According to Sapo news, the report, which assesses the perception of Portuguese people regarding politics, was executed by the statistical database of the Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos, using data from the Eurobarometer 2023.

As maintained by the study, eight out of 10 respondents in Portugal tend to not trust political parties, in line with the trend in 19 of the 27 European Union countries, where more than 70 percent of people also do not believe in political parties.

Data from the European Social Survey indicates Portugal is among the four countries where citizens trust their ability to participate in politics the least (83 percent), followed by Slovakia (84 percent) and Latia and Czechia (83 percent).

Portada also highlighted that 73 percent of Portuguese citizens recognise that the system does not allow, or limits, people’s influence in politics, which is shared by more than half of the countries analysed, with the exception of Norway, Switzerland, Finland, Iceland and the Netherlands, where political systems are considered to allow people some degree of influence.

More than half of respondents in Portugal stated they are satisfied with the national democracy (56 percent), a figure slightly above the European average. National respondents who revealed dissatisfaction with Portuguese politics stood at 43 percent.

Regarding interest in politics, the Portuguese and Italians are the Europeans who spend the most time watching, listening or reading news about politics or current affairs (more than two hours a day), with four out of 10 people in Portugal expressing a lot or some interest in the topic.

Despite ranking as one of the European countries where citizens invest the most time in the subject, information by the Euro barometer indicated 32 percent of Portuguese people stated they never talk about politics with friends and family, with only 10 percent saying they frequently discuss the topic, a figure below the European average of 25 percent.

As for political positioning, taking into account the left-right spectrum, 31 percent of respondents in the country claim to be neutral, 28 percent indicated an inclination to the left, and 19 percent to the right, compared to the European average of 38 percent neutrality, a 28 percent inclination to the left and 23 percent to the right.

The study also emphasised that 16 percent of respondents did not know how to answer the question, and that 6 percent refused to answer.

With regards to the justice system, Portugal is among the nine countries in Europe in which more than half of respondents do not tend to trust the justice system, a figure nine percentage points above the European average of 44 percent.

On the other hand, more than half of respondents (54 percent) in Portugal tend to trust the European Union, compared to 47 percent of the European average.