Survey: Strong support for Turkey's EU accession, few believe will become reality

With Turkey's EU accession process on the uptick and visa liberalization for Turkish nationals to the EU's Schengen zone, a topic of discussion in both Turkish and EU politics, a recently conducted survey from the Economic Development Foundation (İKV) found 75.5 percent public support for Turkey's EU accession while 35.6 percent believe it will actually happen.

Commenting on the survey results, İKV head Ayhan Zeytinoğlu said: "It will allow further proper analysis of the process by taking the public's perspective on the EU into consideration." The EU and Turkey are closely cooperating to stem the flow of migrants and refugees to Europe, and the visa liberalization scheme is part of the migration deal agreed to in November. The deal also includes speeding up Turkey's EU accession process. The joint İKV and Realta Pollster Company survey was conducted in 18 provinces with 1,254 participants on April 23-24. It found that 75.5 percent of participants support Turkey's EU accession process, up 13 points since 2015.

Furthermore, 45.4 percent of those in favor of EU accession indicated that increasing the level of prosperity and the economy is their main reason for support. Other reasons included tourism, education, democracy and freedom. Responding to the question of whether they believed that Turkey would actually become an EU member, 64.4 percent of participants said they do not think so and 35.6 percent believed it will be realized. Zeytinoğlu said in his Europe Day statement that revitalizing Turkey's EU accession perspective is a strategic goal not only for Turkey but also for Europe.