A majority of the EU citizens wants a European response to the refugee crisis and is in favor of fairly distributing the burden amongst all member states. They strongly reject the idea of individual countries acting unilaterally. This is the opinion revealed in our latest survey of the series "eupinions", which regularly analyzes the mood of European citizens on current political issues.
The second edition of the "eupinions" survey sought the opinions of respondents in all 28 EU member states on asylum and migration policies. According to the survey, 79 percent of all Europeans are in favor of a common European asylum and migration policy. 52 percent of those questioned say that the EU should assume primary responsibility for this. 27 percent support shared responsibility between the EU and member states and only 22 percent are in favor of migration policy simply being left to their own country. Also 79 percent want a fair distribution of asylum seekers across all countries of the EU. A majority of around 70 percent also supports the demand that those states, which refuse to accept their share of the responsibility, should receive less money from EU coffers.
This shows that on refugee policy a clear majority of Europeans is sending an unambiguous message to the next EU summit, says Aart De Geus, Chairman and CEO of the Bertelsmann Stiftung: Find a European solution based on solidarity, which creates stability and protects freedom of movement.