Brussels, 31/10/2007 (Agence Europe) - The EU is at the top of the list of world powers that citizens of the world want to have a greater influence in world affairs. This is one of the results of the 2007 edition of the Voice of the People, the world's largest survey of public opinion carried out by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank on 57,000 people from 52 countries. The notion of what constitutes power varies from one continent to another, but more and more citizens are hostile to the use of military power and would prefer the rise of 'herbivorous powers' as the authors of the Voice of the People survey term it. But the EU's power also seems to be rooted in a certain perception of its weaknesses - the fact that nobody wants to re-balance its influence may partly come from the idea that the EU seems incapable of getting its act together, explain the authors.
35% of those polled see growing EU influence as the opportunity for a better world, but 20% want it to have less influence. India, South Africa and Brazil are among the countries where most people have a positive view of the EU's role (27%, 26% and 23% respectively want the EU to have greater power, with 20%, 18% and 17% wanting it to have less power). Views are more negative in the United States, Iran, Russia and China, however. While 23% and 24% of those polled want Russia and China to have greater power, 29% and 32% believe the world would be a better place if they had less power. 26% of those polled say that the United States' influence should increase, but 37% think the opposite. The gap is even wider for Iran, because only 14% of those polled around the world want to see a rise in Iranian power, while 39% want its power to decline. The full results can be found at: http: //http://www.ecfr.eu/ (A.B.)