Younger Europeans are generally more positive about the EU | Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images Support for EU and exit referendums up across Europe: survey Citizens in 9 out of 10 EU countries are positive about Brussels, survey showed.

Most EU citizens don't want their countries to leave the Union but support a referendum on membership, according to a survey by Pew Research Center published Thursday.

Support for a national referendum on EU membership was particularly high in Spain (65 percent), France (61 percent), and Greece and Italy (both 57 percent).

Greece and Italy also recorded the highest level of support (35 percent) for an actual departure from the EU. France and Sweden followed, both on 22 percent.

But the EU is more popular than it was a year ago. Most of those polled in nine of 10 EU member countries hold a favorable view of Brussels, with support being highest in Poland (74 percent), Germany (68 percent) and Hungary (67 percent). In 2016, support for the EU was at 72 percent in Poland, 50 percent in Germany, and 61 percent in Hungary.

In Britain, a year after the 2016 referendum on exiting the EU, more than half of respondents (54 percent) now say they are positive about Europe, compared to 44 percent in the 2016 survey. Only Greeks view the EU more negatively now than they did a year ago, with one third currently holding positive views about the Union, compared to 27 percent in 2016.

Younger Europeans are generally more positive about Brussels, with an average of 73 percent of those aged 18-29 supporting the EU, compared to an average of 58 percent of those aged 50 and older.

The survey was conducted among 9,935 respondents in France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom in March and April 2017.