Two weeks before the European Parliament elections, German voters have said that climate and environment protection are the biggest challenges for the future of the European Union, a Yougov poll of 8,000 people in eight member states showed. In the survey, commissioned by the newspaper Die Welt and other European publications, 34 percent of participants said that climate action was the biggest challenge, followed by 32 percent who saw migration as the most crucial problem. Across the eight countries (France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Hungary, Belgium), migration came first and climate second with 29 percent. In all countries, a majority of respondents said that EU membership was beneficial to their respective nations, with Germany and Poland polling the highest at a 70 percent approval rate.

In another survey commissioned by environmental NGO WWF, climate change and environmental pollution came in third (1. Cohesion of EU, 2. Migration) among what Germans see as the greatest challenges for the European Union in the next ten years.

Energy transition concerns also came top for the first time (and overtook the usual front runner migration) in the regular poll in Germany by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen which was published last week.