A new survey found that almost half of European respondents are dissatisfied with the European Union’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was found that 49% were not satisfied with the measures taken by the bloc, while 43% were satisfied and 8% did not decide.
A Eurobarometer survey found that Greece, Luxembourg and Belgium had the highest levels of dissatisfaction.
Since the summer, satisfaction has been declining
The results of a survey conducted between 12 February and 11 March in 27 European Union countries and 12 other countries outside the European Union, including the United Kingdom, show that dissatisfaction with the European Union with regard to the coronavirus has increased by five percentage points since last summer. .
It also compares 43% of people who say they are happy with the European Union’s COVID-19 measures – two percentage points less than in the summer – and 8% who say they do not “know” how they feel about the EU’s response to the coronavirus. by three percentage points.
In the European Union, 13 Member States have seen that most people are satisfied with the bloc’s response to the pandemic, compared with 19 in the summer.
The highest levels of satisfaction are in Denmark (68%), Lithuania (67%) and Portugal (66%).
Meanwhile, 12 Member States expressed dissatisfaction with the majority of respondents, with Greece taking the lead with 68%, followed by Luxembourg (63%) and Belgium (61%).
In Spain and the Netherlands, public opinion was evenly distributed, with 44% of those satisfied and 44% of those dissatisfied seeing the same thing in the first and last country, and 43%.
Europeans are more disappointed than their governments
Although many Europeans have expressed dissatisfaction with the European Union’s response to the coronavirus, more people have said they are “dissatisfied” with the measures taken by national governments.
A clear majority of 56% said they were not affected by their government measures, an increase of 19 percentage points since the summer.
Meanwhile, 43% said they were satisfied with the same percentage reduction, while only 1% said they did not know how they felt.
“Satisfaction has deteriorated dramatically since the summer of 2020, when the situation was the other way around, 62%” satisfied “against 37%” dissatisfied “, Eurobarometer researchers write in the report.
People in Latvia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia seem to be the least surprised by the response of their governments to the coronavirus – 79%, 76% and 75% respectively.
Meanwhile, Denmark, Luxembourg and the Netherlands were most satisfied, with 79%, 73% and 71% respectively.
Confidence in the European Union of “making the right decisions” in the future remains high
Although satisfaction with the measures taken by the European Union and individual governments has declined since the summer, public confidence in the European Union seems to have been higher than it has been for more than a decade.
Almost half of Europeans said they polled the European Union (49%), a sharp 6-point increase since the summer.
The results also reflect the highest level of confidence recorded since spring 2008, the researchers said.
Meanwhile, confidence in national governments is 36%, which is four percentage points less than in the summer.
Meanwhile, confidence in the European Union’s ability to take “the right decisions in the future” in response to the epidemic was relatively high.
“Thinking about the European Union’s response to the pandemic, almost six out of ten Europeans trust the European Union to make the right decisions in the future,” said researchers, with 59% of Europeans saying they believe the bloc will do the right thing in the future. It has fallen by 3 percentage points since the summer.
Less than four in ten said they did not trust the European Union to make the right choice, and 39% make that decision, which is three percentage points more.
Meanwhile, 2% said they did not know how they felt about it, the same percentage who expressed emotions in the summer.
At least half of the population trusts that the European Union will make the right decisions in the future in 24 countries, and more than three quarters in Portugal (89%), Malta (79%) and Hungary (77%). ), according to the researchers found.
“At the other end of the scale, the majority does not trust the European Union to make the right decisions in the future in Greece (55%), the Czech Republic (53%) and Austria (50%),” they said.
Meanwhile, compared to the summer, confidence in the European Union to make the right decision in the future is declining in 17 countries, with Germany leading the way with 50%, down 11 percentage points, followed by Belgium with 55%, including 11%. points. Latvia has 61 points, which is 10 percentage points less.
Health and the economy are the most important issues
A Eurobarometer survey reveals that a large proportion of Europeans now have health and economic concerns.
Almost four out of ten European Union citizens said that health is currently the most important issue for the bloc, and that it is at the forefront of economic concerns.
38% of respondents said they thought health was the most important issue, up 16 percentage points since the summer.
Meanwhile, 35% said they considered the economy to be a major problem, and its share has not changed since the summer of 2020.
Member States’ public finances ranked third, reporting two percentage points at 21%, while the environment and climate change continued to decline by 20%, unchanged since the summer.
Although “health is a major concern [the] At EU level, the researchers said, the economic situation is the only issue that emerges among all three major challenges in all EU Member States.
So while health may be a concern in the coronavirus pandemic, the economy is definitely on Europe’s minds.
In fact, more than six out of ten Europeans said they believed in their country’s economy after the effects of the pandemic only in 2023 or later – 61%.
Less than a quarter of them said they thought the economy could recover by 23% in 2022, while only 5% thought their economy could recover by the end of this year.
Almost one in ten expressed concern that their national economy could never recover from the effects of the pandemic, and 8% agree with this perspective.
However, 1% are more optimistic than Europeans that they believe their country’s economy has already recovered, while 2% say they simply do not know what the economic future will be.
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