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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