Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, new fissures are emerging between Western and Eastern Europe — this time over President Obama’s policy toward Russia, according to an international survey published Wednesday.
The survey, Transatlantic Trends, an annual poll of European and American public opinion conducted for the German Marshall Fund of the United States, found that Europeans, far from speaking with one voice on foreign policy issues, are divided over the role of the United States and how to respond to the growing assertiveness of Russia.
The report also revealed big differences among the East Europeans themselves over their attitudes on the United States and Russia.
During the closing years of the Bush administration, the trans-Atlantic relationship, including European support for the United States-led NATO military alliance, had reached a low in opinion polls. After Mr. Obama’s first half year in office, he has “nearly reversed the collapse in public support for the United States,” the report says.
About 77 percent of respondents in the European Union and Turkey supported Mr. Obama’s handling of international affairs — a quadrupling of support compared with opinions of the Bush administration.
But in Eastern Europe, more than 60 percent of respondents said they were skeptical about Mr. Obama’s foreign policy, especially regarding Russia, Iran, Afghanistan and the Middle East. And just over half of the respondents in that part of Europe said they saw the United States in a positive light, compared with 63 percent of West Europeans.
The difference among individual European Union countries is even greater. In France, President Obama’s popularity is 77 percentage points higher than President George W. Bush’s rating. Yet in Romania and Poland, Mr. Obama’s popularity over Mr. Bush is just 14 percentage points and 11 percentage points, respectively. Even more striking, only 25 percent of Central and East Europeans said they believed that relations between the United States and Europe had improved under Mr. Obama, compared with 43 percent of West Europeans.
The survey says the disparity between Eastern and Western Europe could be attributed to the fact that the Bush administration embraced Eastern Europe by encouraging NATO’s enlargement in 2004 and that it took a more aggressive stance toward Russia.
The Bush administration also proposed placing the Pentagon’s antiballistic missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, a move that was strongly opposed by Russia and several West European nations. It was staunchly supported by most East European countries because they saw the shield as a defense against Russia, not missiles from Iran.
The Europeans are still divided over how to deal with Russia, particularly regarding the issue of whether to further enlarge NATO — which Russia opposes — and the European Union’s growing dependence on Russia for its energy.
Yet the survey found that even those divisions are complicated. “The popular image of a Russia-phobic Central and Eastern Europe and a more Russia-friendly Western Europe was not found in Transatlantic Trends 2009 data,” the report says.
On economic issues, the report says that 43 percent of Americans supported closer economic ties with the European Union, compared with 37 percent of the population in the European bloc.
Majorities all over Europe are worried about Russia as an energy provider. But when respondents were asked if they would abandon certain Western alliance policies, like NATO enlargement, to secure energy supplies from Russia, only 28 percent of East Europeans said they would consider that, compared with 41 percent of West Europeans.
The Transatlantic Trends survey included random samples of approximately 1,000 adults in the United States and 12 European countries — Portugal, Spain, Germany, Britain, France, Turkey, the Netherlands, Romania, Italy, Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia — from June 9 to July 1. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points in each of the 13 countries surveyed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/world/europe/10germany.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss
