The European Parliament election may ostensibly be about choosing one’s representatives in the EU, but the vote of most Maltese people will be based on purely local issues, a survey commissioned by The Malta Independent shows.

This month’s edition of the ISurvey, inevitably, focuses on the upcoming election, and the main results – including which candidates people are planning to vote for – will appear in the next edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday.

But respondents were also asked whether their vote will be primarily based on local issues or ones which are related to the EU: which are, ultimately, what MEPs will have to deal with.

Two thirds – 66.3% to be exact – plan to base their vote on local issues, while just under a sixth (16.3%) believe EU issues are a more important factor in a European election. The remaining 17.3% answered that they did not care or that it did not matter.

Those who voted for the Nationalist Party in last year’s general election are somewhat more likely to consider EU-related issues than Labour Party voters, but not by a huge margin. 19.8% of PN voters said that they would base their vote on EU issues, compared to 14.3% of Labour voters.

The survey results reflect the political campaigns of both political parties: in spite of the fact that both are led by former MEPs, the campaigns have focused on purely local issues over which the EP has no say.

The Labour Party has primarily focused on government initiatives which leave an immediate impact in people’s pockets, including the reduction in utility tariffs, lowering the price of petrol by €0.02, free childcare for working parents and the refunds of VAT on vehicle registration tax.

The Nationalist Party, meanwhile, has focused primarily on what it believes to be the government and the Labour Party’s failings.

There are no significant differences between men and women, or among different age groups, but the results in one particular region – Gozo – stick out.

None of the Gozitans surveyed declared that they would base their vote on EU-related issues, while 91.7% will decide on the basis of local issues instead.

Find out how many would still be willing to vote for Cyrus Engerer in tomorrow’s edition of The Malta Independent. The main results of the survey will be out on Sunday.