Around 74 percent of people in Finland think that the EU has an influence on their daily lives, according to results from the latest Eurobarometer survey, the results of which the European Parliament published on Tuesday.
Across the rest of the EU, pollsters found that around 71 percent of respondents think the EU influences their lives every day.
People in Finland as well as the rest of the EU seem to be increasingly interested in next year's EU Parliamentary elections, with more than half (56 percent) of all respondents already interested in the 2024 vote. That is six percentage points more than in 2018, ahead of the previous EU elections.
Around 64 percent of people in Finland said they are interested in the June 2024 EU elections, while in 2018 that figure was 57 percent, according to a press release from the Office of the European Parliament in Finland.
The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, urged Europeans to make their voices heard next year.
"Elections matter. By voting, you can show support for topics that are important to you. I urge everyone, especially young people, to vote and influence the kind of Europe they want to live in," she said in the release.
Ukraine support, financial worries
The Eurobarometer also found that people in the bloc are particularly satisfied with how the EU has supported Ukraine in its defence against Russia's invasion. Around 69 percent of respondents in the EU said they were satisfied with the measures of support the EU has offered Ukraine.
In Finland, Sweden and Ireland that ratio reached 87 percent. Those in the Netherlands (90%) were most satisfied with the support, while Slovakia (45%) and Greece (48%) were least satisfied.
The survey found that people in the EU are concerned about the economy and their own personal financial situation.
Half of all of the respondents said their standard of living had recently declined and expected it to continue to worsen into next year.
Meanwhile, 29 percent said their standard of living had not deteriorated but expect it to do so next year.
In Finland, 34 percent of respondents said their standard of living had worsened, and 30 percent said they expect their standard of living to worsen next year.
Looking for solutions
This situation has raised people's expectations for concrete solutions to these problems, according to the Finland's Office of the European Parliament.
Nearly two-thirds of all respondents (65%) voiced dissatisfaction with how their home country has tried to solve the cost-of-living crisis, while 57% of respondents said they are not satisfied with what the EU has done to ease the situation.
At the same time, 55 percent of respondents in Finland said they were not satisfied with the Finnish government's solutions to ease the cost-of-living crisis, while 52 percent were dissatisfied with the EU's actions to resolve those problems.
Commissioned by the European Parliament, the spring 2023 Eurobarometer survey was carried out by polling firm Kantar in March in face-to-face interviews.
Video interviews were also conducted in Malta, Finland, Denmark and the Czech Republic. A total of 26,376 interviews were conducted, 1,011 of them in Finland. The results for the entire EU were weighted according to the size of the population of each country.
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