TALLINN, Jul 10, BNS – Nearly two thirds of Estonian citizens are in favor of further enlargement of the European Union, a Eurobarometer poll carried out by TNS Emor revealed.
According to the poll carried out in the spring 63 percent of the citizens supported enlargement of the union, 8 percentage points more than in the fall. In the European Union on the average it was only supported by 47 percent.
There have been three peaks in the citizens’ support to enlargement of the community since Estonia acceded to it in 2004. One of them was immediately after the accession, in fall 2004 and the second in fall 2006.
Traditionally citizens of Estonia would mainly support accession of three of the most wealthy European countries, Norway, Switzerland and Iceland to the EU, which was supported by more than 80 percent of the respondents. Support to Ukraine’s accession to the EU would also be supported by two thirds of the citizens. Sociologist Jaanika Hammel said that this was apparently due to the large Ukrainian community in Estonia.
Of the countries now having the status of candidate country Estonian citizens would the most support accession of Croatia to the EU (65 percent).
53 percent supported accession of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Support to Turkey’s accession was still the lowest, but it had grown by eight percentage points compared with fall 2006.
But 48 percent of Estonian citizens supported Turkey’s acession in case the country met all the terms set by the European Union.
The poll was based on interviews with 1006 citzens of Estonia and other member countries of the EU residing in Estonia.
The European Parliament Thursday passed a report confirming firm support to all the candidate countries and to countries with a clear outlook of membership.
The report said that enlargment could be successful in case EU residents supported it.
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