“The unknown European Union”. If we should find a title to the new Eurobarometer survey on the trust that Italian citizens have of EU institutions, it would surely be this. Analysing the data we should try to understand why there is such a lack of knowledge about communitarian institutions. Perhaps due to the lack of a specific information or perhaps because we only heard talking about “debt”, “bailout”, “spred”, “austerity” and other difficult words that for us just mean that there will be soon less money in our pockets.
The first obstacle is understanding the role of each institution. More than a third of the respondents cannot name three of the European institutions. The European Parliament is the institution most often mentioned (73%), only 38% is aware of the European Central Bank and only 34% of the European Commission. Obviously the less know is Committee of Region with an incredible result of 1%.
The great majority of Italians admit to know very little of the roles played by the different institutions (58%). 58% think that The EP best represents the EU but only 27% know that in June 2014 the next elections will be held.
Also the trust in EU is very low. Only 38% of the respondents say that membership of the EU is “a good thing”. 37% say neither a good or a bad thing, the rest think it is “A bad thing”. It must be stressed that the majority of the Italians don’t trust institutions in general: 69% of the people questioned think that their voice “does not count in the EU” but the percentage rise to 73% when the question is about “Italian institutions”.
The fight against poverty and social exclusion is easily first in the list of priorities that Europeans would like to see defended by the European Parliament. To strengthen the feeling of being a European citizen the respondents ask the EU more to create jobs (66%), to boost the growth (38%) and to fight inflation (37%). All priority that should be discussed in the months to come. Maybe, acting fast and brave, is not too late for the European Union to regain the confidence that once she had but that now the crisis has eroded.
