(de-news.net) – According to a Forsa study conducted on behalf of the German Civil Servants’ Association, prevailing public opinion in Germany currently identifies internal challenges as the most significant threats to national stability. When respondents were asked to assess and rank the risks most strongly affecting the country, shortcomings within the education system emerged as the most frequently cited concern, with an overwhelming majority characterizing these deficiencies as severe in scope and impact. Closely following were anxieties related to social tensions and conflicts, the widening gap between wealthier and poorer segments of society, deteriorating physical infrastructure, and the rising incidence of cyberattacks and cybercrime. Each of these issues was regarded by a substantial portion of respondents as posing serious and persistent problems, underscoring a broad perception that structural weaknesses within the country are eroding institutional resilience.
Volker Geyer, the federal chair of the association, has explicitly linked these public assessments to questions of state capacity and effective governance. He argued that chronic personnel shortages—most notably the shortfall of more than 100,000 teachers nationwide—directly impair the delivery of essential public services and weaken the credibility of state institutions. In this context, he characterized debates over the future of the civil service as misguided and largely unproductive, insofar as they divert attention from more immediate and tangible deficiencies. From his standpoint, political priorities should instead center on addressing the structural failures within the education system that citizens experience in everyday life, including frequent lesson cancellations and consistently overcrowded classrooms, which serve as visible indicators of administrative strain.
Geyer has further articulated a rationale for why external threats, such as forced migration, armed conflict, and climate change, are perceived as comparatively less urgent by the public. His analysis suggests that individuals tend to direct their attention away from interconnected global crises that appear overwhelming and beyond their influence, and toward local challenges that seem more concrete and potentially amenable to policy intervention. He interpreted this tendency as reflecting a broader societal demand for reliability, stability, and predictability during periods of heightened uncertainty. Drawing on past experience, he emphasized that earlier crises—most notably the banking crisis and the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic—demonstrated the stabilizing role of clear and credible political assurances. Against this backdrop, he cautioned that it would be profoundly damaging if citizens were to simultaneously develop the perception that the state was no longer willing or able to fulfill its protective role.