Trust in the European Union has further decreased (on average this year it has fallen to 38% from 64% seven years ago), and yet the sense of belonging to Europe (a lot or at least enough) is felt by 78 Italians out of a hundred. And among our compatriots the feeling of also being European citizens, despite being high (today it reaches 73%, four points less than a year and a half ago), is in any case significantly lower than that which refers to national, regional, provincial and municipal (certified between 82% and 84%). There are also few who claim to know enough about "what Europe does" (21%), and even fewer who get information on this issue (just 8%). Finally, the Italians are convinced that the euro has brought more disadvantages than advantages to Italy, but they consider a hypothetical return to the lira "a disaster for the economy".
These are the most important elements contained in the survey conducted by ISPO on behalf of the Representation in Italy of the European Commission, on “The Italians and the EU. A changing relationship?”, presented at the Spazio Europa in Rome. Results which, as can be deduced from the data just reported, show the coexistence of quite contradictory opinions and sentiments in public opinion, even if closely linked to the events that have taken place in recent times.
“We Italians were the most in favor of European integration. But when the request for greater rigor came from the EU – explained the president of ISPO Renato Mannheimer in presenting the survey – trust dropped”. In our collective imagination, Mannheimer himself said in March while interpreting a Eurobarometer survey on the same issues to the Commission in Rome, "Europe, by reducing the opportunities for citizens to derive advantages, has changed from an understanding mother into a strict stepmother ”.
Be that as it may, the survey now presented by Ispo shows that the level of trust of Italians in the European Union is in the middle of the table among the various institutions taken into consideration. Higher than against, in order, the union, the government, the Parliament and, lastly, the parties. But less than the police and carabinieri (in first place), the President of the Republic, the Catholic Church and the judiciary.
And on the other hand, it cannot be ignored that, again on the basis of the results of the survey, 51% of those questioned consider Italy's membership of the EU to be a “good thing”; while 37% are indifferent, and only 10% consider it negative. The positive orientation of a clear majority of the sample in their opinion on membership, then, is strengthened to some extent by the overall assessment of the European Union's work: which is favorable for 48%, even if unfavorable for 42%. The latter is a sign of "a fairly widespread and also understandable discontent", said Antonio Tajani commenting on the survey.
“This discontent – added the vice president of the European Commission – is not a refusal of belonging to the EU, but to this model of Europe. A model sketched out after the war, and no longer current in a profoundly changed world scenario. While the Italians, I am convinced, would like today a more social, more supportive and less rigorous Europe”.
Finally, as regards the Italians' lack of knowledge of European policies and procedures, "we need to explain them better," Tajani said. While Lucio Battistotti, director of the Representation, stated that he considered the ISPO survey a useful tool in view of a "fine-tuning" of the Commission's communication policy in Italy, in view of the year of European citizenship (2013) and the elections, the following year, of the European Parliament.
