Majority of respondents in EU survey have negative view of Turkey

A recent European Union survey in which the respondents were asked whether they had a positive or a negative view of some major non-EU actors, including Turkey, has revealed that only 28 percent of respondents have a positive view of Turkey, with 60 percent expressing a negative perception, the DW news website reported.

Respondents in only eight member states had a positive view of Turkey, with the highest level of 56 percent seen in Latvia.

The results of the survey, commissioned by the European Parliament (EP), were recently released in a report titled “EP Spring 2022 Survey: Rallying around the European flag | Democracy as anchor point in times of crisis.”

According to the survey, which asks about EU citizens’ views of China, Russia, the US, the UK, India and Turkey, 65 percent of Europeans have the most positive image of the United Kingdom, followed by the US (58 percent), India (38 percent), Turkey (28 percent), China (22 percent) and Russia (10 percent).

India enjoys a better image than Turkey, which has a small percentage of positive views, especially in Sweden (12 percent), Cyprus (9 percent) and Greece (4 percent), the report said, adding that a majority of respondents have a positive view of Turkey in eight member states, with the highest levels seen in Latvia (56 percent), Romania (55 percent), Croatia and Lithuania (both 52 percent).

The socio-demographic analysis further showed that the younger the respondent, the more likely they are to have a positive view of Turkey — with 38 percent of 15-24 year-olds viewing Turkey favorably compared to 22 percent of those aged 55 and older.

Students (36 percent) and manual laborers (33 percent) are the most likely to have a positive view of Turkey, particularly compared to retirees (21 percent), the report said, adding that respondents with a positive view of the EU (31 percent) are slightly more likely to also have a positive view of Turkey than those with a neutral (26 percent) or negative (23 percent) perception of it.

The survey results further revealed that there is also a small difference between respondents who do not follow the news related to the war in Ukraine (31 percent) compared to those who do follow such news (27 percent).

Meanwhile, when asked whether they had a positive or a negative view of Turkey, 60 percent of respondents said they had a negative view and some 12 percent answered, “I don’t know.”