A new poll has laid bare the scale of the cost of living crisis facing Europeans, indicating that a majority of voters in Europe’s four largest countries expect social unrest and public protests in the coming month.
The poll, published by More in Common on Friday (2 September), was conducted by YouGov, which surveyed more than 7,000 people across France, Germany, Poland and the UK. In the UK and Poland, over 70% say the cost of living is now the most important issue facing their country.
The crisis is also set to prompt a rise in the number of households living in poverty.
In France and Poland, only one in 20 say they are coping fine with rising prices, compared to one in five in the UK and Germany.
One in five people in the UK, France and Poland say they are using their savings to help pay their bills and one in 10 are skipping meals, according to the survey.
Majorities across all four countries said that they were worried about social unrest, ranging from 57% in the UK to 75% in Poland. In France, meanwhile, four in 10 said they would like to see the return of the Yellow Vests, a protest movement that emerged in 2018 primarily in response to rising fuel costs.
In the wake of economic and political sanctions imposed following its invasion of Ukraine in February, Russia has moved to dramatically reduce gas supplies to Europe causing a major spike in energy prices.
The UK will have a new Prime Minister next Monday (5 September), with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss the heavy favourite to replace Boris Johnson. The government has already offered a £400 subsidy for electricity bills spread over six months starting in September. However, Truss, or her rival Rishi Sunak, will be under immediate pressure to offer new public support measures.
The three most popular public policies that governments should introduce were a cut to VAT, price caps on energy bills, and new measures to make public transport cheaper or free. In the UK, more than 85% of respondents backed those three policies.
Voters are also keen to see taxes on windfall profits made by energy companies. 85% support that policy in the UK, while three out of four people support it in France and Germany.
There is also widespread dissatisfaction at the government response to the crisis. In Poland, voters pin most of the blame on their own government, while UK voters are most critical of energy and electricity companies. Russia is the chief source of blame in France and Germany.
In France, the far-right Rassemblement National is the party the most people trust regarding the cost of living.
A number of countries across the EU have re-examined their energy mixes in recent months, with some looking at whether to increase oil and gas exploitation. That, in turn, has raised concerns that some countries will seek to delay commitments to curb climate emissions at the COP27 summit in Egypt in November.
That would be a mistake, according to the poll, which finds that nearly two-thirds of people across all countries blame the current rise in energy bills in part on their government’s slowness to invest in renewable energy, and do not believe that governments should delay commitments on tackling climate change.
In France, Germany and the UK, the prominence of climate change has remained stable or even increased, amid the cost of living crisis and green policies are widely seen as a key part of the solution to the current crisis.
Majorities everywhere agree that delaying our commitments to fight climate change would only increase energy bills in the medium and long term.
[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]
Source: euractiv.com
