There is little support in Britain for Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, despite David Cameron’s expression of anger at the slow pace of negotiations during his recent speech to the Turkish Parliament, a recent survey has found.
Although 37% of those surveyed would be ‘happy’ to go on holiday to Turkey, only 14% of the public would like to see the country join the EU, while double that number (28%) would ‘definitely not’ like to see Turkey join. These findings clearly indicate that PM David Cameron’s views on the matter are not shared by the general British public.
Despite the lack of support for Turkey’s aspirations to become an EU member, other countries featured higher on the list of concerns about prospective members, with Israel (46%) and Albania (32%) topping the proposed countries that the UK population would ‘definitely not’ like to see as EU members. This was followed by Turkey in third place, Serbia in fourth (27%) and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine and Georgia in joint fifth place (26%).
In fact, no European country is especially popular when it comes to joining the EU, with even the top nation, Switzerland, failing to secure one third of the vote. 31% expressed a wish to see Switzerland become an EU member, while current EU candidate Iceland came in second at 19%, followed by Turkey, Croatia (12%) and the Ukraine (8%).
