Turkey: Poll shows Turkey in higher regard with US than EU

Hurriyet Daily News

US leaders, public more favorable to Turkey than Europeans: survey
By FULYA ÖZERKAN
ANKARA – Hürriyet Daily News

US leaders and their public are more likely to have a favorable view of Turkey than Europeans, with 71 percent of US leaders supporting Turkey joining the EU, according to a new survey. The majority of EU leaders also see this as positive, at 51 percent, but the European public is considerably less enthusiastic with only 22 percent seeing Turkey’s membership as positive


Turkey’s place in the world has caused a deep split among leaders and the public in both Europe and the United States over the desirability of Turkey joining the European Union, a survey revealed Tuesday.

Fully 71 percent of U.S. leaders and 51 percent of EU leaders thought Turkey joining the EU would be a “good” thing, according to the first “Transatlantic Trends: Leaders” survey of top officials in the European Union and the United States.

Indeed another division lies within Europe itself. The survey revealed that EU member states’ political leaders and their electorates were the least favorable to both Turkey in general and Turkey’s membership in the EU, while top-level officials of the EU were by far the most supportive.

Among EU officials of the Council, Commission, and the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the EU member states, or COREPER, this percentage of support for Turkey’s EU membership increased to 64 percent, while among the members of the European Parliament, considered as the voice of the European public, support decreased to 48 percent.

Transatlantic Trends: Leaders is a companion survey to a survey released last year, but this year for the first time U.S. leaders were included in order to offer a comparative analysis of the views of European and American leaders and their publics.

The survey was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International in the United States and by TNS Opinion in Europe. Findings are based on a total of 519 interviews of transatlantic opinion leaders, 286 in Washington, D.C., and 233 in Brussels.

European public less enthusiastic

The survey showed that the European public was less enthusiastic about the idea of Turkey joining the EU, with only 22 percent thinking it would be a good thing.

Of the U.S. public, however, 40 percent thought it would be a good thing, and close to 38 percent of the Turks themselves thought the same (down from 73 percent in 2004).

Among EU and U.S. leaders, a majority believed this to be an unlikely event, while among the public, the majority thought of it as a likely occurrence. While EU leaders were divided among themselves on whether it would be a good thing with top-level officials more enthusiastic than MEPs, they both shared the same pessimism about the likelihood that membership would occur.

US leaders say Turkey has common values with West

When it came to shared values, only 31 percent of the European public and 38 percent of the American public thought that Turkey had enough values in common with the West, according to the survey.

American leaders agreed the most strongly with this statement, with 78 percent agreeing Turkey has enough common values with the West. Some 62 percent of the European leaders thought that Turkey had enough common values with the West, while only 16 percent of the American leaders and 35 percent of the European ones thought Turkey did not have enough common values, according to the survey.

Sixty percent of the Europeans and 46 percent of the Americans thought Turkey had very different values from the West.

American public divided

Whatever their views on Turkey’s EU membership, the majority of both American and European leaders have a favorable opinion of Turkey, showed the survey.

Sixty percent of the EU leaders and 73 percent of the American leaders had favorable opinions toward Turkey.

The American public, however, is divided, with 51 percent having a favorable view of Turkey and 45 percent having a negative view. The European public is even less favorable, according to the survey, with only 40 percent of the public having a positive feeling toward Turkey and 47 percent having a negative one.

Publics more hawkish than leaders toward Iran

A striking finding from the survey revealed that European and U.S. publics were more hawkish toward Iran than their leaders.

While Europeans, in general, favored economic incentives to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear enrichment program and Americans more disposed to economic sanctions, the transatlantic divide disappears when considering last-resort action.

European and U.S. leaders were more willing to accept a nuclear Iran than their publics – 50 percent of American leaders and 51 percent of European leaders would accept a nuclear Iran, but only 35 percent of the European and 38 percent of the American general public would accept a nuclear Iran over military action.

Transatlantic Trends: Leaders is a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Compagnia di San Paolo.


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