Belgium (Brussels Morning Newspaper), Anti-European parties are divided in their support for Ukraine, says a new poll.
It comes on the eve of the EU elections in June.
The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) tested public attitudes towards key themes of the political campaigns – including migration, the performance of the European Commission, and the impacts a far-right surge in representation could present to the current policy ambitions of the EU.
It says that anti-European parties are divided in their support for Ukraine.
Voters of Poland’s PiS and Sweden’s Sweden Democrats are strong allies of the Ukrainian war effort, with 58% and 52% of voters for these groups, respectively, indicating that Europe should continue to support Ukraine win back its lost territory.
This view is shared by Portugal’s Chega (42% supporting) and Spain’s Vox (35% supporting). However, elsewhere, 88% of voters of Hungary’s Fidesz, 70% of those allied with Austria’s Freedom Party (FPO), and 69% of Germany’s AfD oppose such action and instead believe that Europe should push Ukraine towards a negotiated settlement with Russia.
Further schisms are also visible on the issue of migration.
While a majority of supporters of anti-European parties (81% of Dutch PVV and 72% of FPO, followed by 60% of Sweden Democrats, 59% of AfD, 59% of France’s Rassemblement National, and 57% of PiS) stand out as those most worried by people coming to their countries – rather than by emigration – this trend is not uniform. Supporters of Fratelli D’Italia (54%), Vox (53%), Chega (56%), and Fidesz (54%), are principally concerned with emigration or by both emigration and immigration equally.
ECFR’s YouGov and Datapraxis-commissioned dataset said that voters are also fragmented on the subject of EU membership.
Only in four member states – Austria (58%), Germany (55%), the Netherlands (63%), and Sweden (59%) – are leaders of far-right parties recognized by a majority of the broader electorate as plotting their country’s exit from the EU.
The new poll also says that the EU’s climate policies are divisive. When confronted with a hypothetical trade-off, between pursuing climate ambitions “even if that means energy bills would need to rise” or avoiding a rise in energy bills “even if that means missing the carbon emission targets”, a plurality of respondents (41% on average) preferred the latter, while 25% chose the former.
Only in Sweden and Portugal was the prevailing view (with 37% and 31%, respectively) that European governments should do all possible to reach carbon emission targets.
Migration, it predicts, won’t define the election.
Just 15% of respondents across the polled countries see immigration as the leading crisis of the past decade, compared to 21% selecting global economic turmoil, 19% for the Covid pandemic, 16% for climate change, and 16% for the war in Ukraine.
Only in Germany (29%) and Austria (24%) was immigration cited as a lead concern by a plurality of respondents.
