Fact check: Which country is the safest in Europe?

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Fact check: Which country is the safest in Europe?  European countries are often touted as some of the safest in the world, and various rankings indeed consistently place them at the top of the list.  READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/09/22/fact-check-which-country-is-the-safest-in-europe  Subscribe to our channel. Euronews is available on Dailymotion in 12 languages

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00:00Which is the safest country in Europe?

00:05A politician in Spain's ruling party recently claimed that the country is one of the safest in the world

00:11during a plenary session in the lower house of the Spanish parliament.

00:15¿No se da cuenta usted que el fondo es su discurso hablando de un problema de seguridad ciudadana en nuestro país

00:21que es uno de los países con los ratios de seguridad ciudadana mayores del mundo?

00:26¿No se da cuenta que ese discurso lo único que hace es engordar a la ultraderecha?

00:29To see how valid his claims about the safety of Spain are and how the rest of Europe compares,

00:34we can take a look at different indices.

00:36The Global Peace Index measures the levels of societal safety and security,

00:40the extent of domestic and international conflict and the degree of militarisation in a given country.

00:47This year it ranks Spain as the 25th safest country in the world, out of 163.

00:53In fact, Europe dominated the top of the table.

00:55Four of the top five safest countries in the world were European.

00:59Iceland, Ireland, Austria and Switzerland, and eight European countries made the top ten.

01:05Eurostat can also shed light on which EU countries are considered the safest.

01:10One of the quality of life indicators that it records is physical safety,

01:14covering rates of homicide, violence and vandalism.

01:16In the most recent data set, Luxembourg had the lowest number of recorded homicides relative to its population size and per 100,000 people.

01:25Italy, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Austria came next, with Spain coming in as the sixth lowest.

01:31Our colleagues at Europe in Motion also recently reported on perceived crime,

01:36violence and vandalism in citizens' neighbourhoods, based on Eurostat data.

01:40Here, Croatia, Lithuania and Poland are seen as the safest countries based on citizens' experiences.

01:47And while Spain does have some of the worst rates in this index,

01:51it's still true that it's generally among the safest countries in the world.

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