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INSCOP poll: Town hall, army, church and NATO - institutions Romanian trust the most
The town hall, the army, the church and the NATO are the institutions most trusted by the Romanians, according to an INSCOP poll made public on Friday.
The poll showed that the banks and the political parties are the less trusted institutions in Romania.
According to INSCOP, the most trusted institutions are the town halls that enjoy a confidence quota of 44 percent (41.1 in November 2013) of the valid answers, followed by the Government 32.4 percent (34.6 in November), County Councils 32.1 (33.5 in November), the Constitutional Court - 31.6 percent (32.4 percent in November), the Presidency - 23.8 percent (25.6 percent in November), the Parliament - 21 percent (25.5 percent in November) and the political parties - 13.2 percent (15.3 percent in November).
'The loss in confidence affecting all the main political institutions without discrimination must be the both the result of the scandals in which each of them was involved (the Parliament or the Presidency for instance) as well as the natural effect of erosion that was more strongly felt by the population during the cold season, when the costs of living are higher and the public actors are judged more severely (like the government for instance,' INSCOP director, Remus Stefureac told a press release on Friday.
First in the hierarchy of the executive institutions is the army, with 65.8 percent of the Romanians saying they trusted this institution (compared with 67.6 in November), followed by the Gendarmerie with 57.6 percent (57.1 percent in November), SRI (the Romanian Intelligence Service) with 47.5 percent (compared with 48.3 percent in November), SIE (the Foreign Intelligence Service) - 44.6 percent (47.7 percent) and the DNA (National Anticorruption Directorate) - 43.8 percent (compared with 43.4 percent in November).
As regards the social or private institutions, the church enjoys the highest level of confidence, with 62 percent of the Romanians placing their trust in this institution, compared with 65 percent in November. The Church is followed by the University - 47.5 percent (48 percent), mass media - 36.3 percent (37.5 percent), the civil society organisations - 34.2 percent (37.5 percent), the trade unions - 23.5 percent (25.2 percent in November), the employers' unions - 19.9 percent (compared with 20.9 percent) and the banks - 17 percent (compared with 20.7 percent).
'The banks have reached an absolute minimum of trust in the context in which 83 percent of the population gave a non-confidence vote in their case. This signal is not only bad for the banks, but for the economy in its entirety. This is the result of a long period of austerity and of the dissatisfaction felt by the population in respect to the high interest rates that maintain a high level of instalments and are blocking loaning in similar conditions with the ones in Western European as concerns the cost of the loans and the protection of the customers,' Stefureac also said.
With respect to the international institutions, 50.4 percent (51.4 percent in November) of Romanians trust NATO and 50.2 percent (52.7 percent in November) trust the UN, 47 percent trust the EU (48.6 percent in November), 43.7 percent the European Parliament (compared with 45.4 percent in November), 42.9 percent of the Romanians have confidence in the European Commission (44.7 percent in November), 30.7 percent trust the World Bank (31.8 percent) and 22.7 percent trust the IMF (compared with 23.5 percent in November).
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund remain, on the background of the economic crisis, the less popular international institutions in Romania.
The poll was ordered by 'Adevarul' and it was conducted during January 16-21 2014, on a representative batch of 1054 subjects, with a maximum error margin of +/- 3 pc and a confidence score of 95.