Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. So new polling from
Speaker 1: Yugo from across nine EU countries is giving us a
Speaker 1: fresh insight into the biggest political issues facing the continent
Speaker 1: and how voters think their governments and the European Union
Speaker 1: is handling them. The company surveyed more than a thousand
Speaker 1: people in countries including France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland
Speaker 1: and Jema Connor Associate director Yugov joins me now in
Speaker 1: studio for more to discuss JMA, good morning. Let's start
Speaker 1: with some of the big issues in this survey as well.
Speaker 1: We know that inflation has come down massively in the
Speaker 1: Euro Area since twenty twenty two, but economic and cost
Speaker 1: of living issues still very prominent across your survey. How
Speaker 1: does that play out among the various countries where you
Speaker 1: survey people.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so. If we look at the data from these
Speaker 2: nine European countries, we can see that there's generally a
Speaker 2: pretty gloomy outlook from their national economies. People generally think
Speaker 2: that their government is doing a bad job of managing
Speaker 2: the economy, and actually the EU do a bad job
Speaker 2: for managing the European economy as well. If we look
Speaker 2: particularly at the cost of living. People are struggling. We
Speaker 2: ask one particular question where we ask about people's personal
Speaker 2: experiences of the cost of living, and people generally finding
Speaker 2: that they're having to make cuts or they expect to
Speaker 2: make cuts in the future. This has particularly felt quite
Speaker 2: strongly in Romania where fifty eight percent of people so
Speaker 2: they've already made cuts to their typical spending at home
Speaker 2: and expect to make further cuts in the future. So
Speaker 2: people really struggling at the moment and actually expect to
Speaker 2: continue to struggle into the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the perceptions of the future are very interesting
Speaker 1: here as well. How worried are people about their future
Speaker 1: economically and sort of the risks of a downturn of
Speaker 1: the economy.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, so we ask a question where we say, what
Speaker 2: do you think the economy will look like in twelve
Speaker 2: months time? And people are really negative here. So across
Speaker 2: most of the countries people think that the economy will
Speaker 2: be in recession. The only outlier here is Denmark, where
Speaker 2: forty two percent think that the economy will be stable,
Speaker 2: but that is stable rather than growing. There's no country
Speaker 2: where people who actually have a positive outlook in that
Speaker 2: next year or so you.
Speaker 1: Tackle some of the big fiscal questions in this survey
Speaker 1: as well, and in particular around defense spending, something that
Speaker 1: many European countries have been ramping up. They're spending on that,
Speaker 1: provoking difficult decisions as we know about what exactly the
Speaker 1: governments are going to choose to spend their money on
Speaker 1: as well. How supportive are the Europeans that you surveyed
Speaker 1: of increasing spending on defense.
Speaker 2: So when it comes to defense, geography really matters. So
Speaker 2: those countries that are closest to Russia or at most
Speaker 2: a threat from Russia have really different attitudes to those
Speaker 2: in more western Europe. So countries like Poland Romania are
Speaker 2: much more supportive of increasing financial spending contriting more to NATO.
Speaker 2: They're also much more likely to say that NATO is
Speaker 2: important to their country's defense. And when we ask what
Speaker 2: they think of the biggest threats face in Europe, those
Speaker 2: countries that are at threat from Russia and feel most
Speaker 2: threatened are most likely to say that Ussian aggression is
Speaker 2: the biggest threat face in the whole of Europe.
Speaker 1: And I was interested in the way that the question
Speaker 1: around the fans banding was phrase because it did make
Speaker 1: reference to the other difficult decisions that governments have to
Speaker 1: make and that what do they support it regardless of
Speaker 1: the other issues that those governments are facing. So it's
Speaker 1: an interesting one to reflect on as well. I want
Speaker 1: to also touch on some of the issues around technology,
Speaker 1: which you covered in this survey, because particularly the use
Speaker 1: of AI and who's using it and where, because it
Speaker 1: perhaps may not be as widespread as we may otherwise
Speaker 1: have thought.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely so, people generally have an idea of what
Speaker 2: AI is. They're less sure about the issues around AI,
Speaker 2: and they're really not sure about whether it's a positive
Speaker 2: or negative thing in terms of use. Often there's quite
Speaker 2: a few people who've never used AI at all for
Speaker 2: either work or for leisure. Particularly for work. For example,
Speaker 2: forty percent of those in France say they've never used
Speaker 2: AI for work, and there is more uptake in countries
Speaker 2: like the Netherlands of Romania where people slightly more likely
Speaker 2: to say that they're using AI. But the jury is
Speaker 2: still really out on AI for the public.
Speaker 1: And you did also ask as well about the question
Speaker 1: of regulation of this technology, because of course the EU
Speaker 1: has its AI Act. It's something that's been quite controversial.
Speaker 1: It's come up, for example, and negotiations with the US
Speaker 1: over trade as well. What's the view among the public
Speaker 1: of how the EU is regulating AI.
Speaker 2: This is one area where the public are very certain
Speaker 2: how they feel. So they may not know that much
Speaker 2: about AI, they may not know how they personally feel
Speaker 2: about it, but they're absolutely certain that the AI industry
Speaker 2: should be regulated over being allowed to kind of roam
Speaker 2: free and innovate as quickly as it may want to.
Speaker 2: A majority across all countries polled feel that regulation is
Speaker 2: more important than that development.
Speaker 1: Which is I think very interesting in the conversation that
Speaker 1: we're having around AI as well. Now we're speaking to
Speaker 1: you just ahead of European leaders arriving in Brussels for
Speaker 1: the European Council later this week. In terms of a
Speaker 1: big picture conclusion for policymakers out of your sera as well,
Speaker 1: where do people feel like they should be focusing their
Speaker 1: efforts in terms of the policy sphere.
Speaker 2: It's certainly the economy. The economy is a big issue
Speaker 2: for many countries, but actually the threat from Russia is
Speaker 2: very real for those countries that are certainly geographically closer
Speaker 2: or are in a strategic position for Russia. So places
Speaker 2: like Denmark with the Baltic Passage and those countries are
Speaker 2: feeling the threat from Russia and they're very supportive of
Speaker 2: having more cooperation from the US, between the US and
Speaker 2: the EU on security matters. They want NATO to be
Speaker 2: playing a role, they want that defense, They want countries
Speaker 2: to be contributing more to NATO to really feel that
Speaker 2: they are being protected, and that threat from Russia is
Speaker 2: very real. In Western Europe, the issue is more cost
Speaker 2: of living that that is something that people are feeling
Speaker 2: the pinch still and they don't feel that their national
Speaker 2: governments or the EU are doing enough to support them
Speaker 2: at the moment.