Peace in Ukraine and the Middle East is the great hope of Italians. “What current or possible facts give you or would give you the most hope?” is the question posed by ISPI survey carried out by IPSOS within the Observatory “ItaliaInsight – Italians and international politics”.
The survey, now in its tenth edition, asks Italians some crucial questions about international politics in the last twelve months.
For 2025, over 4 out of 10 Italians (44%) place their hopes on the end of at least one of the two major conflicts that have affected the world from February 2022 to today: the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the escalation of conflicts in the Middle East following the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.
In second place there is a “hope” defined by ISPI as “particular”: the start of Trump’s presidency (22%), which goes hand in hand with the fact that 24% of Italians think that Trump’s arrival will be good news for the EU and for the world (38% instead he thinks his return to the White House is “bad news”).
They follow three “hopes” all European: a third of Italians in fact indicate facts that give or would give more hope the decline in inflation in Europe (14%), the launch of the new European Commission (11%) and a hoped-for return to stability in Germany and France (8%).
Bad news for Ukraine. The relative majority of Italians (42%) believe that Ukraine should accept an agreement with Moscow, while only 13% of Italians are convinced that the European Union and the United States should continue to arm Ukraine. This little desire for an arms race is confirmed by another piece of data: only one Italian in 10 thinks that it is important for Europe to increase the financial resources allocated to Defense (a step which however seems inevitable in 2025 also due to the pressures of Trump on NATO).
He is considered the most influential figure in international politics Donald Trump (39%), followed by Vladimir Putin (17%), the increasingly powerful Elon Musk (16%) and Pope Francis (13%).
Xi Jinping and Ursula von der Leyen are much further behind.
