Although Hungary and Slovakia voted against it, the European Commission pushed through a draft regulation with Member States that would completely phase out Russian energy sources from the EU in the coming period. The decision raises several concerns. For one thing, even though the ban is a sanction, Brussels put it forward as a trade policy measure because, while the former would have needed unanimous support from Member States, the latter only needed a qualified majority. However, the Commission acted unlawfully in doing so.
For another thing, setting up an energy and sourcing mix is a matter for the Member States, but the ban puts limits on that, so the embargo is a big hit to countries’ sovereignty.
Finally, prior to drafting the regulation, the Commission received a mandate from the Member States to restore competitiveness. However, excluding suppliers artificially restricts supply in the energy market, which drives up prices, undermines security of supply, and thus undermines competitiveness, thereby running counter to the original mandate.
However, Brussels’ energy ban not only conflicts with legislation and the sovereignty of Member States, but also with the expectations of Europeans. New findings from Századvég’s Project Europe research show that a relative majority of EU citizens (45%) do not agree with a total embargo. Two-thirds of Member States reject the measure by at least a relative majority, and only three EU countries—Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia—support the Brussels measure by an absolute majority.
Respondents rejected the ban on Russian energy in the highest proportions in Slovenia (68%), Greece (65%) and Cyprus, Bulgaria, and Hungary (62%). Public perceptions can be partly explained by the serious consequences of the measure. In Hungary, for example, the ban would increase household utility costs by three and a half times and result in petrol prices exceeding 1,000 forints per liter. The Hungarian and Slovak governments have already indicated that they will challenge the decision in court.
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. The latest data collection took place between 17 November 2025 and 16 January 2026, involving 30,000 respondents in 30 European countries, using the CATI method.
