Citizens of Europe's four largest countries largely disapprove of US President Bush's handling of foreign affairs, with huge majorities believing he knows less about Europe than his predecessors did and that he slights European interests in making decisions. These are the results of a poll taken jointly by the International Herald Tribune and the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press, Washington.
The poll, conducted in association with the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, found that Britons, French, Italians and Germans overwhelmingly opposed Mr Bush's decisions to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and to develop a national missile defence system that might mean unilaterally abrogating the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.
The poll also found that respondents in all the countries except Britain overwhelmingly disapproved of the president's support for the death penalty, a thorny issue between Europeans and Americans. In Britain, 47 per cent approved of Mr Bush's stance, whereas 44 per cent disapproved; the remainder offered no opinion.
The poll was conducted between August 1st and 9th in the US and the four countries after Mr Bush visited Europe twice and respondents would have had an opportunity to assess his policies at closer hand. Administration aides claim those trips were successful, but the poll shows he did little to shift public opinion or win new support for his policies.
The sharp disagreement on issues such as the death penalty - which Mr Bush strongly supported when he was governor of Texas, and the state led the nation in executions - has led many European commentators to speak of a 'values gap' across the Atlantic.
Mr Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press said the poll indicated Mr Bush 'hasn't gotten off to a good start in Europe, but there are still many people who haven't formed an opinion of him'. On many issues, opinions of former president Bill Clinton were not far from opinions of Mr Bush, so the high disapproval ratings of Mr Bush may be as much part of perception as actual policy. For example, many Europeans seem to forget that Mr Clinton was also a strong proponent of the death penalty and that he did not submit the Kyoto accord for Senate ratification.
Mr Kohut said Mr Bush might also suffer, in European eyes, from his roots in Texas, which to many people in Europe is a state that carries many of their negative stereotypes about the US. 'He's a Texan - that makes him an American squared,' said Mr Kohut.
The poll results also suggest that while Europeans have an unfavourable view of Mr Bush more than six months into his term, they remain largely uninformed about his policies. One quarter of Italians and French, one third of Britons and 12 per cent of the Germans said they did not know enough about Mr Bush's foreign policy to offer a viewpoint.
Overall, the poll found the Germans and French the most sceptical of Mr Bush's international policy. By contrast, 45 per cent of Americans polled said they approved of Mr Bush's handling of foreign issues, whereas 32 per cent disapproved.