Political Election Polls: What Europeans Think About Defense Spending, Nuclear Energy and Ukraine
The Ecfr investigation
The Influence of Putin and Trump's Invasion on the White House. Italians Except for Increased Military Spending, Scepticism Also on a Rapid U.S. Distancing in Defense Matters
The effects of the invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin 's Russia and the neurotic and unstable politics of Donald Trump 's United States . It is a Europe with a helmet that emerges from a survey carried out by the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations (Ecfr), published by Repubblica on the eve of the NATO 2025 summit that will begin tomorrow in The Hague, carried out before Donald Trump 's decision to attack Iran alongside Israel .
The survey was conducted in 12 European countries: Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Hungary. Significant is the transversal skepticism on the part of many about the possibility that the European Union can become a global power capable of competing with the USA and China : this is the position in the results of eleven of the twelve countries interviewed.
Trump's return to the White House has also definitively generated an anti-American sentiment among the population. However, there is a right-wing wave, with parties such as Fratelli d'Italia, Fidesz in Hungary, PiS in Poland, Vox in Spain or AfD in Germany that see the tycoon as a reference while the social democratic and liberal forces are more critical of Washington and in favor of greater autonomy for the Union.
“Far-right parties are no longer seen as simply anti-establishment , but have become part of a pro-Trump international. On the other hand, many mainstream parties are reinventing themselves as defenders of sovereignty against Trumpian chaos,” commented co-author and founding director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, Mark Leonard.
To get to the most current situation, there is a rather broad support throughout Europe for an increase in defense spending , for Ukraine in the event of a US withdrawal from Kiev , for an alternative nuclear deterrent that is not dependent on Washington. Italy, however, represents an exception to the average with regard to military spending: 57% of those interviewed are against it, compared to 17% who support an increase. Some countries are also in favor of the reintroduction of compulsory military service. Italian citizens are also rather sceptical (54%) about a rapid distancing from the US in terms of defense.
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