More than half of Europeans believe there is a high risk of Russia going to war with their country in the coming years
More than half of Europeans believe that there is a high risk that Russia will go to war with their country in the coming years. According to the survey published on Thursday in the French magazine Le Grand Continent, 81% do not believe or very little believe in a war with China in the coming years.
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More than half (51%) of the respondents believe that there is a risk “high” or “very high” for Russia to go to war with their country in the coming years, underlines this study carried out on a sample of 9,553 people, using the quota method, writes News.ro.
The nine countries are France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Portugal, Croatia, Belgium and the Netherlands, with samples of over 1,000 people in each.
The question asked at the end of November by Cluster 17 for Le Grand Continent magazine was: “In your opinion, could Russia go to war with your country in the coming years?”
The perception of the risk of an open conflict with Russia varies depending on the country.
In Poland, which borders Russia and its ally Belarus, 77% of respondents consider this risk to be high or very high. In France, the percentage is 54%, and in Germany 51%. Unlike the Poles, 65% of the Italian respondents believe that the risk is low or non-existent.
The results of this study also show that a large majority (81%) do not believe or very little believe in a war with China in the coming years.
“Russia therefore represents, by far, the most structuring state war threat in the European opinion”analyzes Le Grand Continent, a geopolitical publication affiliated with the Ecole Normale Supérieure in France.
“If Russia represents the major state threat, terrorism is the immediate threat in the opinion of Europeans. At the level of the nine countries included in the survey, 63% of respondents believe that the risk of an open war with terrorist organizations is “high” (or very high, no)”according to Le Grand Continent.
The respondents doubt the military capabilities of their own country in front of Moscow. Over two-thirds (69%) of them believe that their country would not be “not at all” or “rather not” able to defend itself against a Russian aggression.
In France, the only country surveyed that has nuclear weapons, respondents are the most optimistic: 44% believe their state can defend itself.
At the opposite pole, Belgians (87%), Italians (85%) and Portuguese (85%) are overwhelmingly convinced that their own countries would not face a threat.
The survey covers broader geopolitical and social themes: 55% of Europeans think the EU should maintain a balanced position between the US and China, and almost half (48%) see Donald Trump as “enemy of Europe”, with large variations between countries.
On domestic issues, most Europeans see immigration as a “threat to national cohesion”feeling more pronounced in the north and east of the continent. At the same time, a significant number supports the reduction of public expenses and the administrative apparatus.
