Week 18, 2013: European Economic Sentiments

Summary: A poll by YouGov published today suggests that the French are the most negative about their economic prospects out of the seven nationalities surveyed, with the UK following close behind. On the positive side, people seem to be more optimistic about the future than the past.

What does the chart show? The chart shows the percentage of survey respondents who said that they thought things had got worse over the past 12 months (the red bar) or would get worse over the next 12 months (the blue bar) across two different categories: their personal financial situation, and their country's economy in general.

Why is the chart interesting? The survey suggests that people in France are almost twice as negative about their economic situation than in Germany. That kind of divergence between the two driving forces of the Euro area might be bad news for economic decision making within the European Union. The British were the second most pessimistic out of the seven nationalities surveyed, although there was a big difference between views about the past and the future.

Although 43% of British respondents thought that things were going to get worse, only 16% thought the economic situation would actually improve, with a large proportion (35%) saying that things would stay the same.  That is a common theme across all the countries, with only the Norwegians giving more positive than negative responses!