A national survey to better understand Maltese society has been launched with the aim of once again identifying people's views on various topics, including politics, religion, family life and other aspects that shape the nation. 

President George Vella announced on Tuesday that, for the second year running, a survey by statistician Vincent Marmarà and communications consultant Lou Bondi is being carried out in collaboration with the Office of the President.

The results of the survey, which will be conducted among at least 1,000 people aged 16 and over, will be revealed and discussed during a conference to be held on June 9. 

"We learnt a lot last year and we can now continue to build on what we had discovered. The themes and subjects put to the people will be practically the same, however, the debate will not be tied just to the findings. These will open up the discussion which will go beyond simply analysing the survey results," Vella said. 

He noted that, in the past months, Malta had an election and a visit from the Pope while it also continued to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. In more recent weeks, there has also been the Ukraine war which, even if indirectly, still impacts Maltese society. 

"We need to always keep in mind the context this survey is being held in. In the local context, we have just been through an election campaign, for instance. Will politics continue to mean partisan politics or will we move forwards? 

"We also had the pope’s visit recently but, from the survey, can we establish whether this actually left an impact on the nation?" Vella said. 

He also said he was looking forward to comparing the results from the previous survey to those from this year's study.  

Asked by Times of Malta whether those surveyed will be asked for their views on abortion and euthanasia, two topics that tend to evoke strong views among the Maltese, Vella said there will not be any questions on the two topics. 

"We're not excluding the issues being discussed but there are no questions on those two issues, no. We want to understand what is behind people's opinons.

"But we will not stop any debate and we will not stop panellists from bringing up these issues," he said. 

Last year's results had shown, among many things, that 83% of the Maltese have always voted for the same political party, that the majority were not in favour of multiculturalism and that 93% of respondents believed in God while 60% said religion was important to them.