Great concern about the economic situation, particularly with regard to taxation, and a wide space on media given to crime issues: with regard to social insecurity, Europe shows thought-provoking homogenous perceptions and beliefs.

That’s what results from the seventh “Report on safety and social insecurity in Italy and Europe”, carried out by the Osservatorio di Pavia, together with Fondazione Unipolis and Demos&Pi. The problems which worry those countries taken into consideration are mainly about economy: unemployment, family income, development and cost of living.

Specifically, taxes represent the major cause for concern for more than 7 out of 10 people in Italy and France, and more than 6 in Spain. In the United Kingdom and especially Germany, instead, fear concerning economic insecurity is markedly lower than the one related to social services and immigration.

The most particular and delicate situation is registered in Italy and Spain, where economic difficulties are emphasized by the concern for political uncertainty. Indeed, politics is considered as bribed and ineffective and is a cause for concern for almost 18% of the Italians (which hits 30% if we consider the secondary cause) and for 30% of the Spanish (55% in total).

The main issue concerning social insecurity pointed out by European media is about crime. In addition, news about the European Union are decreasing, at least during TV news: except for German TV news widely covering (7%) EU problems, other European news broadcasts devote only a narrow space (3,4%) to them. Politics is newspapers’ main issue (251 headlines on the front pages), followed by economic, cultural and foreign affairs.