'Majority of chief execs want rethink over EU membership'

13 April 2012

A survey of 1,000 chief executives of British companies found that a majority wanted Britain to renegotiate its membership of the European Union and regain powers from Brussels, the Financial Times said today.

A growing burden of EU legislation was said to outweigh the benefits of the single market, according to the ICM poll commissioned by Open Europe, a UK think-tank that wants to see an overhaul of the 25-nation bloc.

The group is a successor to the bodies that lobbied against the euro and the new EU constitution, the FT said.

ICM polled a range of businesses, including a quarter that employed more than 250 people and a quarter that employed four or less.

It found that 60 percent of bosses overall wanted Britain to renegotiate its EU membership. Support for renegotiation among those from the larger firms was 52 per cent.

The chief executives of larger companies were more worried about EU legislation, with 70 per cent thinking regulation was on the rise, compared with an overall rate of 59 per cent.

"The increase in regulation in recent years has raised questions about the EU, not only among our traditional supporters but in the wider business community," Neil O'Brien, director of Open Europe, was quoted as saying in the newspaper.

Chief executives who said they distrusted the European Commission outnumbered those who said they trusted it by more than two to one, the survey found.

In contrast to the survey's findings, the FT noted that a YouGov poll of 50 FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 chief executives earlier this year found that 34 said the single market had been positive for business and 39 preferred Britain to stay in the EU.

Open Europe was not immediately available to comment on its survey.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in