Croats are showing significantly more interest in the 2024 elections to the European Parliament than in the last elections five years ago. Poverty, health, employment and defence are seen as the most important issues.

These are the results of a Eurobarometer survey published on Wednesday. According to the survey, 61% of Croats are interested in the European elections. This is 4 percentage points more than in the last survey six months ago and 24 percentage points more than in the survey before the last election in 2019.

The European elections are held every five years in the 27 EU member countries. Voters decide who will represent them in the European Parliament, the bloc’s only democratically elected institution.

60 per cent of EU citizens are interested in the elections in June

Voter interest in the European elections has increased in almost all Member States, with the largest increase in Croatia. This is followed by the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Finland and Spain.

If the election were held next week, 57% of Croatians would vote according to the survey, 4 percentage points more than in the last poll and 15 percentage points more than in 2019.

Overall, 60 per cent of EU citizens are interested in the June elections, an increase of 11 percentage points.

More than eight in ten Europeans (81%) believe that voting is even more important given the current geopolitical situation, with 79 per cent of respondents in Croatia agreeing with this statement.

In the Eurobarometer survey, poverty was cited as the main problem (33%), closely followed by public health (32%). In addition, 31% of respondents also cited the economy, job creation, defence and security as important campaign issues.

Croatia had one of the lowest voter turnouts in 2019

The fight against climate change, which was still in third place in the 2023 year-end survey, fell to fifth place in this survey. 27% of respondents stated that this was a priority.

In the last elections in 2019, Croatia had one of the lowest voter turnouts, lower only in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia. At EU level, there was a turnaround in voter turnout in 2019. 50.82 per cent of voters cast their vote in the 2019 elections, compared to only 42 per cent in the last elections in 2014.

Around 400 million voters in the European Union are entitled to elect 720 Members of the European Parliament.

The Spring 2024 Eurobarometer on the European Parliament was conducted by pollster Verian (formerly Kantar) between 7 February and 3 March 2024 in all 27 EU Member States. The survey was conducted face-to-face, with additional video interviews (CAVI) used in Denmark, Finland, Malta and the Czech Republic. A total of 26,411 interviews were conducted between 25 September and 15 October, including 1,033 in Croatia. The results for the EU were weighted according to the size of the population in the individual countries.