The Optimism Gap

Eupinions is an independent platform for European public opinion launched in 2015 by the Bertelsmann Stiftung and supported since 2020 by the King Baudouin Foundation. The eupinions team collect, analyse and comment on what the European public thinks about current political issues and megatrends. eupinions employs cutting-edge data collection techniques. Every quarter, they collect samples from each EU member state in 22 languages. Europeans are personally optimistic, but pessimistic about their own country. A majority of Europeans look positively into their personal future, but negatively into the future of their own country. This optimism paradox runs through all social groups, age groups and countries. At the same time, the strong tendency of Europeans to have a pessimistic view of their own country's future has clear political implications - especially in terms of party preference. The full report is available on eupinions.eu.