The State of the European Union. The European Parliament faces its most important elections yet

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 132 Merkel’s temporary open door policy to the new government of Italy’s refusal to allow boats car- rying refugees to enter Italian ports. When asked about the labour rights of im- migrants, 69.5% of survey participants asserted that immigrant workers should enjoy the same labour rights as autochthonous workers. Somewhat fewer (57.1%) supported the notion that asylum seekers should have the right to work in the EU. The majority of survey respond- ents (61.1%) agreed that immigrant workers often suffer discrimination although very few claimed to have personally witnessed discrimi- nation of this kind where they worked. When queried as to whether irregular immi- grants should be deported, 55% of the survey population felt they should be and 21% were against such a policy. Opinion regarding the de- portation of irregular immigrants and equal rights for immigrant workers varied substan- tially from one autonomous community to an- other. Support in Spain for the deportation of irregular immigrants is strongest in Castile and León and weakest in Catalonia, the community most in favour of equal labour rights for immi- grants. Security The numerous terrorist attacks committed in Europe over the past few years have sparked intense debate about security and information pooling and sharing between EU security insti- tutions. Security was a major concern of citizens participating in this survey as well: 80% thought a terrorist attack was likely to take place in Europe within the next twelve months and 58.8% believed that the EU is not sufficiently prepared to cope with the situation. Only 30% considered the current level of coordination between European police forces and EU intelli- gence services to be adequate. In light of this feedback, one can confidently conclude there is broad support in Spain for the creation of a EU police corps with the capacity to carry out ac- tions in all Member States. Findings indicate that 71.9% of Spanish society supports the creation of such a force and only 8.5% consid- ers it a bad idea. Donald Trump’s entry into the White House and the position he has taken as president re- garding NATO have prompted Macron, and subsequently Merkel, to postpone the creation of a community military force with the mandate of ensuring the security of the Union and com- plementing Atlantic Alliance actions. Although the creation of a unified European army was not as popular with survey respondents as the for- mation of a European police force, a healthy majority (59.1%) were nevertheless in favour of the proposal and only 15.9% opposed. Opinion regarding these issues also varied according to age group: older respondents were more enthu- siastic about the creation of both types of forces than younger respondents, who expressed a more moderate level of support for these pro- jects ( Chart 4 ). The study revealed a contradiction in public opinion on this topic: while Spaniards are clear- ly in favour of creating both a unified police force and a community army, there is no con- sensus regarding whether Member States should devote more resources to the areas of security and defence. The environment Environmental policy is becoming an increasingly important issue due to the key role it plays in the fight against climate change and its economic