Majority of EU Citizens Against Additional Financial Aid to Ukraine: Poll

MOSCOW, December 19 (Sputnik) — ICM Research questioned over 3,000 respondents in the United Kingdom, France and Germany, specifically as follows: “The EU provides financial assistance to the Ukraine’s economy, and the total amount of already approved credits equals 1.6 billion Euros. In your opinion, should the EU provide further economic aid to Ukraine, or shouldn’t it allocate more funds to this country?”

Only 35 percent of the respondents said that the bloc should allocate extra funds to Ukraine, and other 10 percent declined to state a preference.

Two countries that strongly opposed the idea of sending extra money to crisis-hit Ukraine were France and the United Kingdom. Sixty-six and fifty-nine percent respectively of the countries’ residents were against the move.

German citizens polled, in contrary, said that the country must allocate more financial aid to Ukraine. Fifty-five percent of respondents in that country stated that opinion, while 39 percent argued for no more financial aid.

Over 3,000 telephone interviews with adults, nationally representative of the above countries, were conducted in December 2014.

As a result of the ongoing political crisis in the country, Ukraine’s economy is now struggling. In an attempt to achieve an economic recovery, Kiev authorities have asked for international loans.

Earlier this year, the European Union adopted two Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) programs of approximately 1.61 billion Euros ($2 billion) for Ukraine. The loans are intended to support Ukraine economically and financially, while encouraging structural reforms in the country.