MOSCOW, Jul. 5 (Sputnik) - More than half of Germans (54%) do not consider Ukraine joining the European Union to be a good idea, a poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) showed on Wednesday.

Half of Bulgarians hold the same view as the Germans, as do 48% of Czechs, 40% of French people and 39% of Greeks, according to the survey. People in the Netherlands (36%), Poland (31%), Sweden (28%), Estonia (27%), Spain (24%) and Portugal (20%) are also against Kiev joining the bloc, the poll showed.

The majority of people in Bulgaria, Greece and Italy believe that the EU should push Ukraine towards negotiating a peace treaty with Russia (61%, 59% and 57%, respectively). More people in France, Germany, Sweden and the Czech Republic support this view than oppose it.

The survey was conducted in early May among 19,566 people in 15 countries, including Ukraine. The ECFR did not provide the margin of error.

On June 25, Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib announced that the EU had officially launched accession talks with Ukraine.

In June 2022, the EU granted candidate country status to Moldova and Ukraine, setting several strict conditions for the formal start of accession negotiations.

The status of a candidate country signals the start of talks, although it does not give a right to join the bloc automatically. Turkiye has been waiting in the wings to join the EU since 1999, North Macedonia since 2005, Montenegro since 2010, and Serbia since 2012. Croatia was the last country to join in 2013 after 10 years of negotiations.

Photo from AP