Brussels’ misguided sanctions and high carbon taxes have pushed up energy prices on the market, which have been passed on to residential consumers in most Member States. Higher utility costs are causing serious livelihood challenges for a lot of households: right now, one-fifth of Europeans are having trouble paying their heating bills, and more than a quarter are having trouble paying their bills in general. Thanks to the overhead cost reduction policy, Hungarians are the least affected by both indicators.

The energy crisis, sanctions, and carbon taxes that are exceptionally high even by global standards have caused significant price increases on European electricity and gas exchanges. In EU Member States where residential prices are loosely regulated, market forces have also increased household energy costs, meaning that the average EU citizen now pays significantly higher electricity and gas bills than, for example, an American.

The latest findings of Századvég’s Project Europe survey show that the rapid and drastic rise in living costs has caused serious livelihood difficulties for broad sections of society across Europe. 20% of EU citizens are unable to heat their homes adequately, and 28% have been unable to pay their utility bills in the past year due to financial reasons.

Differences between Member States are mainly determined by differing price regulations and the adaptability of households. The proportion of people facing heating challenges is lowest in Hungary (5%), Finland (10%) and Luxembourg (12%), and highest in France (28%), Cyprus (30%) and Greece (45%). The positive Hungarian figure is primarily due to the overhead cost reduction policy, which ensures the lowest prices in the EU through strict government price regulation. Finns use a lot of wood for heating, and the cost of this has risen much less than gas or electricity in recent years. In Luxembourg, high incomes provide protection for a wider section of society.

In contrast, southern countries have poorer infrastructure and lower incomes, and their governments have been unable to provide sufficiently effective protection from higher prices for residential consumers. What is instructive is that even in France, despite being one of the EU’s strongest economies, the price increase has caused serious livelihood challenges for broad sections of society, primarily as a result of the high proportion of electricity-based heating and low levels of energy efficiency.

The proportion of people struggling to pay their bills is also lowest in Hungary (14%), followed by Austria and Sweden (21% each). Similar to the heating problems, Greece (45%) and Cyprus (40%) are at the bottom of the list, together with Ireland (39%).

• The Project Europe research

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.