September Eurobarometer: more Europeans than ever?

The Standard Eurobarometer 95 provides unprecedented data on the perception of EU citizens about supranational institutions, attitudes towards economic and health situation, and main concerns of Europeans.

Almost half of all Europeans trust the European Union (49%), a result stable since the Standard Eurobarometer of winter 2020-2021. Optimism about the future of the EU has increased sharply since the last summer, with 66% of respondents holding a positive view. The recovery plan and the vaccines’ strategy are considered as a key measure to address the Covid-19 pandemic.

Perceptions of the current situation of the national economy are extremely variable across Member States. In countries such as Luxembourg (89%) or the Netherlands (87%), respondents have a positive view of their national economic situation. However, in Spain (88%), Portugal (87%), and Greece (91%), respondents judged the economic situation as bad.

In every EU Member State, a majority think their country’s economy will recover by 2023 or later. Europeans seems to be more positive about the effects of NextGenerationEU as a majority of Europeans think that the recovery plan will be effective in responding to the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. However, more than one third judge the recovery plan as ineffective.

Regarding the concerns at the European level, economic situation remains as the top concern (27% of the respondents in the EU27) following by environment and climate change and immigration in the second place (25% of the respondents in the EU27).

In the national level, health remains as the most important issue, although mentions have declined 15 percentage points since winter 2020-2021. The fact that 70% of the EU population is vaccinated has helped to improve the perception of health’s concerns. However, there is countries like Bulgaria where the percentage of the vaccinated population is very low (17%)

Source: European Commission (2021). “Standard Eurobarometer 95- Spring 2021. Public opinion in the European Union, First results report”. Available here.

Manuela Sánchez

Senior Public Affairs Consultant

Senior Consultant in the area of Public Affairs at LLYC. She is currently a PhD candidate in International Law. She holds a degree in Law and Political Science from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and the Université Libre de Bruxelles and a Master’s degree in Politics and Democracy. She is a specialist in Regulatory Analysis, International Law and Institutional Relations.