Support for E.U. Improves, Poll Finds

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/world/europe/support-for-eu-improves-poll-finds.html

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BRUSSELS — Attitudes toward the European Union have improved ahead of elections to the European Parliament this month, but there is growing reluctance to cede more power to Brussels, according to a closely watched poll published Monday.

Support for the union in most of the seven countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington, remained lower than before the onset of the financial and debt crises in 2008. Many European Union institutions, including the Parliament, also received poor ratings.

The results, part of Pew’s annual survey of attitudes toward the bloc, were another sign that the project for European integration, conceived more than six decades ago as an effort to bind a continent together after World War II, has become, for many Europeans, a symbol of unwelcome meddling and of economic mismanagement.

Even so, the poll showed that a median 52 percent of people surveyed held positive views of the union as economic conditions have improved. That represented a rise of six percentage points from 2013.

“The euro crisis that began in 2008 dealt a savage blow to the image of the European Union,” the report said. But there has “been a marked decline in hopelessness” and “a new public sense that the worst is now over.”

The poll, conducted among 7,022 adults in Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland and Spain from March 17 to April 9, was released by Pew 10 days before elections that will be the first under the Lisbon Treaty, which went into force in 2009. The poll, done by telephone and in person, has margins of sampling error that range between plus or minus three and four percentage points, depending on the country.

The Lisbon Treaty gave the European Parliament additional powers, including the right to veto international agreements with countries like the United States. It also suggested a greater role for the Parliament, the only institution that runs the union that is directly elected, in selecting the next president of the European Commission. The commission, which is based in Brussels, proposes laws in broad areas including climate protection and financial services.

To bolster interest in the elections, which will be held from May 22 to 25, the Parliament has named leading candidates for the presidency of the commission and the candidates have held live televised debates and public rallies. But the results of the Pew poll suggested that low voter-participation rates could continue. Turnout declined to slightly above 40 percent five years ago, from more than 60 percent a quarter of a century earlier.

In the Pew survey, 36 percent of Europeans surveyed said they saw the Parliament in a favorable light.

The poll called Germany “a nation apart,” where respondents were far more likely than those from other countries to say their economy was doing well or to say that their prosperity had been strengthened by membership in the union.

But more than half of Germans agreed that the bloc does not understand the needs of German citizens, and Pew said that may explain why half of the Germans surveyed, compared with 44 percent last year, were opposed to giving more decision-making powers to the union to deal with economic problems.

The only country to show an increase in support for transferring more authority to Brussels was Poland, where 44 percent of respondents were favorable, compared with 38 percent last year.

The qualms about giving more responsibility to Brussels are somewhat at odds with the stance taken by Martin Schulz, a German Social Democrat and a candidate for the commission’s presidency, who has called for reinforcing the role of the union as a means to deepening economic integration and defending the bloc against foreign competition.

Jean-Claude Juncker, a former prime minister of Luxembourg and the center-right candidate for the presidency of the commission, has said that some powers could eventually be transferred back to member states like Britain, where 76 percent of those surveyed said they opposed giving more power to the bloc. Mr. Juncker has also called for simpler regulation.

France, which showed the strongest gain in positive attitudes toward the union, also showed that issues like immigration are divisive, a factor that could help the far-right National Front in the coming election.

Nearly 60 percent of those surveyed in France favored tighter restrictions on immigration, and nearly 30 percent were unfavorable to Muslims, according to the poll.

“The fact that anti-Muslim sentiment is strongest among people on the right of the spectrum helps explain some of the appeal of the National Front in France and the populist, Euroskeptic parties in a number of other countries,” said Bruce Stokes, director of global economic attitudes for Pew.

The deepest discontent with the bloc was in countries hit hardest by the crisis, including Italy and Greece, where high levels of resentment against immigration and minorities have also bolstered support for extremist groups.

In Greece, 47 percent of those surveyed expressed anti-Jewish sentiments, and a slightly higher percentage expressed negative views of Roma and Muslims. In Italy, an overwhelming majority of those surveyed were critical of Muslims and Roma.