Europeans broadly in favour of upping national defence budgets, major survey finds

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Europeans broadly in favour of upping national defence budgets, major survey finds  The survey comes on the eve of a summit of NATO leaders where they are expected to more than double the alliance's defence spending target.   READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/06/23/europeans-broadly-in-favour-of-upping-national-defence-budgets-major-survey-finds  Subscribe to our channel. Euronews is available on Dailymotion in 12 languages

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00:00European Voters Support Boosting Defence Budgets

00:08A new survey by the European Council on Foreign Relations across 12 EU countries shows growing public backing.

00:16The results come ahead of a NATO summit, where leaders will debate raising defence spending to 5% of GDP.

00:24Support is strongest in Poland and Denmark, while Italy stands out as the only country where most respondents oppose the idea.

00:33Across Europe there is a lot of appetite for European countries to spend more on defence

00:40and to do some very concrete steps such as the reintroduction of a mandatory military service

00:48or development of either a national or a European alternative to the US nuclear deterrent.

00:57Faced with Trump's threat of US disengagement, Europeans are split on whether the EU can defend itself alone.

01:06Only 34% of Italians believe it could within five years.

01:11Meanwhile, the Danes and the Portuguese are the most optimistic.

01:1550% of the Portuguese and 52% of the Danes think that the EU would be capable of doing so.

01:22Even if Europeans have no illusions about Donald Trump, are usually negative about him,

01:31and see in their majority America as being a broken political system,

01:37it looks that European citizens do not yet believe that the European Union will really be able to become completely autonomous from America.

01:58Most Europeans also support EU military support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia.

02:04Russia.

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