Slovakia has once again found itself at the tail-end of the ranking of EU-member states in terms of willingness to participate in European Parliament (EP) elections, according to the latest Eurobarometer survey, the results of which were published on Tuesday.
The survey showed that only 26 percent of Slovaks are interested in participating in the 2024 EP elections despite the fact that 82 percent of Slovaks claim that EU activities have an impact on their everyday lives. The number of Slovaks who would have taken part in an EP election fell by 4 percentage points when compared to the survey carried out in 2018.
The spring Eurobarometer survey was carried out in 27 EU-member states on a sample of 26,376 respondents between March 2-26. The survey indicated a lower than 50-percent willingness to vote in eight countries, including the Czech Republic (27 percent) and France (40 percent). Meanwhile, the highest voter turnouts would be in the Netherlands (75 percent), Ireland (66 percent) and Germany (65 percent).
While EU citizens as a whole view democracy as the most important value that the EP should advocate (37 percent of the respondents), in Slovakia it is freedom of movement and freedom of expression and thought (32 percent). Advocating democracy was in third place in Slovakia (25 percent).
Satisfaction with the functioning of democracy in the EU was expressed by 54 percent of respondents from the entire Union and 37 percent of Slovaks.
Sixty-one percent of the respondents in the EU and 55 percent of Slovaks expressed satisfaction with the public's opportunity to participate in political life. Sixty percent of the respondents in the EU and 53 percent in Slovakia are satisfied with the variety of media. People are less satisfied with the fight against disinformation (41 percent in EU, 29 percent of Slovaks) and the state of corruption (35 percent in the EU, 24 percent in Slovakia).
Concerning EP policies, EU citizens were most satisfied with support for Ukraine, as 69 percent of the respondents expressed their satisfaction with it. The lowest satisfaction rate was posted in Slovakia (45 percent) and Greece (48 percent), while the highest one was recorded in the Netherlands (90 percent).
Source: TASR
