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Faced with an unpredictable Donald Trump and an aggressive Russia, Europeans favour increased spending on defence and, in some countries, compulsory military service.
A survey of 12 countries for the European Council on Foreign Relations showed majorities for increased defence spending in Poland (70%), Denmark (70%) and the UK (57%).
Support was softer elsewhere, but large minorities in Germany (47%), Spain (46%) and France (45%) also backed bigger military budgets. Italy was an outlier: only 17% favoured higher spending, with 57% against.
Europeans in several countries supported reintroducing mandatory military service, with the crucial exception of 18- to 29-year-olds – those most likely to be called up in any armed conflict. People in France (62%), Germany (53%) and Poland (51%) were the strongest supporters of military service.
Opposition to the idea outweighed support in countries including Italy (50% against), the UK (53%), Spain (56%) and Hungary (58%).
Older people were keenest on the draft. In Germany, for example, a net total of 49% of over-70s supported military service, while a net total of 46% of 18- to 29-year-olds opposed the idea.
The research also found the European public divided sharply over Trump, whose return to the US presidency has scrambled traditional allegiances to Washington. Countries with traditionally strong ties with the US are becoming increasingly sceptical of the US system: in the UK and Germany, majorities of 74% and 67% think it is broken.
“EU-US relations are now increasingly ideological,” the ECFR’s Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard wrote in a paper to accompany the findings. “In many respects the relations of the far-right parties to Trump start to resemble the relationship of former communist parties to the Soviet Union in the cold war. They feel obliged to defend Trump and to imitate him.”
European far-right parties, which often took inspiration from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, now look to Trump’s system as a model, the authors suggest. In contrast, voters for mainstream parties are critical of Trump and the US political system.
Far-right and national populist allegiance to Trump exists, despite sizeable minorities of voters for those parties seeing his re-election as bad news for Americans. For instance, 34% of AfD voters in Germany, 28% of France’s National Rally supporters and 30% of Reform UK voters consider Trump’s re-election as “very bad” or “rather bad” for Americans.
The findings come on the eve of a Nato summit this week where members of the alliance will be asked to raise defence spending to at least 5% of GDP a year by 2032. Spain has already rejected the target as “unreasonable” and “counterproductive”. Italy wants to delay the deadline until 2035.
Voters in most countries polled are sceptical that Europe can be independent of the US. Citizens in Germany, Spain, Poland and Italy were more likely to say it would be very difficult or practically impossible for the EU to become independent of the US in defence and security. Only in Denmark did a slim majority (52%) consider it was possible for the EU to achieve autonomy in defence and security.
Denmark, which is directly threatened by Trump’s claims over Greenland, also showed the highest antipathy towards the US president: 86% believe the US political system is broken, while 76% rated Trump’s re-election as a bad thing for US citizens.
Several European publics support developing an alternative national nuclear deterrent that does not rely on the US, with the strongest support in Poland (60%), Portugal (62%) and Spain (54%). In Germany, support for such an idea was only 39%. The chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has proposed that his country could share nuclear weapons with France and Britain but also said this could not replace the US’s protective shield over much of Europe.
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In an encouraging sign for Kyiv, most Europeans oppose following the US if Trump pushes Ukraine to cede occupied territories or lifts economic sanctions against Russia.
Even in Hungary, which has a government that has consistently slowed agreement on EU sanctions, 40% oppose copying any US move to lift sanctions, while 38% were in favour. In other countries there were strong majorities against emulating any pro-Russia policy on Ukraine that may come from the US.
The report’s authors suggest two explanations for this support for Ukraine. “A benevolent interpretation is that Europeans support an autonomous European policy to support Ukraine and they don’t want to blindly follow Trump’s lead. But another reading of that data is that Europeans want Ukrainians to continue fighting on their behalf.”
Leonard said: “Our poll shows that Europeans feel unsafe and that Trump is driving demand for increased defence spending, the reintroduction of military service and an extension of nuclear capabilities across much of Europe.”
Krastev, who is chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, said: “The real effect of Trump’s second coming is that the United States now presents a credible model for Europe’s far right. To be pro-American today mostly means to be sceptical of the EU; to be pro-European means being critical of Trump’s America.”
Pollsters commissioned by ECFR spoke to 16,440 adults last month.
