EU 'most popular superpower'
People across the world would like to see the European Union's influence increase above the US, China and Russia
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Wednesday, 24, Oct 2007 08:30
People across the world like to see the European Union become more influential, a large-scale study has found.
The study, which quizzed 57,000 people across 52 countries, found that the EU was "unique among the four big powers [China, the EU, Russia and the United States] in that no one wants to balance its rise".
According to the European council on foreign relations (ECFR), which sponsored the research, 35 per cent of world citizens want the 27-member bloc to grow in power.
In contrast, China and Russia emerged from the research with a net balance of six per cent and eight per cent of respondents wishing to see their influence decline respectively.
The report's authors, Mark Leonard, executive director of the ECFR, and Ivan Krastev, chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, in Sofia, Bulgaria, say research showing that the "herbivorous powers" of India, South Africa and Brazil are more popular is evidence of a "multi-polar world".
They write that support for the aforementioned countries is based on them "not [being] connected to the global imagination with military might".
In contrast, 37 per cent of individuals said they looked to a decrease in US power, and 39 per cent revealed they were in favour of Iran's influence falling.
People in Turkey and Russia were found to be most against a rise in Washington's supremacy, closely followed by Canadians and Latin Americans.
Of the 52 countries polled only Senegal and Hong Kong wanted to see Tehran's global standing increase, with Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the US most anxious.
With regards to the EU, Britons were revealed to be the most ambivalent towards its growing influence with a positive balance of just eight per cent.