opinion poll
East and West react differently to Ukraine war
A Garzweiler lignite mine: according to a survey, almost two-thirds of the people in West Germany are willing to do without energy from Russia. Photo: Federico Gambarini/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Consumers and businesses are called upon to do their part to cushion the effects of the Ukraine war. People in East and West have different attitudes to this.
According to a recent survey, people in East and West Germany react differently to the Ukraine war and its effects.
In West Germany, almost two thirds of the people (64 percent) are willing to do without energy from Russia even in the event of an energy shortage, summarized the Eon Foundation the result of a representative survey by the opinion research institute Civey among 10,000 German citizens. In eastern Germany, less than half of those surveyed (42 percent) supported such a step.
energy and driving
According to the survey, the willingness to turn down the heating or drive less in the event of energy shortages is also much more pronounced in the West. While in the old federal states between 55 and 70 percent of those surveyed said they wanted to turn down the heating in the event of an energy shortage, less than half of those surveyed in eastern Germany (excluding Berlin) indicated that they intended to take such a step.
As an alternative to Russian gas, respondents in eastern Germany favored domestic coal, while respondents in the west favored solar and wind energy.
“The Ukraine war has once again revealed the different attitudes of West and East Germans in relation to the energy transition and climate protection,” write the authors of the Eon Foundation in the evaluation of the survey. Overall, the skepticism about effective climate protection and the expansion of renewable energies among the citizens in the often rural regions of East Germany seems to be more pronounced in this tense situation than in West Germany.
Nationwide, rising energy prices employ people in rural regions (52 percent) significantly more than people in metropolitan areas (38 percent). On the other hand, people in very densely populated areas (61 percent) were more worried about an escalation of the war in Eastern Europe than in very sparsely populated, rural regions (49 percent).