EU survey: Slovenians happy with life, less with state
Brussels, 27 March - Slovenians are largely satisfied with their lives, while they are less happy with the developments in the country, shows a Eurobarometer winter survey published on Monday. Slovenians see issues in healthcare and inflation among the key challenges.
Ljubljana
Life in Slovenia.
Photo: Tamino Petelinšek/STA
The vast majority of Slovenians were satisfied with their lives this winter, with the 92% rate of satisfaction among the respondents putting Slovenia above the EU average of 83%.
Slovenians also rate the state of affairs in various areas in the country better than all EU citizens on average, shows the Standard Eurobarometer - Winter 2022-2023 survey for Slovenia.
A majority of Slovenians (56%) assess the current situation in the country as good, which is 15 percentage points above the EU average (41%).
Slovenians are divided when it comes to the state of the economy, while their assessment of the state of the EU economy is more optimistic, as 55% believe it to be good. This is higher than the EU average, which is two out of five.
However, respondents in Slovenia are more pessimistic regarding the direction in which the developments in Slovenia are going.
Just under half (48%) believe that Slovenia is going in the wrong direction, and only a third think the opposite.
Some 47% of the respondents from Slovenia are satisfied with the functioning of democracy in Slovenia, which is below the EU average, while Slovenians are slightly more satisfied with the functioning of democracy in the EU as a whole.
Slovenians are critical of the credibility of the national media - a majority of the respondents believe that they are not trustworthy, as they work under political or market pressure and that they often present misleading or incorrect information.
The respondents in Slovenia mostly do not expect many changes in economy in the next 12 months, with more than half (55%) thinking that their lives will not change in the next twelve months in this respect.
Some 23% of Slovenians expect changes for the better and 20% for the worse, shows the survey, conducted by Slovenian polling agency Mediana on some 1,000 respondents from 12 January and 6 February.
As for the main challenges that Slovenia is currently facing, the respondents ranked healthcare first (50%), followed by inflation and the increase in the cost of living (38%).
Slovenians are not sure that the way in which the Slovenian government and the EU responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine was right, with only 44% being satisfied with the response of the Slovenian government.
When it comes to support for Ukraine, Slovenians are more in favour of measures such as providing humanitarian aid to people affected by the war or welcoming people fleeing into the EU in comparison to the respondents in the EU on average.
They are less inclined than in the EU on average to economic or military measures, such as providing financial aid to Ukraine or imposing economic sanctions on Russia, the survey shows.