European Union citizens want more unified and bold leadership, survey suggests

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European Union citizens want more unified and bold leadership, survey suggests

2026-02-04 18:49 Last Updated At：18:50

BRUSSELS (AP) — Citizens across the European Union want more unified, stronger and ambitious leadership of the 27-nation bloc as it faces military threats, economic pressures and climate instability, according to an official EU poll.

The Eurobarometer survey was conducted before U.S. President Donald Trump's ordered a military operation that captured the former Venezuelan leader and rattled European nations by threatening to seize Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark. It did not specifically ask about Washington, NATO or China.

More than 2,600 EU citizens were asked questions in mostly face-to-face meetings in November. They overwhelmingly supported a more muscular EU — 69% say they wanted an expanded security role in global crises, 87% a more diplomatically aggressive Brussels on topics like peace and climate change, and 90% called for a bloc more unified to tackle key issues. The margin of error was 2 percentage points.

The poll found a majority of EU citizens are “highly worried” about conflicts near the bloc, climate change-fueled natural disasters and cyberwarfare.

The results broadly align with the stated goals and ambitions of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has been hawkish on trade and defense and called for solidifying EU power in Brussels. She has struck trade deals across the world in the wake of Trump's tariff threats and China's curbs on critical mineral exports.

The poll results suggested that respondents believe Russian, U.S. and far-right attempts to divide the EU have so far not worked.

EU citizens were increasingly focused on defense, which emerged as the top priority in 18 of the 27 EU nations, according to the survey.

Anxieties identified in the poll included Russian hybrid attacks, including drone incursions in European airports, disinformation campaigns, the use of AI, social polarization, foreign meddling in elections and EU reliance on imports for its defense industry.

Pessimism about the state of world affairs was rife across respondents, who were more optimistic about the EU as a bloc than their own nations, and their personal situation.

“The contrast between personal confidence and broader uncertainty has important implications, shaping citizens’ priorities, attitudes toward governance, and expectations for cooperation at national, European, and global levels,” according to the poll.

Israel strikes Gaza, killing 19 including women and children, after saying Hamas violated deal

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least 19 Palestinians, most of them women and children, by midday Wednesday, according to hospital officials. Israel pledged to continue strikes, saying that it was responding to a militant attack on Israeli soldiers that seriously wounded one.

Among the Palestinians killed were five children, including a 5-month-old and a baby just 10 days old; seven women; and a paramedic, said hospital officials. They are the latest Palestinians in Gaza to die since a ceasefire deal, which has been punctuated by deadly Israeli strikes, came into effect on Oct. 10, 2025.

The escalating Palestinian death toll has rocked the U.S.-backed truce and caused Palestinians in the strip to say it does not feel like the war has ended.

“The genocidal war against our people in the Gaza Strip continues,” said Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiya, director of Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, in a Facebook post. “Where is the ceasefire? Where are the mediators?”

The deal attempted to halt a more than two-year war between Israel and Hamas. While the heaviest fighting has subsided, it has been marred by repeated flareups of violence.

More than 530 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since the ceasefire went into effect, according to Gaza health officials, while Israel's military says four Israeli soldiers have been killed.

Israel’s military has said its continuing strikes are responses to Hamas violations or militant attacks on its soldiers, but dozens of civilians have been killed. Eight Arab and Muslim countries, including mediators Egypt and Qatar, recently condemned what they called Israel’s “repeated violations” of the deal.

An Israeli military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with military policy, told The Associated Press that Israel was striking the strip in response to militant gunfire that badly wounded a reservist soldier Wednesday morning.

Israeli troops fired on a building in the Tuffah neighborhood in north Gaza, killing at least 11 people, most from the same family, said Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies. The dead included two parents, their 10-day-old girl, her 5-month-old cousin and their grandmother.

Mourners gathered in the courtyard of Shifa hospital Wednesday morning for funeral prayers.

“What did this child do? Was she (affiliated with) Hamas or Fatah? …. Why are they killing the children?,” asked a relative of the family killed in Tuffah, Mohammad Jaser.

“We don’t understand why this is happening to us. What do we do? Where do we go? This isn’t life,” he said.

Two young children were seen kneeling at the body of their father, as a woman told them to bid him farewell.

“Kiss him,” the woman told a young girl, who kneeled and kissed his father’s cheeks.

Meanwhile, the strikes continued.

An Israeli strike on a family’s tent in the southern city of Khan Younis killed three people including a 12-year-old boy, said Nasser hospital, which received the bodies.

Tank shelling in Gaza City’s eastern neighborhood of Zaytoun killed another three Palestinians, according to Shifa Hospital, including a husband and his wife.

A strike on a tent in the Muwasi area of Khan Younis killed at least two people and wounded five others, according to a field hospital run by the Palestinian Red Crescent in the area.

The dead included Hussein Hassan Hussein al-Semieri, a paramedic for the Palestinian Red Crescent who was on duty at the time, said the hospital.

While fighting has not stopped, other parts of the ceasefire deal have moved forward.

Hamas has released all of the hostages it was holding, and in return Israel has released several thousand Palestinians. Increased amounts of humanitarian aid have flowed into Gaza, the Rafah border crossing has opened for a trickle of people to cross, and a new technocratic committee has been appointed to administer Gaza’s daily affairs.

But other key elements of the ceasefire appear to have stalled, including the deployment of an international security force, the disarmament of Hamas and reconstruction of Gaza. The U.S. has given no timeline on when these parts of the deal will wrap up.

Over 71,800 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.

Magdy reported from Cairo. AP reporter Julia Frankel contributed from Jerusalem.