The protracted investigation is worrying Europeans
Tensions have flared up again with the explosion of Nord Stream and attacks on critical EU infrastructure. Three years after the incident, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that “the problem is not that they blew it up, but that they built it” in reference to the gas pipeline. A few days later, a Polish court rejected the German investigative authorities’ extradition request and released the main suspect in the case. Tusk said he considers the case closed. After many, including some Hungarian commentators, criticised the decision, the Polish foreign minister publicly expressed his hope that the Ukrainians would permanently destroy the Druzhba oil pipeline supplying Hungary and Slovakia.
However, the fact that the Nord Stream issue remains unresolved is a serious burden not only for Germany but for the entire EU. The pipeline previously symbolised the basis of Europe’s economic model. connecting cheap Eastern raw materials with advanced Western technology, but with the explosion and the protracted investigation, it has become a symbol of the Community’s helplessness. Three countries, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark, launched official investigations, two of which have now been closed without result. The ongoing German investigation has been criticised on several occasions in recent years for being deliberately slowed down because investigating the case would require diplomatic and legal action that would be unacceptable to the political elite. For a while, it seemed that the investigation might gain new momentum following the change of government, but the Poles put a stop to that again.
At the same time, the protracted investigations are causing significant geopolitical damage, as inaction sends the message that attacks against critical EU infrastructure can go unpunished, which could pave the way for further acts of sabotage. In light of this, it is understandable that 63% of European citizens are concerned that the investigation has still not yielded any results, according to the 2024 findings of the Századvég Project Europe survey.
With the exception of Finland, the majority in all Member States (relative majority in Lithuania, absolute majority everywhere else) do not consider deflection of responsibility to be acceptable. In Poland, they account for 61%, meaning that Tusk’s statement runs counter to voters’ expectations. The proportion of those who selected the option “Don’t know/No answer” was lowest in Germany, which was directly affected, and in Hungary, suggesting that society in these countries was probably the most widely informed about developments in the case. It is telling that the proportion of those dissatisfied with the failure of the investigation was 71% in the former case and 74 % in the latter.
Lack of information paves the way for fake news
The lack of official information has given rise to a whole series of alternative theories, which now completely divide Europeans. In the period following the explosion, articles suggesting Russian responsibility dominated, but these quickly disappeared from the mainstream media, as Russia did not gain anything from the explosion. Subsequently, several statements by the US administration that came out later and did not age that well, as well as several investigative articles, directed suspicion toward the United States, but official bodies could not credibly prove these theories either. According to the prevailing explanation, a group of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers carried out the sabotage operation. According to some articles, the Ukrainian leadership may have been involved in the attack, while other articles reject this possibility.
The lack of an official explanation and the chaos of theories allowed well-timed, seemingly convincing articles to exert a marked influence on public opinion and distort the impressions of the population in line with current political interests, and Europeans became divided on the question of who was responsible for Nord Stream. Even if these theories were later disproved.
Based on the research results, half of EU citizens who have an opinion believe that Russia blew up the pipelines, and this theory is widely accepted in Poland, the Baltic states, and Scandinavia. In contrast, there are five Member States in which at least a relative majority believes that America is responsible, and, surprisingly, in none of the countries is the prevailing theory that a Ukrainian team may be behind the terrorist attack dominant.
In the first half of 2016, the Századvég Foundation conducted a public opinion survey covering the 28 Member States of the European Union to examine the views of European citizens on the issues that most affect the future of the Union. The Project28 public opinion survey was the most extensive ever, with a unique survey of 1,000 randomly selected adults per country, totalling 28,000. The main objectives of the survey were to gauge public sense of prosperity and to explore public attitudes towards the performance of the European Union, the migration crisis and rising terrorism. Following the surveys of 2017, 2018 and 2019, the Századvég Foundation, on behalf of the Hungarian government, continued the research since 2020 under the name Project Europe, which continued to reflect on the most dominant topics in European political and public discourse.
Once again, the 2024 survey aimed to explore public attitudes to the most important public issues affecting our continent. In addition to the public sense of prosperity, the performance of the European Union, the energy crisis and the migration crisis, and in line with the new challenges facing Europe, the main topics of this year’s public opinion poll are the rising geopolitical tensions, energy and migration. The 2024 survey covered the European Union, the United Kingdom, Norway and Switzerland, and a total of 30,000 randomly selected adults were interviewed using CATI between 14 February and 15 April.
