Burgers willen andere of geen EU-grondwet (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A majority of citizens across the union want the EU constitution either revised or binned, a new European Commission survey has revealed. Meanwhile, enlargement blues is increasing while Turkish EU enthusiasm has plummeted.

Almost half (47 percent) of Europeans want re-negotiations on the current text of the EU constitution, according to a new Eurobarometer survey released by the commission on Thursday (6 July).

A minority (13%) of those surveyed in all 25 member states said the charter should be completely binned, while almost a quarter (23 %) favours continued ratification in member states.

Opinions on the fate of the document only slightly differ from the results of the same Eurobarometer survey conducted last autumn.

In the survey, for which a total number of 29,230 people were interviewed in late March and April, it also emerges that support for the general idea of a European constitution remains stable.

Which constitution?

Sixty one percent of respondents across the bloc said they support "a European constitution," while 22 percent is against the idea and the rest do not know.

As was the case last autumn, Brussels did not ask in the poll what people think about "the EU constitution" as it was agreed by EU leaders and subsequently voted down by French and Dutch voters last year.

A commission official indicated that Brussels did not want to wade into member states' debate on the fate of the constitution by publishing a "political opinion poll" over the document.

Meanwhile opinions over the merits of "a constitution" for the EU diverge widely, with over 70 percent support recorded in Hungary, Belgium, Germany and Italy, while less than 45 percent like the concept in Denmark, Finland, Austria, the UK and Sweden.

Remarkably, a majority of the French and the Dutch, who rejected the EU constitution last year, still back the general idea of a constitution, with support hitting 62 percent in France and 59 percent in the Netherlands.

Enlargement unpopular

Meanwhile, EU enlargement is becoming increasingly unpopular, Brussels found in the survey.

The amount of EU citizens endorsing further expansion of the union dropped by 4 points to 45 percent, almost approaching the percentage of opponents which now hits 42 percent - 3 points more than in the autumn.

Enlargement continues to be much more popular in the new member states than in "old" Europe, with 66 percent compared to 41 percent of citizens expressing support for the project.

But it appears that in the new states, citizens are also begin questioning the idea of letting in new countries, with support for enlargement dropping by 9 points in Slovakia, Lithuania and Cyprus and by 7 points in the Czech Republic.

Germany has surpassed France in its enlargement blues, with German opposition to the idea of future expansion hitting 66 percent (plus seven) while the idea remains unpopular among the French with 62 percent opposing it.

EU image in Turkey receives blow

But perhaps the most spectacular aspect of Thursday's Eurobarometer is a huge drop in EU enthusiasm in candidate state Turkey, which opened formal accession negotiations with Brussels last October.

The percentage of people with a positive image of the European Union has fallen from a majority of 60 to a minority of 43 percent while Turkish "trust" in the EU has slipped from 50 percent in autumn to 35 percent this spring.

"The perceptions of the opening of negotiations was very optimistic," said a commission official. "But the negotiations perhaps don't go as fast as people thought...the perception has become much more complicated."

Turkey's entry talks have so far proven extremely difficult, with Brussels complaining about Ankara's stance on the Cyprus dispute while several member states have raised political issues in technical negotiation chapters.