SPANIARDS are the most pro-European and least nationalist of all EU citizens according to the latest Eurobarometer study.
Nearly nine in 10 agree with European migration policies and over eight in 10 believe ‘fake news’ is a big problem for democracy.
Whilst on average, 71% of EU nationals identify more as ‘European’ than as purely citizens of their own country, in Spain this rises to 83%.
A total of 66% of Spaniards say they feel very much a part of the European Union, compared to an average of 56% across the bloc, and 86% feel closer to Spain than to Europe – a number that rises to 91% over the rest of the continent in relation to their own countries.
Spaniards are more likely to feel emotional ties to, or identify with, their town or village; this is the case with 92% of those interviewed, compared with 89% on average for the EU-28; largely, it is thought, because of the autonomously-governed region system, since each region is effectively a ‘country within a country’ with a very different culture, landscape, microclimate and, in some cases, co-official language.
The European Union, for Spaniards, signifies freedom to travel, study and work, and secondly, the convenience of a common currency, whilst they also appreciate the huge diversity of culture and language across the continent.
Spanish nationals are not as confident as other Europeans at their ability to detect ‘fake news’, or false claims that affect public thinking – nearly eight in 10 Spaniards believe they have stumbled across these cases fairly frequently, although the European average is 68%; but whilst an EU average of 58% says they find it easy to detect false stories, only 52% of Spaniards do so.
Read mroe at thinkSPAIN.com