Paris, France - Support for further enlargement of the European Union has fallen in the UK and Spain in the past six months, in a further sign that the policy is losing public favour. However, religion is not at the root of such sentiment.
Tony Blair, Britain’s prime minister, is one of the most vocal cheerleaders for extending the EU’s borders to the east and this weekend flew to Ankara to reassure Turkey it was still welcome in the union.
But at home British backing for further enlargement fell to just 36 per cent in a Eurobarometer opinion poll, a fall of eight points in just six months. Spain, another prominent supporter of enlargement, saw backing for future expansion fall by four points to 51 per cent.
The Eurobarometer poll, published on Monday, is an apparent vindication of EU leaders’ decision in Brussels on Friday to apply tougher membership tests to Turkey and Balkan countries.
But religion, cited by some as an argument against admitting predominantly Muslim Turkey, plays little part in EU citizens’ feelings about whether to admit new members. A separate FT-Harris poll shows that the majority of Europeans questioned in five countries – the UK, France, Italy, Spain and Germany – think that religion should not be a barrier to entry to the EU.
However, 35 per cent of French and Germans agree with the proposition that the EU is predominantly a Christian club. The majority of respondents in all five countries adopt a fairly tolerant attitude towards other religions with 69 per cent saying they would not object to their son or daughter marrying someone of a different faith. Only 12 per cent say they would object.
The poll of 12,500 people was conducted between November 30 and December 15.
The striking difference in attitudes towards religious belief on the two sides of the Atlantic is also highlighted by the FT-Harris poll, which shows that only 4 per cent of Americans describe themselves as atheist while 32 per cent of French do.
However, the strong secular traditions of the US and France, both republics which espouse the separation of church and state, are also illustrated by the poll. Seventy-two per cent of French respondents and 59 per cent of Americans think that religion should not be taught in state schools, by far the highest negative scores among the six countries surveyed.
The two countries are at odds over whether schoolchildren should be allowed to wear religious insignia or articles of clothing, such as crucifixes or headscarves. Seventy-seven per cent of Americans think schoolchildren should be allowed to do so, while only 10 per cent of the French agree. The issue has caused much controversy in France leading to the adoption of a law in 2004 banning the wearing of all overt religious insignia in schools.
US respondents are the most hostile to any ban on Muslim women wearing the veil in public. Fifty-nine per cent of Americans agree with the proposition that Muslim women should have the right to wear veils if they wish to do so, compared with 23 per cent in the UK and 13 per cent in France.