Kiev into the community bloc.
However, there are fears that enlargement to Ukraine will entail security risks for the current Member States, even more so than the accession of, for example, the countries of the Western Balkans; 45% of respondents acknowledge that Ukraine’s accession will have “negative consequences”, compared to 25% who believe it would be positive for the alliance of which Portugal is part.
There are also fears that EU enlargement will affect the “political power” of the political-economic bloc in the world. In this area, Poland and Denmark are the most optimistic: 43% and 35% of respondents respectively see this as positive for the EU as a political and diplomatic power.
But in Austria and Germany, skepticism is greater: 42% and 32% respectively believe that nothing positive would come from integration at this point.
There is more consensus among respondents on when the expansion should take place, for example to Ukraine or Moldova.
But 51% of all respondents are against the possibility of Turkey becoming part of the EU. The same does not happen when the accession scenario is presented for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Georgia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.
The European Council on International Relations survey was conducted via an online questionnaire between November 7 and 19 among European citizens over the age of 18 in six Member States: Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland and Romania. of 6,153 respondents.
Source: DN
