Eurobarometer shows Portugal stands out from European average
More than three quarters of Portuguese people want the European Union (EU) to play a “more important” role in protecting citizens of the 27 countries in the bloc.
The result from the latest Eurobarometer, shows Portugal stands out from the ‘European average’ when it comes to answering this question.
Promoted by the European Parliament and released today, the first Eurobarometer 2025 shows that 76% of Portuguese citizens surveyed considered that the EU should have a “more significant” role in security matters – that is 10 percentage points above the European average (66%).
Only 2% of Portuguese thought that the European Union should have a “less important” role, when at EU level 10% of the citizens surveyed thought that the political-economic bloc should meddle less in this issue.
With regard to the EU’s priorities for the coming years, Portuguese respondents prioritised competitiveness, economy and industry (41%), defence and security (39%), and food security and agriculture (31%) – again more than the average for the 27, which is 32%, 36% and 25% respectively.
However, Portuguese score below the European average (21%) when it comes to prioritising the EU’s values of democracy and protection of human rights. “Only 17% prioritised this issue out of the total number of national citizens surveyed”, explains Lusa.
Regarding the EU’s competitiveness – an issue that has gained particular interest since the United States announced that it could start penalising the EU with tariffs – 60% of Portuguese respondents have a negative opinion of the bloc’s competitiveness.
Portugal also stands out from the European average when the question is whether the 27 countries should be more united to face global challenges. At EU level, 51% of respondents answered that they totally agree with this idea, but only 39% of Portuguese are fully in favour of the need for greater union.
In contrast to the previous statistic, 65% of Portuguese think that in the coming years the EU’s role in the world will be “more important”, compared to 44 % who think this at EU level.
The Eurobarometer released today is the result of interviews with 26,354 citizens from the 27 countries of the European Union, of which 1,040 were Portuguese.
The interviews with national citizens were all conducted face-to-face between January 9 and January 29.
The survey at EU level also began on January 9 and ended on February 4.
Lusa
