82 pct of Europeans want EU to do more against terrorism: survey

BRUSSELS - Eighty-two percent of European citizens want the European Union to do more in the fight against terrorism, it was revealed Tuesday according to the latest Eurobarometer poll commissioned by the European Parliament.

The highest support for more significant EU involvement was seen in Cyprus, Portugal and Italy, all around 90 percent. In Austria, Croatia and Poland where support was relatively the lowest, the rate was as high as three quarters.

The survey also found the perceived threat of terrorist attacks varied from 7 percent in Slovenia to 64 percent in France.

Differences between the opinions of women and men on this issue were almost non-existent, and older generations demonstrated only slightly stronger support for increased EU involvement against terror compared to the younger generations.

However, the survey found that the fight against terrorism is an area with an explicit and very strong perception of a gap between the expectations of EU citizens and the actual level of the union's involvement -- 69 percent considered the current EU involvement to be insufficient.

Eurobarometer said measures perceived as the most urgent were blocking the financing of terrorist groups, studying the roots of terrorism and radicalization, and strengthened control of external EU borders.

The European Parliament argued that under the existing legal framework, there is still some scope for further developing EU counter-terrorism capacities.

Better use of existing tools and improved coordination across policy fields may be a better way forward than hasty adoption of new measures without proper reflection on their possible impact, it advised on the survey result.

EU member states' unwillingness to share intelligence seems to be the single most important obstacle to successful cooperation at EU level, lawmakers said.

They added that increased contribution to the Schengen Information System, the Europol Information System and other EU information-sharing tools is crucial.

The improved technical design of these databases could considerably facilitate border checks and law enforcement. In the short term, cross-matching capabilities of EU databases could be enhanced in order to achieve complete interoperability in the more distant future, the European Parliament said.