50pc of EU citizens see US as danger to world peace
By Andrew Osborn
BRUSSELS: Anxiety about America and the way it projects its global power was exposed on Tuesday when an European commission opinion poll showed that half the union’s citizens see Washington as a danger to world peace rather than a force for good.
Citizens in all 15 member states believe it does more harm than good when it comes to promoting world peace, fighting poverty in the developing world and protecting the environment.
The only sphere in which it was seen as a force for good by most of those surveyed (16,000 people in the EU in October and November) was the struggle against terrorism: 54 per cent said its role was positive, 28 per cent felt it was negative.
The responses in all other key areas were decidedly critical of US foreign policy, and will give President Bush’s policy advisers pause for thought.
On the crucial question of whether America is a force for good when it comes to promoting world peace just 32 per cent concurred; 46 per cent disagreed.
Nor do America’s environmental credentials seem to be held in high regard.
Of those asked, 57 per cent felt its role in protecting the environment was a negative one, compared with just 16 per cent who felt it was useful.
Officials say the response reflected widespread anger at Washington’s forsaking the Kyoto climate change protocol, and deeply held suspicion that the US oil lobby has the White House in its pocket.
America fared little better on the humanitarian scale: 49 per cent felt that US efforts to combat global poverty were substandard, only 20 per cent thought them positive.
America’s role as an economic powerhouse which helps spur global growth was, however, grudgingly and narrowly conceded: 38 per cent said they agreed with that, 34 per cent said they did not.
The survey was the first in which the commission asked ordinary Europeans how they felt about the US.
It provided a fascinating snapshot of where anti- and pro-American sentiment is at its most acute in the EU.
Unsurprisingly, it shows that Britain is America’s greatest admirer, recording the highest number of positive responses to all five questions; 68 per cent backing the US ‘war on terror’.
But even Britons had to admit that they were deeply sceptical about Washington’s environmental and humanitarian credentials.
When it came to the US role as a global peacemaker the most upbeat assessments (after the British) came from the Irish, the Danes and the Italians.
The most hostile EU nationals to that notion were revealed to be the Greeks (73 per cent felt the US role in this area was a negative one), followed by the French, the Spaniards, and the Finns.
The poll also revealed that since Sept 11, 2001, fear of international terrorism has become all pervasive.
Eighty two per cent of Europeans said that was their greatest fear, 72 per cent said what they feared most it was the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and 57 per cent said they feared another world war. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service.
