The survey interviewed more than 14,500 adults.
The prime minister goes to Bavaria on Wednesday to attend a conference of the German state’s governing Christian Social Union, sister party to Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats.
Across the 14 countries polled, 64 per cent wanted to stay, unchanged from a year ago, though within countries such as Italy – where 42 per cent now want to leave compared with 25 per cent one year ago – there was an increase in opposition to membership.
“The problems in the EU that we are trying to fix are problems for Germany and other European partners too”.
Cameron said the plans “remain on the table” but that he is “open to alternative solutions” before a meeting of European Union leaders next month in Brussels.
However, more than a fifth of respondents said they were still unsure which way they would cast their ballots.
CLECKHEATON, England Eric Simpson, the owner of a furniture recycling firm in northern England, once believed in the European Union.
Senior German politicians move to support David Cameron — EU reform
Some people have drawn parallels with Britain’s previous referendum on Europe in 1975, when the then Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, also allowed his Ministers to campaign on both sides. “But, it would be painfully ironic for Britain to make itself less geopolitically relevant at the very moment it wants to become more strategically ambitious”, he said. “Seen through the eyes of most voters, the stagnation and instability of the Eurozone contrasts with Britain’s economic recovery”, Matthew Goodwin, an associate fellow at policy institute Chatham House, noted recently.
The foreign secretary said the government seeks to influence countries when interventions are likely to make a difference, adding: “we are clear that the use of death penalty is wrong in all cases and we make that point relentlessly to all countries who use the death penalty”.
“Britain supports the concept of free movement”, Cameron said in the Bavarian spa town of Kreuth. We don’t want to be parasites.
He will probably be able to claim at least some progress on those fronts following a European Union summit next month.
Indeed, divisions among the Tories are already shaping the debate, with Cameron forced by resignation threats from some Eurosceptic MPs to allow ministers to “take a different personal position” to the government and campaign for Britain to leave the EU. Another favorite in the undeclared race is Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, a close Cameron ally who is expected to help lead the Remain camp. As the former Conservative Chancellor and anti-Europe campaigner, Nigel Lawson, was forced to admit this week – no other country trades freely with the rest of Europe without having to sign up to all the EU’s rules.
Given that 16 weeks is needed between the end of negotiations and the referendum to pass certain forms of legislation, some have suggested July could be a possible referendum date, providing a deal is agreed upon in March.
One key to the referendum’s outcome will be how Europe looks to British voters at the moment the referendum is held.
What matters is that we deal with the scale and pressures and sometimes that movement can create those.