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EU says Iraq survey will not influence its foreign policy

IRNA

Brussels, Nov 3, IRNA -- In an apparent attempt to appease Israel 
and the US, EU officials Monday tried to downplay the significance of 
an EU opinion poll which said that Israel posed the biggest threat, 
followed by US, to peace in the world. 
"Surveys and policies are two different things. There are 
different factors making our foreign policies. Polls are polls and 
policies are policies," European commission spokesman Gerasimos Thomas
told reporters in Brussels today shortly after the Commission released
its survey on `Iraq and Peace in the World.` 
"It is not our task to interpret each and every survey or draw 
our policy on the surveys," said Thomas in response to reporters` 
question that the results of the opinion poll could be interpreted as 
anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. 
After the survey was leaked to the Spanish daily El Pais last 
week, the Zionsit diaspora affairs minister Nathan Sharansky told the 
Israeli Yediot Aharonot newspaper on Sunday that, "the EU would do 
well to stop the rampant brainwashing against and demonizing of Israel
before Europe deteriorates once again to dark sections of its past." 
According to the Eurobarometer survey, based on telephone 
interviews with 500 European citizens in each of the 15 EU states, 59 
percent of them replied "yes" when asked whether or not Israel 
presents a threat to peace in the world. 
When asked why Palestinian territories were not included in the 
survey, Thomas replied "it is not a country." 
NK/212 
End