EU knowledge dampens enlargement ardour

Learning more about enlargement can increase opposition to letting more countries join the EU, according to a special opinion poll which allows citizens to learn about and debate EU issues.

Another key finding of the poll was that greater awareness of the Union’s limited role in social policy can increase citizens’ willingness to make sacrifices to preserve state pensions.

These were two of the main results of a special ‘deliberative’ poll organised by Notre Europe, a pro-EU think-tank, and sponsored by German insurance company Allianz and the European Commission.

The poll brought a sample of 362 citizens to Brussels for two-and-a half days and provided them with information about a number of EU issues and the chance to debate them with experts and politicians. The group was polled at the start of the process, again before the information and debate sessions and once again at the end.

The poll found that support for allowing additional countries to join the EU once they met the entry criteria fell from 65% to 60% after the information and debate stage. Support for admitting Turkey fell from 55% to 45% and for Ukraine from 69% to 45%. But the opposition to letting Turkey join did not seem to reflect anti-Muslim sentiment as the support for letting a Muslim country join only fell slightly (from 43% to 41%) as a result of the deliberative poll.

Citizens felt more strongly after the poll that adding more countries to the EU would make it more difficult for the Union to make decisions (62% after compared to 52% before).

On economic and social policy, those polled were more prepared to consider sacrifices such as raising the retirement age in order to preserve state-guaranteed pensions. The level of support for working longer went from 26% to 40% while more people agreed that maintaining the current rules for pensions system would bankrupt them, up from 58.4% to 69.3%.

Henri Monceau, programme director at Notre Europe, said that on welfare issues those polled were disappointed that the EU could do nothing which added to a "sense of emergency" about the need for reform of pension systems. "The first pan-European poll shows that there is support for existing reforms which go in the direction of what [then German chancellor Gerhard] Schröder tried to do in Germany or what [French President Nicolas] Sarkozy is doing in France," he said.

He added that the poll results showed that citizens wanted the EU to take more of a role in issues such as energy, diplomatic relations and dealing with increasingly important countries such as Russia.

The results of the poll also showed greater divergence of views between citizens from the new and old member states before the deliberative stage but these differences narrowed following the information and debate stage.

Learning more about enlargement can increase opposition to letting more countries join the EU, according to a special opinion poll which allows citizens to learn about and debate EU issues.