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Transatlantic Trends 2007

The 2007 Transatlantic Trends Report, the German Marshall Fund’s annual survey of public opinion from 12 European countries and the United States, has been released today. The authors caution against blanket optimism for new transatlantic understanding in the new wave of European leadership, since the results in this year’s survey are consistent with responses from previous years:

1. Though cooperation between the US and Europe at the highest diplomatic levels may be increasing, public opinion across the Atlantic remains largely unchanged.
2. Threat perceptions in Europe are fundamentally similar to those in the United States, though the approaches to dealing with them are different.
3. Europeans are comfortable with the deployment of troops for humanitarian, peacekeeping and reconstruction missions, but express continued opposition to use of force and combat operations.
4. Most Europeans do not regard US leadership warmly when it comes to America’s role on the global stage. However, there is a palpable disparity between the European perception of President Bush (whose policies enjoy only a 10%-20% approval rating in EU states) and that of America in general (which generally rates around 20 percentage points higher than the president himself).
   

The international effort in Afghanistan, the issue often characterized as the linchpin and most tangible manifestation of the transatlantic alliance, plays a central role in the survey findings. Europeans remain devoted to achieving stability and aiding in reconstruction, but the fight against the Taliban has little support. Underlying these findings is a continuing decline in EU-12 support for NATO, which a majority of Europeans still consider essential, but in markedly lower numbers than in previous years. Nonetheless, a majority of both Europeans and Americans support purported diplomatic measures to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions; consistent with differing approaches to military operations, there is transatlantic division on whether the military force should remain an option if diplomacy fails.

Within the EU, there is evidence that this winter’s new roadmap for a treaty on institutional reform has infused the Union with a new sense of purpose, with 88% of European respondents agreeing that Europe should take greater responsibility for global threats. Grounds for optimism on transatlantic cooperation exist within this group — where 54% believe that threat management should be done in conjunction with the US — and in the US, where 73% of respondents favor strong leadership from the EU in global affairs. But the tentative optimism embraced in the past year, that new leadership would necessarily change the course of a battered transatlantic partnership, is muted here. No new European or American leader will — by force of novelty alone—bring harmony to the transatlantic alliance.

Transatlantic Trends 2007



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• Nikolas K. Gvosdev Asks Will Kosovo End the Transatlantic Honeymoon?
• Constanze Stelzenmüller Explains How Europe Is Staring at False Choices

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