The level of trust in the European Union among Czechs has dropped from 58% to 46% compared to last year. Trust in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations (UN) has also significantly decreased compared to the previous year, to 56% and 52% respectively.
These are the results of a survey conducted by the Center for Public Opinion Research (CVVM) from late March to the end of May of the current year. The previous survey took place in July of last year.
According to the survey authors, the trust of the Czech public in the UN, NATO, and the EU is strongly interconnected: if people trust one of these organizations, the likelihood that they will trust the other two is significantly higher.
“At the same time, the trust between NATO and the European Union is somewhat stronger, while the connection between trust in the European Union and the UN is somewhat weaker, although still significant,” they added.
In this year’s survey, distrust of the EU prevailed over trust, with half of the respondents answering negatively. 4% of the respondents said they did not know.
36% do not trust NATO, and 37% do not trust the UN. The proportion of those who trust NATO and the UN has decreased by 11 percentage points compared to the previous year. A year ago, in July, 67% of Czechs trusted the North Atlantic Alliance, and 63% trusted the UN.
“For the UN and the NATO, this is a return to the levels reached in 2020 and 2021,” stated the CVVM.
From 2003 to 2011, the level of trust of Czech citizens in the European Union fluctuated around 55%, except for 2004 when it reached its record value of 64%, and 2007 when it halved.
The most significant decline in trust in the EU occurred in 2012 and 2016, reaching 40% and 37% respectively, which, according to the authors of the study, was related to the economic and migration crisis. “Last year, trust significantly increased, and in the current year, on the contrary, it has fallen to the level of 2017,” the CVVM report states.
The NATO earned the least trust from 2003 to 2009, and in 2010 its trust value equaled that of the EU, and in subsequent years, from 2010 to 2020, it slightly exceeded it.
Last year, the proportions of those who trusted the UN, NATO, and the EU were almost equal. Last year, trust in NATO was the highest among the three institutions mentioned in the study for the first time.
On the other hand, the UN has long been the most trusted of all the organizations surveyed, although trust in it dropped from a record high of 70% to 55% from 2004 to 2007. Then the level of trust in the UN fluctuated and reached 68% in 2015. This year, from March 27 to May 22, CVVM surveyed 834 people aged 15 and older.
This article was published on VOICE OF EUROPE
