Brussels, 09/07/2007 (Agence Europe) - As part of the millennium development objectives, the European Commission has published a Eurobarometer survey assessing the attitude of Europeans to development aid. Most of those who took part in the survey (66%) see the fight against extreme poverty and famine as the number-one priority, with the fight against the AIDS virus, malaria and other diseases considered to be objective number two by almost half of the panel (46%). Furthermore, the African continent, and sub-Saharan Africa in particular, received the most mentions as the region which most desperately needs external aid (64%). More generally, the survey sheds light on broad support on the part of the population for a development aid policy for the poorest countries. Personal interest and global stability are the main reasons for this: aid must be given to the developing countries in order to increase trade with them and democracy, and good governance must be supported in these countries in order to avoid waves of immigration and terrorist threats. Nonetheless, there is also purely altruistic reasoning, the desire to help people in need having been spontaneously mentioned by a significant percentage of respondents. As for the Europeans' knowledge of political initiatives, very few of them had heard of the millennium development objectives (18%) or of the European consensus on development (25%). The role of the EU as an actor in external aid was also well appreciated, but ill-defined. Whereas the European Union is the planet's largest provider of development aid (57% of all world aid in 2006), one third of respondents were unable to quote any figures to illustrate the added value of the EU on top of aid pledged by the national governments of the member states (28%), and a very small percentage (5%) could not see any advantage in channelling aid via the European Communities. For more information: http: //ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/michel/speeches/docs/ip/2007/EurobaroFR.pdf. (il)