WASHINGTON – Immigration and integration continue to be issues of paramount public concern in both the United States and Europe, and yet so rarely do we hear a transatlantic view on the common challenges faced by countries dealing with diverse immigrant populations. It is crucial to understand the views of the public on these key topics. Today marks the release of the fourth annual Transatlantic Trends: Immigration survey (TTI), which this year polled residents in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. While the survey sheds light on the internal debates in each country, there are also trends across countries and transatlantic dynamics that TTI alone captures.

View country-specific findings

In 2011, one of the biggest stories in international affairs, the so-called Arab Spring, posed the specter of a direct migration challenge for countries in Europe, though in practice most migration stayed within the region and did not reach European soil. Some politicians warned of an “invasion” of migrants from the countries in North Africa and the Middle East going through political upheaval. Italy complained of a lack of European burden-sharing on the flows of migrants, with pressures most evident on the island of Lampedusa. French President Nicolas Sarkozy objected to Italy’s admission practices, and temporarily cut off entrance from Italy to avoid receiving unwanted migrants.

Given the rhetoric in 2011 surrounding that migration “crisis,” the continued popularity of populist parties in many European countries, the intensification of the economic crisis and euro crisis in Europe, and continued pro-enforcement discourse in the United States, we expected to see a decline of public support for immigration. Instead, TTI shows a remarkable absence of change in views since 2010. As in previous years, about half the transatlantic public saw immigration as more of a problem than an opportunity, and, equally, about half thought there are “too many” immigrants in their countries. Publics were increasingly unhappy with their governments’ management of immigration, however, with highest discontentment in Italy where 83 percent of respondents reported their government is doing a poor job managing immigration.

The role of the European Union in migration concerns is fundamental to understanding these dynamics. The survey shows evidence of growing support for a strong European Union role in immigration issues, which has been a source of ongoing struggle on the path toward full cooperation and harmonization. On the issue of migration resulting from the Arab Spring, strong majorities in all European countries agreed that the European Union rather than the country of first arrival should be responsible. On the more general question of whether the European Union should have the power to determine countries’ national immigrant admissions numbers, support went up since 2010 in every country polled. Overall, 42 percent of Europeans polled agreed that the EU should decide national immigrant admissions numbers. The highest support was in Italy (60 percent) and Spain (51 percent). Even the U.K., where only 18 percent of respondents supported EU responsibility, showed a large increase from 12 percent in 2010.

Parallel to discussions and dynamics in Europe, on the other side of the Atlantic, Americans also continued to struggle with issues surrounding governance and the appropriate level of government to address immigration. Debates rage on regarding the role of states and localities in immigration enforcement. The most recent initiative in Alabama to step up immigration enforcement is only the latest in a string of state-level moves.

TTI shows signs that the U.S. public is not necessarily in favor of state-level control, and actually prefers centralized control of immigration. Fifty-four percent of U.S. respondents thought that the federal government, rather than state and local authorities, should have primary responsibility for enforcing immigration law. The public is also quite moderate in its views regarding the rights of undocumented children and youths. The public supported, at 65 percent, the provisions of the DREAM Act, which would legalize undocumented youths who successfully enter university or the U.S. military. Even a majority of Republicans surveyed, 55 percent, supported the provisions of the DREAM Act, indicating widespread bipartisan support. On another issue of hot public debate, the preservation of the Constitutional right of automatic citizenship for all people born in U.S. territory regardless of the immigration status of their parents, a majority of Americans, 53 percent, support the preservation of that right. These rather moderate views held by the U.S. public are often invisible in the extreme political discourse focused on the border fence and pro-enforcement measures.

Europe and the United States are facing many common challenges as policymakers seek to manage the consequences of the economic crisis and continue to become increasingly diverse, immigration-receiving states. It is crucial that we take a look at public opinion on these complex issues, to illuminate current debates, and inform policymakers as they design policies and build political will to move forward on issues of critical social, economic, and political importance.

Hamutal Bernstein is a Program Officer with the Immigration and Integration Program of the German Marshall Fund in Washington, DC.

ROME — According to the newly-released Transatlantic Trends survey, Italy is the European country with the strongest perception of a deterioration of the transatlantic relationship over the last year.  Nevertheless, Italians still largely approve (79%) of U.S. President Barack Obama’s handling of international affairs and believe in greater numbers than in past years that NATO remains essential (63% in 2011 from 54% in 2010). The NATO air campaign in Libya may have reinforced the latter view, although the poll was taken in early June when the rebels’ success was still largely unpredictable. For comparison, the number of Germans who maintain that NATO is essential to Western security has significantly dropped from 70% to 58% between 2004 and today.

The survey does not directly explain the reasons causing Italians to be more pessimistic about transatlantic cooperation compared to recent years. Part of the reason may be that extensive media coverage of U.S. politics has Italians perceiving a weakening of Obama’s leadership and a loss of standing among Americans. As their optimism for the future of transatlantic relations in 2009-2010 was mostly fed by confidence in and admiration for Obama as the leader of a “new America” (Italy was among the countries in which the “Obama bounce” after Bush was most pronounced), the fading of Obama’s domestic and international popularity is almost directly translating into skepticism about the future of transatlantic cooperation. Another explanation may be that Italians are currently more worried than others in the European context about the state of the economy, and therefore they are also more sensitive to the lack of a transatlantic coordination on economic and financial issues – a theme that Italian media have also amply covered. Moreover, one should not underestimate the peculiar impact that the publication of documents by WikiLeaks at the end of 2010 had on Italian public opinion.

Attitudes toward Arab Spring

Despite domestic financial constraints and uncertainty about their economic future, Italians seem willing to extend economic aid to countries in transition in the MENA region and actually prefer economic aid over military support or engagement as a way to ensure that the Arab Spring leads to successful democratic transitions. Interestingly, together with the French, Italians are strongly in favor of democracy promotion in the Arab world even if this entailed the risk of greater short-term instability. Italians are considerably more supportive of a democracy agenda in the EU’s southern neighborhood than Americans or citizens of other EU member states.

When it comes to Libya, a plurality of Italians approves of the NATO military operation (47%). However, a majority criticizes the Italian government’s handling of the crisis. The latter is most likely due to the flip-flopping of the government during the first months of the conflict, and to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s reluctance to ask Gaddafi to relinquish power. Italians declare themselves strongly in favor of a full demise of the Libyan leader, but their support stops short of sending arms to the rebels, let alone “putting boots on the ground.”

Afghanistan, Turkey, China

Also, if the majority of Italians remains strongly pessimistic about Afghanistan (61%), this trend is falling, probably thanks also to the killing of Osama Bin Laden, which occurred a few weeks before the poll was conducted. Unlike in the case of Libya, Italians seem supportive of the Italian government’s handling of Afghanistan. However, as with other European societies, they ask for a reduction, or outright withdrawal, of troops from the country within a certain timeline.

On Turkey, a major subject of transatlantic debate in recent years, Italians display less favorable views about the Turkish people than even the French and the Germans, whose governments have made no mystery of their reservations about the country’s future accession to the EU. In fact, Italians seem relatively more positive about the prospect of integrating Turkey into Europe (which enjoys bipartisan support among the political elite) than they are about Turkey as a country, probably more for cultural diffidence than for political reasons. Among other things, they believe that Turkey’s EU membership would help the EU increase its leverage in the Middle East and would help stabilize Europe’s southern neighborhood. They are not particularly concerned about the risk of what some experts have called a “drift” of Turkey toward the Middle East. Italians are also not as cynical and pessimistic as other countries about the outcome of Turkey-EU negotiations, which many believe will be a full membership despite all the uncertainties and obstacles currently undermining the accession process.

Opinions about China, which used to be mainly negative in the past, are improving and are now virtually the same as the views held by the American public. The number of those that look at China as an economic threat (47%) rather than an opportunity (37%) is still higher, but the trend has significantly changed in the last year.

Alignment with the United States

Italians approve of Obama’s Iranian and Russian policies – two areas in which the Democratic administration has wanted to mark a change from Bush. On Iran, Italians are significantly more worried about the risk of nuclearization than citizens of other EU states on average, and even than Americans. Nonetheless, Italians remain very reluctant to contemplate the use of military force to contain Iran’s ambitions. In fact, military spending and the use of force are key elements of difference between the Italian and American public views (the same is true when the larger European public view and the American one are compared) which are otherwise aligned in important ways. Most probably due to historical and cultural issues, most notably Italy’s defeat  in World War II, Italians see the use of military force as generally unadvisable, even in a crisis situation. In this respect, they are very much in tune with German public opinion.

Nonetheless, on a large majority of issues, from the fight against terrorism to attitudes toward the Arab Spring, Italians stand out as strong supporters of U.S. positions and confirm their transatlanticist orientation despite becoming more realistic about the actual prospect for transatlantic cooperation than some years ago. The fact that Italians’ support for transatlantic cooperation has remained high throughout the ten years of the Transatlantic Trends survey testifies to its rooting. Under both center-left and center-right governments, and largely irrespective of the opinions of their leaders, the Italian society remains as the one that looks toward the West and understands that the West has a clear and vital stake in the future of Europe. This is a significant fact and one that is often neglected in the frequent polemic commentary focusing on the vagaries of Italian leaders.

Emiliano Alessandri  is a Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Washington, and Raffaello Matarazzo is a Researcher at the Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome.

Photo by ruben i.

WASHINGTON—Despite economic worries and domestic political preoccupations, perceptions in the United States and Europe of each other appear to be in better shape now than they were during the presidency of George W. Bush. Americans and Europeans have generally favorable opinions of one another and majorities on both continents believe they share enough common values to be able to cooperate effectively on international problems.

But this year’s annual Transatlantic Trends survey also finds that while many of those polled in 12 member states of the European Union (Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) still believe the United States is most important for their national interests, Americans see Asia as important. When asked which was more important in terms of their country’s national interests in the most recent Transatlantic Trends survey, 52% of those polled in the European Union picked the United States over the countries of Asia such as China, Japan, and South Korea, while about 51% of Americans polled chose the countries of Asia over the European Union.

For several years, policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic have been speculating on how the transatlantic community will react to the rise of Asia. Would Asian competition move the United States and Europe — currently the two largest economic centers — closer together or pull them apart? At a time when U.S. unemployment remains high, the eurozone continues to suffer, and China’s growth is over 9%, this question is timelier than ever. Based on the results of this year’s Transatlantic Trends, it seems Americans have made up their minds to orient toward the Orient.

Asia is especially important in the minds of young Americans. Around three-in-four Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 feel that Asia is the more important region for U.S. national interests. With each older age cohort, the importance of Asia decreases, so that only about one-in-three Americans over 64 think of Asia as the more important region for U.S. national interests. Younger Americans are also more likely to see China as an economic opportunity rather than as an economic threat. Fifty-two percent of those aged 18-24 consider China an economic opportunity for new markets and investments, while 72% of those between the ages of 55 and 64 see China as threatening their jobs and economic security. Similarly, more than half of Americans older than 54 perceive China as a military threat, but only one-third of those between the ages of 25 and 34 and 40% of those younger than 25 do.

The rise of Asia divides Europeans too — but by nationality rather than by age. While over half of those polled in Italy, Romania, Germany, Britain, and Poland name the United States as more important than Asia, half of those surveyed in France and more than half of the respondents in Spain and Sweden see Asia as more important for their national interests. Europeans are also more likely than Americans in general to see China as an economic opportunity. The majority of Germans, Dutch, Romanians, Swedes, and British see China as an opportunity. On the other hand, majorities in France and Portugal still see China as an economic threat, though their numbers have decreased over the past year

What does all of this mean? Although Barack Obama rehabilitated the image of the United States in Europe, Europe has so far failed to reinvigorate its image in the United States, particularly among younger Americans who do not necessarily have strong links to European ancestry or positive memories of Cold War-era alliances. For transatlantic relations to thrive in the future, Europe needs to do a lot more to capture the imagination of a new generation of Americans.

Zsolt Nyiri is Director of Transatlantic Trends at the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington.

By Tamar Shapiro and Thomas Legge

WASHINGTON — On May 15, Richard M. Daley stepped down as mayor of Chicago. With his retirement, his city lost its chief executive of 22 years, but America also lost one of its most environment-friendly local leaders.  With the failure of the U.S. Congress to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation, it is local and state governments in the United States, such as Daley’s city hall, that can play a pivotal role in fighting global warming. Europeans need to look to such local officials if transatlantic cooperation on climate change is to make progress in the years ahead.

Daley transformed Chicago from its industrial roots to a green city with more than 7 million square feet of rooftop gardens and green roofs, more than 1300 new acres of open space, more than half a million new trees planted since 1998, and 88 buildings that are LEED certified as meeting high standards for energy savings, water efficiency, and CO₂ emissions reduction. In recognition of these achievements, Daley was awarded the 2010 Climate Protection Award from the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Much of the local climate agenda in the United States has been driven by committed state or city leaders, such as Daley, who have made fighting global warming a goal for their administrations. Many of these local leaders have taken steps to strengthen and leverage their own efforts through bilateral and multilateral partnerships. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York chairs C40, a group of 18 large cities working together to combat climate change. Former Mayor Greg Nickels of Seattle was instrumental in launching the Climate Protection Agreement, pursuant to which more than 1000 mayors have pledged to meet the standards of the Kyoto Protocol despite lack of action at the federal level. In large part due to the personal engagement of then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, California has led state-level action with its 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act, which commits the state to return its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and to reduce them to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, Currently, more than half of the U.S. states have adopted climate action plans, although none with California’s level of ambition so far, and they are joined by a large number of local governments.

Europe’s climate champions are also to be found at the local level. Mayors like Mayor Bertrand Delanoë of Paris and former Mayor Ken Livingstone of London made green urban development a main plank of their political platforms. Some smaller cities have gone further, adopting targets that far exceed national ambition. Växjö, Sweden, decided in 1996 to become free of fossil fuels and is on track to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent below 1993 levels by 2015.

Even though such efforts depend on political entrepreneurs, they are supported and sustained by a national or EU-wide infrastructure. The EU has legally binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy, and energy efficiency by 2020, which often translate into legislative action at the city level. The EU has also set up a highly successful “Covenant of Mayors,” under which 1,900 local authorities have committed to exceed the EU-wide target of reducing CO₂ emissions by more than 20 percent by 2020. The Covenant provides targets, baselines, methodologies, and a structure of peer support to drive implementation. Campaigns like the annual European Green Capital award (won by Hamburg in 2011 for its energy savings and smart development of its industrial docklands) can build public awareness and a race to the top among municipalities.

Many European policymakers are encouraging equivalent actions at the city and state levels in the United States in lieu of federal action. Unfortunately, city and state leaders move on eventually, and even the best climate action plan and the most well-intentioned pledge, if not implemented by investment or regulation, can easily be ignored after a political transition. In the absence of a federal framework that drives local investments and regulatory changes, the U.S. climate strategy will inevitably consist of a patchwork of state and local actions — all important, but some with a longer-lasting impact than others. Large-scale investments in transit or in open space and greening — as were made by Daley’s administration — will have an impact that long outlasts the leader who championed them. Similarly, regulatory changes that promote more compact and energy-efficient development, while not irrevocable, are more difficult to undo than a plan.

With the U.S. federal government’s current retreat from the climate policy arena, European policymakers are facing a new challenge: working with many eager but diverse partners instead of one recalcitrant one. European policymakers, especially at the local level, can exchange best practices with their American counterparts. While the United States will still be left with a patchwork of climate change actions for the foreseeable future, such cooperation can help to overcome the unpredictability of political change by encouraging the implementation of measures whose success has been proven elsewhere and which will outlast their champions.

Tamar Shapiro is director of the Urban & Regional Policy Program at the German Marshall Fund in Washington. Thomas Legge is a program officer in the Climate & Energy Program at the German Marshall Fund in Washington

WASHINGTON — In 2010, Nicolas Sarkozy dismantled camps of Roma migrants in France, Barack Obama’s Justice Department sued Arizona over a law targeting illegal immigrants, and far-right parties across Europe gained traction by stoking xenophobic sentiment. Though polarizing headlines abounded, it behooves governments to pay attention to what the public is actually saying on immigration and integration.

Today marks the release of the third-annual Transatlantic Trends: Immigration survey, which polled residents of large migrant-receiving countries in the West, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain. While the survey sheds light on the internal debates in each country, there is a transatlantic story to tell as well.

Among the countries surveyed, the lingering effects of the economic crisis — particularly unemployment — has been on the minds of the public. Transatlantic Trends: Immigration shows that the economic crisis has had some effect on how people perceive labor-market competition from immigrants.  In Europe, 49% of those whose household economic situation got worse in 2010 believed that immigrants bring down the wages of native-born workers; this compared to 36% of those whose economic situation got better or stayed the same in 2010. In the United States, those whose personal finances deteriorated last year were also more likely to say that immigrants take jobs away from native-born workers. What does this mean for attitudes about immigration policy? Increasing anxiety about job competition will affect the ability of governments to (re)shape labor migration programs. The coalition government in Britain has already promised to lower net migration to the “tens of thousands,” and an immigration overhaul in the United States will be even more difficult in these conditions, as implications for the American labor market are obvious.

In addition to worries about the economy, the integration of migrants, particularly Muslims and their children, has been front-page news in Europe.  The survey fieldwork was done in 2010, the year of banning face-covering veils for women in France and the rise of Geert Wilder’s Freedom Party in the Netherlands, which relies on an anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic agenda. Discussions in Germany last summer centered on a controversial book by Thilo Sarrazin, a former Board Member of the German Bundesbank. The book, entitled “Germany Does Itself In,” argued that the Muslim — primarily Turkish — community in Germany was bringing the country down by failing to integrate. In the survey, respondents in all countries were asked how well they perceived Muslim immigrants to be integrating into their society. In Europe on average, 58% of respondents said that they were integrating poorly, with only one-third (33%) saying they were integrating well. The most pessimistic about Muslim integration were Spanish and Germans respondents, 70% and 67% of who, respectively, said that Muslim immigrants were not integrating well.

On this issue in particular, there was a clear transatlantic divide. Whereas Europeans were clearly pessimistic overall about the extent to which Muslim immigrants were integrated into their societies, a plurality of both Americans and Canadians (45% in each country) answered that Muslim immigrants were integrating well. Tellingly, 14% of Americans did not even answer the question, claiming that they did not know how well Muslims were integrating into American society. The optimism of North Americans on Muslim integration, therefore, may have something to do with the relative scarcity of Muslim immigrants and the lack of discussions about integration in the media. The one common thread among respondents in all countries regarding Muslim integration, however, is a universal perception that the second-generation, or the children of Muslim immigrants, are integrating better than their parents. A plurality of 49% of Europeans as well as 62% of Americans and 66% of Canadians claimed that the native-born children of Muslim migrants were integrating well into their societies.

Though changing economic situations and specific debates about integration appear to have some relationship to public attitudes about immigration, in some ways overall perceptions remain fairly constant. Despite the drastic changes in economic and political landscapes over the past three years, perceptions about whether immigration is more of a problem or more of an opportunity for each country have remained fairly constant, whether positive or negative. For example, around two-thirds of British respondents consistently say that immigration is more of a problem, whereas around half of Americans and only one quarter of Canadians agree. These entrenched perceptions may mean that governments will have less room to maneuver when changing immigration or integration policy, but it also means that they have at least one constant on which to depend. For an issue as fast-moving and controversial as immigration, that, at least, could be a blessing.

Delancey Gustin is a Program Associate with the Immigration and Integration Program of the German Marshall Fund in Washington.

WASHINGTON — Reflecting on the past year in transatlantic relations, it is tempting to compose a scorecard of successes and failures, or a short list of critical events. Many of these items have been discussed in Transatlantic Take when they were front page news. In truth, 2010 is a hard year to rate in transatlantic terms because there have been few clear-cut outcomes, and many open questions remain. Four defining issues, all unresolved, are emblematic of challenges that are likely to be critical in 2011 and beyond.

First, domestic developments remain the key drivers. Societies on both sides of the Atlantic are troubled, insecure, and, in some cases, insolvent.  Recent experience calls into question the idea that “rich” countries are places of gentle trends and few shocks. In economic terms, we are hardly out of the woods. The deepening financial crises on Europe’s periphery, most notably in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, persistent high unemployment, and depressed housing markets, suggest that 2011 could hold some new and unpleasant surprises. Since the start of the great recession, observers have worried about the implications of prolonged economic stringency for social cohesion and politics. After a few years of such stress, populist movements are becoming a real force on the political scene, upsetting established politics in the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, and elsewhere. The results of the American midterm elections also point in this direction. The emergence of a sovereignty-conscious, populist wave could spell revolutionary change across a spectrum of transatlantic concerns, from immigration to the environment, from trade to defense.  The pressures for minimalist, inward-looking, and re-nationalized policies have grown, even as the problems facing Atlantic societies are more evidently global in nature.

Over the coming year, the unresolved crisis in the eurozone could well present core Europe, and even the United States, with the need for a new and very large bail-out. All of this will place in stark relief the question of whether politics—even security—can and should trump economics when it comes to European and transatlantic cohesion. These questions were answered in a very clear way after World War II, and again in the years after 1990. Will the answer be the same today?

Second, containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions remains foreign policy issue number one, for the Obama Administration and for transatlantic partners.  This is one area where the European Union has developed a truly concerted approach, and a place where transatlantic cooperation gets high marks. The June 2010 Iran sanctions vote in the UN Security Council was a watershed event. The fact that Russia and China approved the measure while Turkey voted “no” was a striking indicator of flux on the international scene.  But Iran appears undeterred in its drive to become a nuclear, or at least a nuclear-ready power, and 2011 might well hold further surprises on this front.

Third, 2010 has been a year of second thoughts for an American foreign policy that seemed headed for ever-increasing attention to Asia .  The experience of the G20 meeting in Seoul, and vocal differences over trade, finance, and climate policy, make clear that Asian partnerships are no easier to manage than those in Europe—and perhaps a lot less predictable.  The risk of conflict on the Korean peninsula, the looming strategic competition with China, and the tremendous and still largely undeveloped potential for cooperation with India will surely keep Asia on the American agenda. But these issues will also be high on the European agenda, and the management of all these challenges will be fertile ground for transatlantic cooperation.

Fourth, it is hard to discuss the lessons of 2010 without mentioning WikiLeaks. The release of a mass of relatively low-grade diplomatic message traffic has galvanized the media and the chattering classes on both sides of the Atlantic. The episode has caused considerable embarrassment and has tarnished the image of American diplomacy. But has the WikiLeaks story raised the general (and generally pretty low) public interest in foreign policy? It will be a good question for the next Transatlantic Trends survey in September 2011. If nothing else, the leaks remind us that international politics are still made by individuals, often with strong personalities and strong views.  These political personalities will face some big and defining questions in 2011. The answers will shape the future of transatlantic relations for some time to come.

Released in September, the 2010 Transatlantic Trends survey (http://www.gmfus.org/trends/2010/) offers revealing insights into the mindsets of citizens of the United States, 11 EU countries, and Turkey. Close inspection of the data concerning Slovakia shows a considerable shift of the population, in comparison with previous surveys, towards pro-transatlantic views and identification with NATO.

In 2004, Slovakia became a full-fledged member of both NATO and the European Union, yet Slovak views of these two bodies were, from the very outset, strikingly different. Whereas the image of the EU has always been very positive, NATO is a more controversial actor, and the reasons for Slovakia’s membership were less obvious to common citizens. Every TT survey since 2004, when Slovakia was added to the survey, has documented this divergence, measuring key indicators such as the view of NATO’s importance for the country’s security, or the commitment to NATO’s role and tasks. The relatively shallow transatlantic identity of the Slovak public was also indirectly reflected in the low numbers of respondent approving of US foreign policies, or convinced of the desirability of US leadership in world affairs.

This year however, the survey served up a nice surprise: sixty-four percent of Slovaks gave an affirmative response to the statement: “NATO is essential for the security of our country.” That number is five percentage points above the survey’s EU11 average, and crucially, a 12 percent improvement over Slovakia’s 2009 result. Higher figures among the eleven EU member countries are found only in the Netherlands, Great Britain, Portugal, and Romania –countries that have traditionally belonged to the more pro-Atlantic part of Europe.

How did this shift happen? Why is public opinion in Slovakia so different in 2010 than in 2004, when the country presented itself in the survey as an “outlier” with an “insular mentality?”

We attribute this progress to the synergic impact of several factors. The first is simply time: six years into Slovakia’s NATO experience, the population has gotten used to membership. Slovakians now perceive the strategic geopolitical adherence of Slovakia as a fait accompli. In other words, old concepts of Slovakia’s neutrality, and fantasies about the country’s role as a bridge between the East and the West, which found response among a part of the political community and general public in the mid-1990s, are now out of date.

Secondly, during those six years, Slovakia has acted as a responsible member of the Alliance. Slovak military participation in NATO missions has filled many citizens with pride.

Furthermore, in recent years Slovakia’s military engagement has not been challenged by any of the relevant political parties. The anti-American rhetoric that had been used in the past by the political opponents of Mikuláš Dzurinda as a political weapon has grown weaker. This change was brought about not only by the domestic political situation, but also the electoral victory of Barack Obama, whose presidency has been welcomed by most people in Slovakia with enduring enthusiasm and optimism. This also explains why attitudes towards NATO have improved within Robert Fico’s cabinet and the three governing coalition parties – Smer/Direction-Social Democracy (Smer-SD), Slovak National Party (SNS), and Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (?S-HZDS). None of these parties played the anti-Atlantic or anti-American card before the 2009 presidential elections or the 2010 parliamentary elections.

The “atlanticization” of the Slovak public has also been enhanced by the greater media visibility of the Slovak security community, and the latter’s participation in international transatlantic networks. The NATO summit in Bratislava in October 2009 was a watershed moment, offering the general public a full view of the transatlantic dimension of their country’s politics and identity.

And we cannot forget the 2008 visa-waiver agreement between the US and Slovakia. The waiver was welcomed by many people as a symbolic “reward” for cooperation in security issues, and hailed as a gesture of real partnership between the two nations.

Interestingly enough, the shift in favor of Atlanticism can be observed across all population groups. While in 2006, skeptical attitudes towards Slovakia’s membership in NATO prevailed across all levels of education, four years later the opposite has become true. A similar change has taken place in the hearts and minds of the supporters of political parties. While in 2006 only the voters of the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) of Mikuláš Dzurinda stood behind the country’s membership in NATO, this conviction is now shared by a majority of voters in all parliamentary parties, both within the governing coalition and the opposition. Obviously, as sociologists we realize that is too early to know whether this shift reflects only a temporary oscillation or speaks to a deeper value change. We need to see if the trend sustains in the long term. That would be good news not just for Slovaks, but for the broader international community. That is why we could not resist the pleasure of sharing this hopeful information with others who believe in the strength of the transatlantic partnership.

Zora Bútorová, and Ol’ga Gyárfášová, analysts, Institute for Public Affairs, Bratislava

WASHINGTON — As U.S. and European leaders gather for the NATO summit in Lisbon, their main focus will be the institution’s new strategic concept. But they cannot afford to ignore Turkey’s precipitous drift out of the NATO orbit and its implications for peace and stability in the Middle East and the West’s relations with Russia and Iran.

Scores of articles have been written in recent months on Turkey’s growing disenchantment with the European Union. Far less attention has been paid to Turkey’s growing disaffection with NATO, the Western security alliance that Turkey has been a member of since 1952. Ankara maintains the second largest army in NATO and plays an active role in the mission in Afghanistan. Turkey’s location—with Russia to the North, the volatile Caucasus to the northeast, and Iran to the east—gives it a pivotal geostrategic role. A growing economy, healthy demographics, and proactive foreign policy suggest that Turkey’s value to NATO will only continue to grow.

But Turkey’s positive role in NATO is anything but certain.  Recent Transatlantic Trends surveys show vast differences between Turkish public opinion and that of other NATO members on a number of key foreign policy issues. Asked specifically about NATO’s importance to their own security in 2004, the majority of Turks (53%) found NATO essential—somewhat less but still similar to support in the U.S. (62%) and the EU (64%) at the time. Since then, support for NATO has remained largely unchanged in the other countries surveyed, but Turkish support has eroded drastically to less than one-in-three (30%) in 2010.

According to the polls, Turks are turning East rather than West. Turks who said Turkey should act in closest cooperation with countries of the Middle East doubled to 20% from last year while those who said Turkey should cooperate with EU countries (13%) declined by nine points during the same period. Despite Turkish leaders’ reassurances to Western policymakers, public opinion shifts like this in a democratic country inevitably have consequences.

To counter these trends in Turkey, NATO and Turkey’s leaders should highlight the issues where the Turkish public sees eye-to-eye with other NATO members. They should quietly negotiate the more challenging issues behind the scenes.

To start, in discussions of the new strategic concept, they should highlight the ongoing commitment of Turkey’s partners to come to the country’s defense if attacked and NATO’s role in helping Turkey respond to nontraditional threats such as terrorism. When asked what should be the top priority for the American president and European leaders, fighting international terrorism remained the top concern for a plurality of Turks (38%). And NATO acting out of area is relatively common ground—supported by a plurality of Turks (48%) and the majority of Americans (77%) and other NATO members surveyed (62%). When asked about Turkey’s role in NATO at a recent speech hosted by GMF in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen did just this by emphasizing concerns over terrorism as common ground for Turkey and NATO.

On the other hand, NATO leaders would do well to quietly negotiate strategies for dealing with Iran. While an Iranian nuclear weapon is seen as a threat by the vast majority in the U.S. (86%) and EU (79%), the plurality of Turks (48%) do not feel threatened. This is not only in public opinion but also reflected by Turkish leaders. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu mentioned recently that “We do not see any threat from any of our neighbouring countries, whether it is Iran, Russia, Syria, or others.”

Propping up support for NATO in Turkey would also help anchor Turkey in Europe at a time when the allure of membership in the European Union is waning. The number of Turks (38%) who think joining the EU would be a good thing has declined 35 percentage points since 2004. Turkey will not join the EU soon, and a drawn-out accession process will only further sour Turkish attitudes about membership. With only 23% of those surveyed in the European Union believed Turkey’s EU membership would be “a good thing,” European leaders should be eager to use NATO as an alternative “anchor” without bucking public opinion in their own countries.

Any significant goals laid out in NATO’s new strategic concept will most certainly be aided by Turkey’s active role in the institution. NATO leadership should actively engage Turkish leaders to carefully plan which issues should be discussed aloud and in full public view and which should be whispered about in the negotiating room. A little strategic communication could go a long way toward advancing NATO’s ability to carry out its strategic concept with Turkey’s full participation.

Zsolt Nyiri is the director of Transatlantic Trends, and Ben Veater-Fuchs is a program assistant for Transatlantic Trends at the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington.

WASHINGTON — American elections are largely driven by domestic concerns, but their outcomes have global ramifications. Never has this been more evident than in the wake of this year’s U.S. Congressional elections, which produced an overwhelming Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and returned a razor-thin Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate.

The Republican Congressional ascendancy reverberates across the Atlantic. Europeans hopeful of cooperation with the United States on Afghanistan, arms control, the global economy, and climate change will notice that Washington is about to become an even more frustrating partner.

The Afghan war was not a Congressional campaign issue. But President Barack Obama has pledged to begin withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by mid-2011. Europeans, who largely support reducing the Western military presence in Afghanistan, are joined by only 22 percent of Republican voters in the United States who support such a policy, according to the recent German Marshall Fund Transatlantic Trends survey. When, and if, Obama begins an Afghan pullback, Congressional Republicans will only complicate allied cooperation on Afghanistan.

The Obama administration, along with its European allies, wants to negotiate with Tehran about its nuclear weapons program. But American Republicans support a far more aggressive posture: one-in-five respondents of the Transatlantic Trends survey would take military action now to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and more than four-in-five would take such action if non-military efforts fail. Republican hawks on Capitol Hill are likely to be sharply critical of any administration pursuit of a negotiated settlement to the Iranian standoff.

There is also a widespread European desire for the White House to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. But only 12 percent of Republicans approve of Obama’s handling of the Middle East. Obama’s ability to leverage the Israeli government to make concessions to the Palestinians is likely to meet opposition from Congressional Republicans supportive of an Israeli hard line.

The reduction of American and Russian nuclear arsenals has long been a European goal. But the Obama administration was unable to corral the two-thirds majority needed in the U.S. Senate to pass its recently completed arms control treaty with Moscow. Passage will prove even more elusive next year.

The new Republican Congressional leadership has pledged to cut government spending, suggesting they have more in common with Germans than with Democrats. But austerity-minded Europeans need to be mindful that this belt-tightening may be more rhetoric than reality.

Republicans promise not to cut Social Security (pensions), Medicare and Medicaid (health care for the elderly and the poor), and defense spending, which account for more than three-fifths of the U.S. budget. Moreover, Republicans plan to extend Bush-era tax cuts at a cost of $370 billion a year in lost revenue. Congressional Republicans have also pledged to repeal Obama’s recently enacted health care reform that could save the U.S. Treasury $10 billion a year. European hopes that a Republican House might force a reduction in destabilizing U.S. debt may prove illusionary.

Prospects for meaningful U.S. action on climate change, long a European priority, are even more remote. Obama could not pass climate change legislation this year despite having a nine-seat majority in the U.S. Senate. Next year, U.S. climate change legislation is dead. White House promises to pursue emissions controls through executive regulation are likely to be frustrated by Republican plans to withhold funding for enforcing such rules.

Finally, some Europeans hope that the divided government produced by the election will force American Republicans and Democrats to cooperate in governing. But the trench warfare that has plagued Washington for the last two years is about to get worse. Republicans have promised to begin Congressional investigations of the White House, which are likely to poison Congressional-White House relations, whether or not wrongdoing is found. And Republicans, who have won back the House of Representatives through obstructionism, may decide that two more years of such behavior can win them back the White House in 2012.

Europeans did not get a vote in this year’s U.S. Congressional elections. But they have to live with the results. It could prove a frustrating experience.

Bruce Stokes is a Senior Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund in Washington, DC.