Nearly three quarters of Irish people believe the EU should seek greater independence from the United States, an island-wide poll on attitudes to the European Union has suggested.<\/p>\n
With just weeks to go before Ireland assumes the EU presidency, support for the European Union remains high at 82%, although down from the peak of 93% in 2019 during the Brexit negotiations.<\/p>\n
The poll was conducted in the north and south simultaneously towards the end of March by Am\u00e1rach Research on behalf of European Movement Ireland, based on a representative sample of 1,200 adults in both jurisdictions.<\/p>\n
The poll shows that at 82%, Irish people maintain a high level of support for the European Union, but the survey also reflects greater unease about the EU’s performance in light of upheavals in geopolitics.<\/p>\n
The numbers who say the EU is headed in the right direction has fallen from 58% in 2023 to 45% this year, with migration, economic and regulatory issues, federalism and national sovereignty among the top concerns.<\/p>\n
Roughly a third of those expressing concerns cited the EU\u2019s response to Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine and to the Middle East conflict.<\/p>\n
Those who believe the EU is moving in the right direction focus on unity and cooperation, economic benefits, as well as stability and security.<\/p>\n
Tellingly, 71% of respondents believe the EU should seek greater independence from the United States.<\/p>\n
The top five concerns when it comes to EU policies are the cost of living at 58%, migration at 48%, housing at 41%, energy and defence and security, both at 36%.<\/p>\n
In the south, support for EU enlargement has fallen from 56% last year to 51%.<\/p>\n
There is a clear plurality of voters – 48% – who want Ireland to play a deeper role in the EU\u2019s security and defence policies, with 32% opposed and 20% unsure.<\/p>\n
Some 73% of voters in Northern Ireland would support a return to the European Union, and the same number want representation at EU level for the North given that EU single market rules largely still apply.<\/p>\n
The chief executive of European Movement Ireland (EMI) David Geary said: “While there are deep and enduring economic and cultural Ireland-US ties, many Irish people recognise the EU’s need for greater strategic independence in a changing geopolitical context.<\/p>\n
“With preparations under way for the EU Presidency, Ireland can play an important role as a bridge between the US and the EU. The EU\u2019s capacity to act independently across defence, trade and foreign policy will likely form part of the agenda.”<\/p>\n
Trade remains the EU\u2019s strongest-performing area, with 39% of respondents rating it positively in 2026, followed by the economy 21%.<\/p>\n
However, this marks a decline in polling from 2024, with citizens across Ireland rating the EU\u2019s trade performance then at 46%.<\/p>\n
Mr Geary said: “While the EU\u2019s trade performance continues to poll well, efforts to diversify its trade links and reduce reliance on the US may bring future economic and political trade-offs, as reflected in recent debates on the Mercosur Trade Deal.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly three quarters of Irish people believe the EU should seek greater independence from the United States, an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-434374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}