Do Europeans trust the EU or their national governments more?

In an age of online disinformation, confidence in public institutions and government bodies is in a precarious state.

Yet it seems that the lower the level a government is, the more likely it is to hold citizens’ trust.

Indeed, local and regional governments enjoy the highest levels of trust among EU citizens, according to the latest edition of Eurofound’s “Living and Working in the EU” e-survey, which polled confidence in local, national and EU institutions.

The organisation asked people to give each a score out of 10, with 10 representing complete trust. However, none of them managed to pass the six-point mark on average EU-wide.

Europe in Motion took a closer look at the data to see how trust in institutions and the media differs across the bloc.

Hungary shows highest trust in EU, France and Greece lowest

On the government front, on average, local institutions (4.8) enjoy slightly higher levels of confidence compared to the EU (4.5) and, in particular, to national governments (3.6).

Danish, Luxembourgish and Austrian people show the greatest appreciation for their local representatives, with scores all above six in each country.

The highest level of trust in the EU was found in Denmark, Malta and Hungary (5.9), while France and Greece reported the lowest (3.7).

Rock-bottom trust rates in social media, news media score low

Eurofound also polled confidence in media and social media, as well as in health, police and pension systems.

The police ranked first with 5.9 overall in the whole survey, followed by the healthcare system with 5.7. It did particularly well in Spain (6.6), Belgium (6.5), Denmark (7.1), Luxembourg (7.1) and Malta (6.8).

Pension systems generally don’t get as much love (4.4 points). The news media, however, rank even lower, with an average of four points out of 10, hitting rock-bottom rates in the Balkans, particularly in Greece (2.2) and Bulgaria (2.9).

One of the few things scoring more poorly than news media is social media, with an EU-average score of 3.2, failing to reach the four-point mark in all countries.

What’s up, UK? A closer look at trust in European governments

Edelman’s 2026 Trust Barometer paints a similar picture for some EU and non-EU countries, including the UK.

Only 36% of British respondents trust authorities to “do what’s right”, while the media enjoys a slightly higher level of confidence (39%). It doesn’t fare much better for NGOs, which are trusted by only 50% of Brits, compared to businesses (51%) and employers (75%).

The French government fared even worse, reporting the lowest level of trust across all Edelman-surveyed countries, behind South Africa, with only 30% of respondents trusting it to “do what’s right”, a seven-point drop from last year, certainly not helped by the 2024-2025 string of political crises.

Recovering trust in politics in Germany?

The common denominator among Europe’s largest economies — France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the UK — is that in none of those countries did the majority of respondents express trust in their governments.

Furthermore, amid an increasingly unstable geopolitical landscape, the Edelman Trust Barometer reports that, over the past five years, global trust in national government leaders dropped by 16 points.

Germany seems somehow to be bucking the trend, despite last year’s early resignation of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with national political leaders gaining 7 points in trust year-on-year.

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