Romania is among several countries in Europe where citizens are more concerned about emigration than immigration, a poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) revealed.

The pool, quoted by The Guardian, shows that 55% of Romanians worry about emigration. Only 10% are worried about immigration, and 26% about both.

Romania has seen 10% of the population leaving the country over the past ten years as mostly young people moved for work in other parts of Europe, The Guardian notes.

In Hungary, 39% were worried about emigration, in Spain 34%, in Italy 32%, in Poland 30% and in Greece 28%.

The worry about emigration goes hand in hand with attitudes favoring controlling it. In Romania, 34% are in favor of controlling emigration, the pool revealed. The three countries with the highest percentages of people favoring a control over it were Spain (63%), Greece (60%), and Italy (52%).

Overall, 20% of the European surveyed were worried about emigration and 32% about immigration.

The survey also showed that the economy was the single biggest concern in Italy, Romania and Greece. In Romania, as in Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain, Greece and Slovakia, more than 50% of those surveyed said corruption was a major issue.

Romania was also one of the countries where people believed that the environment should be made a priority event at the expense of economic growth. A total of 64% of the respondents in Romania agreed with this, the third highest percentage after Denmark (70%) and Greece (69%).

Another top area of concern for respondents was Islamic radicalism, which worried about one in five Europeans. 

The survey was conducted by YouGov and had almost 50,000 respondents. It was carried out to establish the main issues of concern ahead of the EU Parliament elections. The 14 nations polled will take up 80% of the seats in the new parliament. 

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editor@romania-insider.com