Positive views of the European Union increased amid the pandemic, according to a survey conducted in nine Western and Southern European countries this summer.
A Pew Research Center study, published on Tuesday, found that a majority of people in these countries — the United Kingdom and EU members Germany, Italy the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, France, Sweden and Belgium — had a favorable opinion of the EU.
In the eight EU countries, people “approved not only of their national governments’ response to COVID-19, but also of how the EU had handled the outbreak,” the study noted. In the U.K., more people (64 percent) approved of the EU’s handling of the pandemic than of their own country’s (46 percent).
Nearly three quarters of Germans (73 percent) had a positive view of the EU, followed by Denmark (70 percent) and Spain (68 percent). The lowest rating came from Italy (58 percent).
Nearly a year after leaving the bloc, 60 percent of British respondents had a favorable opinion of the EU — the highest rating since Pew began polling on the subject in 2004.
!function(e,t,i,n,r,d){function o(e,i,n,r){t[s].list.push({id:e,title:r,container:i,type:n})}var a=”script”,s=”InfogramEmbeds”,c=e.getElementsByTagName(a),l=c[0];if(/^/{2}/.test(i)&&0===t.location.protocol.indexOf(“file”)&&(i=”http:”+i),!t[s]){t[s]={script:i,list:[]};var m=e.createElement(a);m.async=1,m.src=i,l.parentNode.insertBefore(m,l)}t[s].add=o;var p=c[c.length-1],f=e.createElement(“div”);p.parentNode.insertBefore(f,p),t[s].add(n,f,r,d)}(document,window,”//e.infogr.am/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js”,”e9d89783-e064-46a9-9324-a15780f2d4cd”,”interactive”,””);
Most respondents also thought the EU had done a good job dealing with the pandemic, ranging from 68 percent in Germany and the Netherlands to 51 percent in Belgium and 54 percent in Italy.
Outside Europe, the view was slightly different. In four of five non-European countries surveyed — Canada, the United States, Australia, Japan and South Korea — a majority of respondents also held a positive view of the EU. The odd one out was Japan, where less than half (47 percent) held a favorable opinion of the bloc.
Plus, while Canadians and Americans also held a positive view of the EU’s handling of the pandemic — 65 and 62 percent, respectively — Australians disagreed somewhat (46 percent). Japan and South Korea, which managed to largely contain the virus, saw things very differently: only 19 percent of Koreans and 34 percent of Japanese thought the EU had done a good job.
Even more EU respondents thought their own countries had handled the crisis well. A large majority of Germans (88 percent) and Dutch citizens (87 percent) said their country has done a good job, but those approval ratings paled in comparison with those of Denmark (95 percent). On the lower end were Spain (54 percent) and France (59 percent). Only Spaniards thought the EU had done a better job than Madrid — 65 versus 54 percent, respectively.
Pew surveyed between 801 and 1,535 people each in the nine European countries, with the polling taking place between June 10 and August 3 — the results therefore don’t take into account the current second surge in coronavirus cases across the Continent.
It also surveyed between 1,037 and 1,502 people in Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea and the United States during the same time period.