Public opinion split on EU’s response to coronavirus pandemic

Public support for Ireland’s membership of the European Union has fallen to its lowest level in seven years and opinion is split on the EU’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, a new polls shows.

Some 84 per cent of people said they believed Ireland should remain a member of the EU, according to the annual poll commissioned by pro-EU group European Movement Ireland and carried out by polling company Red C.

This was down from 93 per cent last year and the lowest level since the annual poll began in 2013 when 85 per cent of people were supportive of membership.

The proportion answering “don’t know” on whether they agreed with EU membership rose to 9 per cent from 2 per cent this year, while just 33 per cent of the 1,062 people sampled across the country felt that their voice was being heard as a citizen of the EU.

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Public dialogue

Noelle O’Connell, executive director of European Movement Ireland, said this showed that there was “considerable need to improve and sustain public dialogue in Ireland on EU matters”.

Opinion was mixed on the EU’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic with 47 per cent agreeing that the EU had responded well and 46 per cent disagreeing with 7 per cent “don’t knows”.

Support for EU membership ranged from 88 per cent to 93 per cent over the past four years when the UK voted to leave the EU and the debate over the Brexit raged in public and political life.

Ms O’Connell said that “now that the dust has begun to settle” on Brexit, people may be starting to reflect in a more focused way on EU policies such as trade, defence and security.

She said that it was too early to say whether the EU’s actions in response to the pandemic had an influence on support for Ireland’s EU membership as the poll was conducted between March 20th and 25th “in the very early days of the crisis in Europe”.

Crisis response

The result in Ireland was "more positive" from the EU's perspective than polls in Germany, Spain and Italy which were far more negative against Brussels over the crisis response, she said.

An opinion poll last month found 88 per cent of Italians felt the EU was failing to support their country, sparking fears in Brussels and other European capitals of an anti-EU backlash.

Just 4 per cent of Italians said in the survey by news agency Dire on March 12th and 13th that the EU was doing enough to help Italy during the pandemic as the country’s death toll soared.

“This probably in part reflects the EU’s lack of power on public health policies, which are primarily decided by national governments and also how the Covid-19 challenge is more of a marathon than a sprint,” said Ms O’Connell.