In 2019, Germans are “significantly more optimistic” than a year before and as “relaxed” as they were 25 years ago, according to a survey.
The survey conducted by the German Insurer R+V and presented on Thursday, said: “The mood in Germany has improved.
“Due to a decline in almost all concerns, the fear index, the average of all fears surveyed, is falling from 47 per cent to 39 per cent and thus reaches its lowest value since 1994,” said Brigitte Roemsted, head of the R+V InfoCenter, at the presentation.
However, the overall improvement in sentiment should not obscure the fact that the “current political problems would cause considerable concern to more than one in two German citizens.
“For four years now, political concerns have been suppressing all other fears.
“The focus here is on overburdening politicians and threatening social tensions,” the insurer stated.
According to R+V, the greatest fear among Germans (56 per cent) was that the government would be overwhelmed by the large number of refugees.
However, the figure had fallen from 63 per cent last year.
The second most common concern among Germans, at 55 per cent, was that the continued immigration to Germany would lead to tensions between Germans and migrants, who already live in Germany.
According to the survey, almost as many Germans are concerned about the state of foreign policy.
Traditionally, Germans also fear that their own politicians are overburdened by their tasks.
At 47 per cent, this fear came in fourth place this year, but had 14 percentage points below the previous year’s figure.
“That the harsh verdict of respondents on the politicians in 2019 has eased is due to the fact that the endlessly long formation of the government after the 2017 federal elections had been completed,” commented Manfred Schmidt, political scientist at the Ruprecht-Karls-University in Heidelberg.
For the first time, unaffordable housing appeared in the “Fears of Germans 2019” rankings.
According to the survey, almost every second citizen is very afraid that housing in Germany would become unaffordable.
Respondents were particularly relaxed about their own economic situation.
Only around one in four said they feared to lose their job.
According to R+V, this figure has never been so low since the survey started in 1992.
R+V contacts around 2,400 Germans of 14 years and older every year, asking them about their greatest political, economic, personal and ecological fears. (Xinhua/NAN)
