Plenary Insights – October II 2021 

Each plenary session, DG Communication provides Members with relevant public opinion data on key topics on the agenda:

• Rule of Law Crisis in Poland/Primacy of EU Law: Are things going in the right or wrong direction? Asked this question in Parliament’s latest survey (EP SOTEU Flash Eurobarometer), 33% of Poles say the EU is going in the right direction, 26% believe it’s going in the wrong direction. Yet asked the same question about their own country, 64% of Poles say things in their country were going in the wrong direction - with only 14 % seeing a movement in the right direction.
• UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow: More than nine out of ten would consider climate change a serious problem. Within the EU, 63% of respondents believe that first of all national governments are responsible for tackling climate change, ahead of business, industry and the EU. (Special Eurobarometer on Climate Change)
• Farm to Fork Strategy: For a majority of Europeans, taste, food safety and cost are more important than sustainability concerns when buying food, according to a Special Eurobarometer on “Making our food fit for the future – new trends and challenges.” And what do citizens think are the most important characteristics of ‘sustainable’ food? “Nutritious and healthy” (41%) as well as “little or no use of pesticides” (32%) are the most prominent answers.
• EU Transparency in the Development, Purchase and Distribution of COVID-19 Vaccines: A majority of citizens (65%) agree that the EU is playing a key role in ensuring access to COVID-19 vaccines. However, nearly six out of ten (59%) also agree that public authorities are not sufficiently transparent about COVID-19 vaccines. (EP SOTEU Flash Eurobarometer)
• Europe’s Media in the Digital Decade: Online social networks have become ubiquitous in most people’s daily lives across the EU. More than half of Europeans say they have used WhatsApp (60%) or Facebook (56%) in the last seven days, while around half have used YouTube (49%), followed by Messenger (32%), according to the EP’s Spring Eurobarometer. The Digital News Report 2021 by the Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford finds that the coronavirus crisis has hastened the demise of printed newspapers. New business models such as subscription and membership have been accelerated by the crisis.
• Commission Work Programme 2022: Parliament’s SOTEU Flash Eurobarometer asked which issues the European Parliament should pursue as top political priorities. Citizens put climate change in first place, backed by 43% of citizens. Further priorities for citizens are the fight against poverty and social exclusion (32%), support for the economy and the creation of new jobs as well as fight against terrorism (both 31%).