YouGov’s latest Eurotrack results show who Europeans think is taking more or less than their fair share of migrants
The migrant crisis continues to pile on political pressure across Europe. In the past few weeks Angela Merkel was forced to fend off a potentially serious challenge from her interior minister over immigration that could have ended her chancellorship.
That immigration has become a big issue in Germany is no surprise, with new YouGov Eurotrack data showing that 62% of Germans believing their nation has taken on more than their fair share of migrants.
The data reveals which countries Europeans believe are and are not pulling their weight on the migrant crisis.
Germany, Italy and Greece are most likely to be seen as doing more than they should have to. When asked whether or not countries are taking more than, less than or about their fair share of migrants, in all seven countries surveyed the number of people believing that Germany, Italy and Greece are taking more than their fair share is higher than the number that think they are taking less than their fair share.
By contrast, the UK, Denmark, Finland and Norway are perceived to be not pulling their weight, with people more likely to say they are not taking less than their fair share of the burden than think they are taking more than their fair share. This perception is held by all Europeans except for those in the country in question – i.e. while everyone else tends to say the UK is not pulling its weight, in the UK itself people are more likely to believe they are taking on more than their fair share.
Given that so many Germans believe their country has taken more than their fair share of migrants, it is no surprise that they are the nation most likely to oppose taking any further migrants. In fact, almost three quarters of Germans (72%) don’t want to accept any more migrants to their country.
In all seven of the countries surveyed a majority of people would oppose accepting more migrants, including 58% of French and British people.
Such attitudes seem unlikely to change any time soon, with a majority in all Eurotrack nations believing that their own country is handling migration from outside Europe badly (from a high of 78% in France to a low of 51% in Norway), and they are even more likely to think that the European Union is handling the issue badly (a high of 83% in Sweden to a low of 56% in Norway).
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