Attitudes Toward Energy Across European Union Member States (2006–2024)

Our study describes European attitudes toward energy using a harmonized dataset comprising 46 waves of the Eurobarometer (2006–2024). This tracking survey covers all European Union member states; hence, our data accumulates 1,286 individual country surveys. We focus on attitudes relevant to energy transition through three complementary lenses: energy issue salience, policy priorities, and opinions on renewable energy sources. This study documents cross-national and temporal variation in attitudes without estimating the causal effects of specific energy-related European policies or contextual events. We record a marked increase in the salience of energy during crisis periods, especially Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which rapidly elevated energy’s importance in the hierarchy of public concerns. We also show that support for renewables, in the context of energy transition, coexists with affordability and security concerns in some regions of the EU, particularly in Central-Eastern and Southern Europe. To our knowledge, this is the first study to systematically harmonize such a large collection of Eurobarometer waves into a single comparable dataset, enabling long-term tracking of energy attitudes across all EU member states. In addition to the substantive results, our study also points to several difficulties the Eurobarometer project faces in providing long-term monitoring of public opinion across the highly diverse member states of the European Union.