Finns feel increasingly insecure: poll

Finns have seen their future predominantly insecure, according to a survey commissioned by the National Advisory Board for Defense Information (ABDI) published on Thursday.

The perception of the world as insecure has been the highest since the inclusion of the topic in the surveys in 1990, local media reported.

Sixty-five percent of those surveyed thought in the next five years Finland will be less secure than now. Last year the figure was 56 percent.

Almost half of the nation took a negative attitude towards an increasing number of asylum seekers in Finland. Finns expressed increased worry about the warmup of the climate and religious extremism.

Compared with the results a year before, Finns were less worried about the situation in Ukraine and in Russia.

Opponents of Finnish membership in NATO retained majority with 58 percent, whereas 28 percent supported inclusion of Finland in NATO.

Both attitudes lost support in favour of uncertainty. The number of Finns uncertain about a would-be Finnish NATO membership increased. It was now 15 percent.

Sixty-three percent of respondents thought that Finnish foreign policy has been handled well, but the figure showed a decline of 7 percentage points from last year. Trust in the management of Finnish defence had meanwhile increased. Seventy-five percent of respondents rated defense policy either very good or fairly good.

Set up by the Government for the Parliament's term of office, the Advisory Board for Defense Information (ABDI) is administratively located in the Ministry of Defense. Established in 1975, it deals with defence information for normal and exceptional conditions and the development of the opinion climate regarding matters closely related to national defence.

The survey was carried out by research institute Taloustutkimus and commissioned by the ABDI. The sample included 1,005 Finns aged 15-79 and were interviewed in November 2015. The error margin is 3.2 percentage points per direction. Endit