Malta and Turkey rank highest on religion in Europe

Two special Eurobarometer reports have just been published by the European Commission entitled 'Europeans, science and technology' and 'Values, science and technology'. The main objective of the 'Europeans, science and technology' poll was to gather Europeans’ general attitudes towards science and technology. It analysed European citizens’ interest in and knowledge and image of science and technology as well as their attitudes towards these domains.

The underlying objective of the 'Values, science and technology' poll was to gather Europeans’ views on social values and ethics as well as citizens’ perceptions of actors involved in science and technology as well as the decision-making procedure. The final objective was to assess the perceived influence of ethics on science and technology in the future. The studies cover the populations of the EU member states, of the candidate countries (Bulgaria, Romania Croatia and Turkey) and the three EFTA countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) - a total of 570 million people. From today's Times of Malta:

Belief in God and in the dignity of unborn human life is more widespread in Malta than in any other European Union country, according to a survey published yesterday in Brussels. Ninety-five per cent of the Maltese believe that "there is a God" and a further three per cent believe that "there is some sort of spirit or life force". Only two per cent think there is no God. Other predominantly Christian populations, in Cyprus and Greece, also demonstrate high belief in the existence of God. Only in Turkey, an EU candidate and mainly Muslim country, is the belief in God as strong as it is in Malta, with 95 per cent declaring they are believers.

The survey, which forms part of a new Eurobarometer study on social values and ethics, was conducted in Malta between January and February by Misco on behalf of the European Commission. A total of 500 people, selected randomly, took part in one-to-one interviews. "Roman Catholicism is the official religion of Malta and 95 per cent of Maltese respondents confirm that they believe in a God," the study notes..

This result is also closely related to a question in the survey regarding the importance of protecting the dignity of unborn human beings. On this subject Malta also ranks first. In an effort to gauge the strength of values, respondents were asked to state how important they deem that the protection of the dignity of any human unborn life will be in 10 years' time. Seventy-four per cent of the Maltese answered it would be very important while another 22 per cent answered fairly important. In general, only 53 per cent of EU citizens felt the same way as the Maltese. Eurobarometer notes that the results in Malta, Greece and Ireland stand out, with over seven in 10 respondents foreseeing that it will be very important...

Social Values, Science and Technology - Full Report (pdf) - 336 pages