00:01A spectre is again haunting Europe, but this time that spectre is anxiety.
00:05According to the newly released Eurobarometer, which surveyed over 26,000 respondents this spring,
00:12inflation and the cost of living have jumped to become again the top priority,
00:16but this time for almost half of EU citizens.
00:18But hey, whether you live in Lisbon or Budapest, your reporter is quite sure you've noticed that.
00:24But the numbers also reveal other truths, so let's break them down together.
00:30The EU experiences now a quiet crisis of confidence.
00:33Nearly a third of all Europeans now expect their personal standard of living to deteriorate over the next five years.
00:40And that pessimism reveals a stark generational divide.
00:43While almost one in five of young people brace for tougher times,
00:47this economic anxiety climbs to one in three among those aged 55 and over.
00:52And Western European heavyweights are leading the charts.
00:55In France, 44% of citizens expect a decline.
00:58Germany and Austria are equally gloomy, with 38% of their citizens bracing for a drop in their standard of
01:04living.
01:05But if we zoom out into Central Eastern Europe, the outlook remains remarkably resilient.
01:10In Poland and Hungary, fewer than one in ten people expect their situation to worsen.
01:15And while life gets tougher, faith in Brussels goes down as well.
01:18One third of Bulgarians, Greeks and Austrians, together with 28% of French and Italian respondents,
01:25now declared their nations have not benefited from EU membership.
01:29But here goes the surprise.
01:31Despite the economic gloom, optimism for the future of the EU stands at 59%,
01:35which is much higher than the outlook for the wider world, or even citizens' own countries.
01:41And let me leave you with something positive.
01:43Three out of four still agree that their nation has benefited from the bloc,
01:47and view the EU as a vital place of stability in a troubled world.
01:52And all of that leaves the continent suspended between its two most dominant emotional states.
01:57Uncertainty and hope.
01:58So let's hope that this uncertainty will be over soon.
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