Europeans increasingly opposed to a “United States of Europe”

London/ Brussels: Opposition to the European Union’s (EU) proposal for a ‘United States of Europe’ inclusive of Germany and France has been increasing day by day. This was evidently concluded from the latest survey conducted by YouGov, a leading market research company in Europe. The YouGov Survey that was conducted in seven leading nations revealed that among the participating nations, France was leading with the most number of firm supporters for the idea of a ‘United States of Europe’. However, the percentage of strong supporters for the proposal even in France was only 10%.

Martin Schulz, leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Germany had emphasized on the need of a road-map for making the ‘United States of Europe’ a reality by 2025. A public opinion on Mr.Schulz’s proposal was taken over a survey in seven leading European nations. While a response from more than eight thousand citizens was recorded as part of the survey. The survey was carried out in the countries of Germany, France, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway and the Great Britain.

The survey concluded with startling results which revealed that the European citizens were not in favour of the idea of a ‘United States of Europe‘. With 70% of citizens in Germany and 72% in France, rejected the proposal. More than 80% of the population of Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark were opposed to and unenthusiastic towards the idea, while 90% of British citizens had reacted in the negative to the idea.

EU has been trying to push the proposal for ‘the United States of Europe’ since the year 2000. For this purpose, a ‘Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe’ was presented in the year 2004. However, since France and the Netherlands refused to approve it, this lead to a major setback to the move. Britain too had strongly opposed the move.

In the aftermath of BREXIT, the alliance of Germany and France along with the senior executives of EU once again tried to revive the idea of a ‘United States of Europe’. Proposals for a ‘European Army’ and defence cooperation, were successfully pushed through by the EU with a view to pave way for the ‘United States of Europe’. However, there are other issues on which the EU’s leading nations have strong reservations, which find their reflections in the outcome of the survey results.