In a statement sent to newsrooms, the Ministry of Internal Administration, headed by Eduardo Cabrita, highlighted that in the independent report of the Institute for Economics & Peace, an approximately 100 page document released this Wednesday (June 10), Portugal appeared in the third position "just behind Iceland and New Zealand."
"The significant steps that Portugal has taken in recent years in terms of security have allowed the reduction of crime and, consequently, the gradual and consolidated rise in this 'ranking'", reinforces the report. In 2014, Portugal ranked eighteenth in the Global Peace Index, showing an impressive climb up the ladder by reaching the third position in 2019.
The 14th edition of the ranking, which classifies 163 independent states and territories and covers 99.7% of the world's population, concludes that "the global level of peace has deteriorated, in a world in which the conflicts and crises that have arisen in the past decade started to decrease, being replaced by a new wave of tension and uncertainty as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic".
In the study, carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit, based in London, the score for each country is attributed according to internal and external conflicts, security, and militarization, measured by 23 indicators. "The 2020 GPI concludes that the world has become less secure for the ninth time in the last 12 years, with countries' average level of peace falling 0.34% last year. In total, the security climate has improved in 81 countries and worsened in 80 ", the study reads.
