Special Eurobarometer 'European social reality'

Special EUROBAROMETER 273 “European Social Reality” Report
1.7 Trust in political institutions
As noted earlier in the report, politics is not something many European Union citizens
consider important in their life (43%). Is this because Europeans convey relatively
little trust in the political institutions that govern them? The survey measures whether
respondents tend to or tend not to trust four political institutions 34 . The more distant
the political entity, the less likely respondents are to trust it. On average, 49% of EU
citizens trust the council of their city or village but only 20% trust political parties.
The council of your city/village
The (NATIONALITY) Parliament
The (NATIONALITY) Government
Political parties
Trust in political institutions
EU25 (%)
Tend not to trust Tend to trust DK
The low level of trust is exemplified if we look at how many of these institutions people
on average tend to trust. Looking at all 4 institutions, we find that in the European
Union as a whole, 41% of the public doesn’t trust any of them. If we exclude the local
council, the figure increases to 62%. Only 15% of EU citizens tend to trust all three
institutions 35 .
34
QA18. I would like to ask you a question about how much trust you have in certain institutions. For each
of the following institutions, please tell me if you tend to trust it or tend not to trust it.
35
These figures are obtained by counting the number of times a respondent answers ‘tend to trust’ to the
items measuring trust in the political institutions at QA18.
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61
62
73
42
31
31
20
49
9
8
7
7