Transatlantic Trends 2011 : Americans Don’t Care About Europeans Anymore

Translantic Trends 2011 shows that 51% of Americans believe that Asian countries such as China, Japan, or South Korea, were more important to their country’s national interests than were the countries of the EU (38%), but 52% of respondents living in the E.U indicate that U.S is more important to their national interests than the countries of Asia (37%).

The results of this year show an important reversal in US attitudes from 2004 when 54% of Americans thought that European countries were more important to their fundamental interests than the countries of Asia (29%).

There was a ten-point increase in the percentage of Turks who thought Turkish membership in the EU would be a good thing (48%), but such support remained much lower than it was in 2004 (73%). Fifty three percent of Turks have unfavorable views of the EU, increased by five points over last year’s results. On the contrary, favorable opinion of Turkey increased in the European Union and some countries showed markedly positive changes (France, Holland, Germany etc).

The least popular country in the U.S and Europe was Pakistan. Pakistan was seen favorably by only 18% of Americans, while only 26% of Europeans held a favorable opinion of Pakistan.

Transatlantic Trends 2011 is a comprehensive annual survey to measure public opinion in the United States and Europe. The survey was conducted by TNS Opinion between May 25 and June 17, 2011 in the United States, Turkey and in 12 Member States of the European Union: Germany, Bulgaria, Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, United Kingdom, Slovakia and Sweden. This survey is a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) and the Compagnia di San Paolo, with additional support from Fundação Luso-Americana, Fundación BBVA, the Communitas Foundation and the Swedish Ministry of Affairs Foreign.