BERLIN, Sept. 22 (UPI) -- The majority of people in France and the Netherlands expect a European Union constitution, despite voting against it last year, a new study says.
Every second person polled in the Netherlands and some 57 percent of French surveyed said they expected a common constitution for the future of EU governance, according to a poll published Friday by German census organization Emnid.
The result from France was the most optimistic of the 13 member states polled, and the Dutch answer ranked third; a surprise, as the EU's constitutional draft was buried last year by just those countries' voters in referenda.
Great Britain's population seems to be less skeptical than most European nations when it comes to EU cooperation -- some 52 percent of Brits expect a common EU economic policy, and 54 percent believe a common social policy will exist in the future.
While the poll found that the majority of Europeans expect the 25-member body to take on additional members, the prospects for Turkey and Ukraine are gloomy, according to Europeans -- 37 percent believe Turkey will become a full member, and 35 percent expect Ukraine to join the club.
The lowest level of Euro-optimism was found in many of the new Eastern European member states, such as Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia.
The poll was commissioned by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, a German media think tank. It marks the launch of the X. Bertelsmann Forum, a conference on European politics incorporating several government heads and high-ranking political figures in Berlin.
Emnid surveyed 10,000 people in 13 EU member states and gave a margin of error of +/- 3 points.
