European citizens entertain serious doubts about the effectiveness of EU foreign policy. On the other hand, they recognize in the EU some moderate ability to intervene in favour of the development of the world’s poorer countries, in terms of cooperation and humanitarian aid. This is the finding of a survey conducted by Eurobarometer: it should however be noted that the survey was conducted between 22 November and 19 December 2004, i.e. before the ‘tsunami’ in South-East Asia and EU mobilization in support of the populations struck by the disaster. The sample interviewed consisted of 25,000 Europeans over the age of 25. “The sectors in which the aid and development provided by the EU are considered most effective by the interviewees according to the experts of the statistics office in Brussels are the campaign against Aids and other diseases (36%), education (35%), the fight against poverty (25%), human rights (24%) and legal and illegal immigration (18%)”. Despite that, “the action of the Commission in this sector is little known”. A large part of citizens “have never even heard of it” and “the percentage of people who consider that the European Commission helps the poor in Africa, Asia and Latin America dropped from 67% in 1996 to 59% in December 2004”. As regards the aid to development provided by the EU, “54% of citizens further believe that this aid contributes to promoting democracy in the beneficiary countries, 74% that the level of aid must be linked to the efforts made by the beneficiary countries themselves to promote and support democracy and 78% that aid to development may assume any form, with the exception of arms supplies”. ———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1367 N.ro relativo : 16 Data pubblicazione : 02/03/2005
