What are the major threats to Greece? Apocalyptic research of diANEOsis

What are the thoughts of the Greeks about the great threats of the future for our country and for the world? What do they think about our country’s role in the European Union, about immigration and about sexual harassment? How did their views change after a huge economic crisis, a global pandemic and, now, a war on European soil? “What Do the Greeks Believe”, the great research of diANEOsis on the values ​​and attitudes of the Greeks in a series of important issues, returns with new, important findings. It is the sixth “wave” of an effort that began in 2015, in the heart of the era of memoranda, with the aim of recording the attitudes of citizens, the background on which our organization proposes solutions and reforms. And, as these were seven particularly episodic years, these surveys vividly documented how the Greeks dealt with and managed the unprecedented crises and world-historical events that shape our troubled times.

The new survey, conducted by research firm MARC SA, was conducted in two parts on a representative sample of the general population aged 17 and over, with telephone interviews and an online panel. The first part, the results of which are summarized below, ran to 1,255 people in the period 3-18 February 2022. Since the Russian army invaded Ukraine and started the war, five of the questions were repeated in the period 10-13 March 2022, to record any changes in the attitude of public opinion in relation to the previous period. These results of complementary research are also presented here today. The second part of the survey was conducted on a corresponding sample of 1,254 people between January 26 – February 5, 2022. The results of the second part will be published on April 17, 2022.

Summary of the findings of Part A.

Emotions, Threats & Dangers
The research, as MARC’s Thomas Gerakis writes in his accompanying report, “is being conducted in a period of outbreak of pre-existing insecurity and threats.” “It thus offers a valuable material”, points out Panagis Panagiotopoulos in his own report, “which not only reflects the moods and perceptions that prevail in every moment, the feeling of each crisis, but also the cumulative importance of the multiple crises faced by the Greek society in recent years “.

At this juncture, as expected, the emotions that prevail in Greek society are “insecurity” (28.8%) and frustration (28.5%). The feeling of “optimism” has declined a lot (from 23.4% who declared it as the dominant emotion in 2019 to 13.7% this year). “It is indisputable that the pandemic has had negative psychosocial effects on the population, both internationally and in Greece,” Marina Oikonomou-Lalioti wrote in her own accompanying report. “In our country, however, the onset of the pandemic has already left us burdened by the previous economic crisis, which was equally characterized by upheaval, instability, insecurity and symbolic losses. , such as the loss of life and the meaning of death, activating primordial fears, instincts and traumas that had not been touched by the previous crisis “.

Of course, as is usually the case with these surveys, not all sections of the population say they feel the same way. For example, respondents who state that their monthly personal income is “over 3,000 euros per month” also state that they have the highest percentage of optimism of all (27%) – optimism is the most common emotion for them.

In another question, the biggest threat that the Greeks recognize for our country is the “demographic”, with the Greek-Turkish relations and the economic situation following. Interestingly, in 2022, 9% consider “immigration” to be the first threat, up from 21.7% who believed in 2019. Although the Covid pandemic continued to cause dozens of deaths daily during the survey period, only 2% , 2% chose the “diseases-pandemics” as the first threat to our country. Which group, then, treats demographics as the least immediate risk? Young people 17-24, who classify it as a threat equivalent to “terrorism”.

For the planet in general, however, most Greeks now consider “wars and conflicts” to be a more significant threat (33.2%). This is a result that changed dramatically in a few weeks – was one of the questions we repeated in March 2022, after the Russian army invaded Ukraine. In February ’22, when we asked the same question, only 13.3% considered war the biggest threat – the majority then (31.6%) considered climate change to be a major threat, with “economic inequalities and difficulties” follow.

There are other changes that have occurred in the attitudes of citizens since the start of the war in Ukraine. Although these changes may be cyclical and temporary, they are of great interest, even as a record of the influence that exogenous factors have on the attitudes of the respondents.

We asked citizens, for example, to tell us whether eight words that describe a person’s national or religious identity or any other characteristic of a person represent, in their opinion, something “good” or “bad”. In the March poll, the majority chose the words “Turks” (60.3%), “Muslims” (47.9%), “Germans” (48.4%) and “immigrants” (42) as “bad”. , 8%). More “good” than “bad” ratings were “Americans” (49.3% considered them “good”), “Jews” (46.3%), “refugees” (55.4%) and the “Russians” (48.7%). The last two have seen a remarkable change since the start of the war. Before the war, at the beginning of February 2022, the percentage of respondents who considered the “refugees” something good was 47.1% (and in 2019 it was only 40.6%). The percentage that considered the Russians “good” at that time was 58%. It is noteworthy, however, that this percentage was significantly reduced from 77.4% that was recorded in 2016. As Th. Gerakis writes in his report, “for the first time the positive predisposition towards Americans is recorded, even marginally “higher than the positive predisposition towards the Russians”.

In March 2022, moreover, we repeated a question we had asked in the research of December 2019, seeking the opinion of Greeks for a number of international personalities. During this period, the positive opinions about Emmanuel Macron jumped from 48% to 65.1% – and so in the 2022 survey, Macron becomes the only international figure who gathers more positive than negative opinions from the Greeks. The biggest change, of course, lies in the image of Vladimir Putin. In December 2019, 41.3% of Greeks had a positive opinion of the President of Russia. In March 2022, only 18.8% stated that they have a positive opinion. Only Angela Merkel (70.2%) and Tayyip Erdogan (89.9%) have higher percentages of negative views than Putin. It is noteworthy, however, that more than half of the Greeks do not know or have not formed an opinion about the President of China Xi Jinping.

Another interesting finding related to external threats is reflected in the question “which of the following countries are Greece’s best allies in its foreign affairs”. In it there is an answer which prevails over all others. We remind you that the question was asked at a time when the agreement for the supply of high value defense equipment from France had been completed, while the French President’s initiatives in the eastern Mediterranean had preceded during a period of particularly intense mobility of our anxious neighbors. Therefore, when asked to name one of Greece’s best allies today, 64.9% of Greeks chose France. In addition, the Greeks evaluate as “second best” allies of our country – by a very large margin – the USA and Israel. Here was another change after the start of the war in Ukraine: the percentage of Greeks who chose Russia as one of Greece’s two most important allies was reduced by half (from 15.2% to 7.5%).

What about the threats that occupied the Greeks at the time of the investigation? As always, Greeks are concerned about the effects of climate change on their lives – possibly a consequence of the collective experience of forest fires and the increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events. 43.8% of Greeks believe that climate change “negatively affects their lives today” and 45.2% that “it will negatively affect them in the future”. Looking at the previous surveys we see that in recent years there is a gradual transition of the majority from the second to the first answer (the ratio in 2018 was 39.5% – 52.8%). However, over time, the percentage of Greeks who believe that climate change is not a danger remains in single digits.

As for the pandemic, no, society has settled on a realistic approach. In February 2022, 81.5% of respondents said they had received at least one dose of the Covid vaccine (93.3% over the age of 65) and less than 10% said they would not be vaccinated. More than half of the Greeks now believe that regarding the pandemic, our country will return to a “normal daily life” sometime from 2023 onwards.

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