Slovenians trust firefighters and Civil Protection the most, are proud of the country's athletes, divided over immigrants, believe that corruption is widespread, while a majority also find abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriages acceptable, a survey into various aspects of the public opinion has shown.

The 2023/24 Slovenian Public Opinion survey was conducted by the Public Opinion and Mass Communication Research Centre at the Ljubljana Faculty of Social Sciences from 2 November 2023 to 2 February 2024 on a sample of 1,089 adults.

Capital punishment, same-sex marriage, euthanasia

The capital punishment is not acceptable for almost half of the respondents, against 36% who think reverse. Almost 76% find abortion acceptable, against almost 14% who do not.

For almost 53% of those polled, same-sex marriages are acceptable, whereas slightly more than a third do not approve of them.

Euthanasia is acceptable for 63.5% of respondents and unacceptable for 17.4%.

View on immigrants

Regarding immigrants who live in Slovenia, 43% of the respondents agree or strongly agree with the claim that crime is increasing because of them, against 26% who disagree.

More than 45% of the people polled agree or strongly agree with the idea that immigrants generally benefit the Slovenian nation, while just under 20% disagree.

The same proportion of the respondents agree with the claim that immigrants are taking jobs that would otherwise be held by people born in Slovenia, while around 48% disagree or do not agree at all with this.

Almost 30% of the people polled agree that immigrants improve Slovenian society by bringing new ideas and cultures, against almost 35% who disagree.

Around half of respondents believe that people born in Slovenia should have advantage over immigrants in terms of employment, housing or healthcare; around 27% disagree.

Almost 47% think that the number of immigrants should be reduced, 30% think that it should stay at the current level, and around 6% believe it should increase.

Trust in institutions

Asked to mark the extent to which they trust individual institutions on a scale of 0 to 10, respondents put firefighters on top with a 9.05 score, ahead of Civil Protection (8.30) and the Armed Forces (6.01).

Also above the five mark are the police (5.97) and intelligence and security services (5.16), while the National Assembly (3.89), government (3.76) and the church and priests (3.27) trail in at the bottom of the list.

Corruption seen as widespread

As for the prevalence of corruption in public services, just under 9% of those polled said almost everybody is involved in corruption, and almost 46% believe that many are involved in corruption.

More than 35% believe that a small number of people are involved in corruption, and less than 1% of the respondents believe that almost nobody in Slovenia is involved in corruption.

Media bias

More than 53% agree or strongly agree with the claim that media reporting on politics in Slovenia is biased, against almost 10% who disagree.

Over 49% follow politics in mass media at least once a day, 5% never do, while 16% follow it one to two times a week.

What makes Slovenians proud

As the survey looked to understand the role of a citizen and national identity, the respondents were also asked to say how proud they are of certain things related to Slovenia on a scale from 1 to 4 (from very proud to not proud at all).

They are the proudest of the achievements of Slovenian athletes (1.27), followed by achievements in the arts and literature (1.78), Slovenian history (1.93), and achievements in business (2.32).

The respondents are the least proud of how democracy functions in the country (2.92) and of Slovenia's political influence on a global scale (2.98).

Dissatisfaction with politics

The survey also showed declining ratings for parliamentary parties since the election almost two years ago. The Freedom Movement of Prime Minister Robert Golob lost the largest share of supporters, going from 39% to 12%, while the opposition Democrats (SDS) went from 19% to 17.5%.

As many as 36% of the respondents are undecided, and almost 12% would not go to the polls.

Commenting on the survey for the newspaper Delo, Dejan Verčič, a professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, said "the largest party in Slovenia is the 'We Are Appalled' party", referring to the undecided.