Update: 17/04/2024 07:15
Issued by: 17/04/2024, 07:08
Brussels – More Europeans are interested in this year’s elections to the European Parliament (EP) than before the vote in 2019. This was shown by the latest Eurobarometer survey, which was also the last before the elections in early June. 22 percent more Czechs are interested in the elections than five years ago. However, it is still only 38 percent of respondents, while 62 percent of Czech respondents are not interested in voting.
The Czech Republic is also the country in which the smallest number of people out of the entire twenty-seven think that the EP should play a more important role. While 56 percent of respondents in the entire EU think so, only 32 percent of respondents in the Czech Republic think so. On the contrary, 52 percent of Czechs think that he should play a less important role.
The survey was conducted in 27 EU member states from the beginning of February to the beginning of March this year. In total, over 26,000 people took part, 1,011 respondents were from the Czech Republic.
When asked whether they were interested in the June elections, 60 percent of respondents across the EU answered positively. This is 11 percent more than it reported in a similar poll before the vote five years ago. Forty percent now answered that they were not interested in the election. In 2019, it was ten percent more.
When asked how likely it is that they would vote if the vote were held next week, 58 percent of respondents in the Czech Republic said “probably”. 24 percent of the respondents called this option “unlikely”, the rest did not choose any of the options. At the same time, 71 percent of the respondents would “probably” be able to vote in the entire EU. EP spokesman Jaume Duch noted that the resulting data on actual voter turnout tend to be lower. Nevertheless, the European Parliament expects more voters to come to the polls this year than five years ago.
The previous elections to the EP were held in 2019, and voter turnout in the Czech Republic was almost the lowest in the EU at that time – only 28.72 percent of voters voted. Across the EU, voter turnout was 50.66 percent.
The Eurobarometer survey showed that the topics voters are interested in before voting also differ. According to Europeans, during the pre-election campaign, the EP should deal primarily with the fight against poverty and social exclusion (33 percent) or public health (32 percent). In the Czech Republic, respondents most often mentioned EU defense and security (46 percent) or EU independence in the field of industry and energy (40 percent).
“Europeans want us to focus our campaign on fighting poverty, strengthening the public health system, as well as on security and defense,” commented EP President Roberta Metsolaová on the results of the survey. She also appreciated that the majority of respondents were in favor of the EP playing a greater role.
