António Pedro Santos / LUSA
Portugal is the Member State of the European Union where citizens are most concerned about “uncontrolled migratory flows” and also about “natural disasters worsened by climate change”.
At a time when the country is being hit by successive storms, the autumn Eurobarometer (carried out long before these events), released this Wednesday, revealed that the Portuguese are the European Union citizens most concerned about “natural disasters worsened by climate change.
This is the biggest concern of the Portuguese: nine out of ten (91%) citizens say they are “very worried” with these phenomena, well above the European average (68%).
The report highlights that concern about climate change is particularly visible in Mediterranean countries: around three in four citizens from Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Spain and Croatia express concern about the state of the environment, unlike northern and central European countries such as Estonia (28%), the Czech Republic (42%) and Denmark (44%).
“These differences may in part reflect recent experience with extreme weather events, such as heat waves or forest fires, which tend to affect southern Europe more severely”, explains Eurobarometer.
88% of respondents in Portugal also declare themselves “very concerned” about “uncontrolled migratory flows”a value well above the European average (65%) and which places the country in first place among the 27 Member States of the European Union (EU).
The only countries that come close to Portugal’s rate are Cyprus (86%), Greece (84%), Malta and Italy (81%) – all countries on the Mediterranean coast –, which contrasts with significantly lower levels in northern European member states, such as Sweden (32%) or Denmark (48%).
Other concerns of the Portuguese
In addition to migratory flows and climate change, the Portuguese also express concern about the terrorism (74%), conflicts and wars at EU borders (71%) and threats to freedom of expression (70%).
Despite these concerns, the Portuguese are the tenth population that expresses the greatest optimism about the future of the EU: around 64% of respondents say they are optimistic, above the European average of 57%.
The Portuguese are, in fact, among the citizens most in favor of the European projectwith 84% of respondents considering that the fact that Portugal belongs to the European Union is “a good thing” (compared to 62% at European level).
A large majority even calls for the European project to be strengthened: around 96% of Portuguese respondents say they agree with the statement that “EU Member States must strengthen their union to face current global challenges” (compared to a European average of 89%) and 90% call for the EU to be provided with more resources (compared to 73% at European level).
When asked what should be the first priority of the European Parliament, 68% of Portuguese say it is public health, followed by inflation, rising prices and cost of living (58%) and the economy and job creation (45%).
This Eurobarometer was based on interviews with 26,453 European citizens, carried out between 6 and 30 November 2025. In Portugal, 1,037 citizens were interviewed, between 7 and 26 November.
