A major poll by French publication Le Grand Continent shows that a majority of citizens across nine EU countries believe there is a high risk of war breaking out between EU countries and Russia.
The 'Eurobazooka' poll, which was conducted at the end of November, was based on a sample of nearly 10,000 people from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Portugal, Croatia and the Netherlands. More than 1,000 people were interviewed in each country.
A majority of respondents (51%) said there was a “high” or “very high” risk that Russia would go to war with their country in the coming years – though there were significant regional variations on this issue.
In Poland, 77% of respondents said they considered the risk of war with Russia to be “high” or “very high”, while only 51% of German respondents thought the same.
The poll suggests that Belgians are extremely pessimistic about their country's ability to defend itself in the face of external aggression. While a small majority of Belgian respondents (51%) felt that risk of open war with Russia was high, 87% of Belgians said their country was “incapable of defending itself”.
By way of comparison, French respondents were significantly more optimistic about France’s ability to defend itself, with nearly half (44%) assessing their country to be "quite" or "fairly" capable of defending itself against attack.
The release of the survey comes in the wake of recent remarks by Russian President Vladimir Putin saying that if Europe wants war "we are ready right now".
Respondents were also asked about the risk of war with Iran, China and the US, but in each case, fewer than 20% considered the likelihood of war to be high.
For a majority of respondents, terrorism remained the most immediate threat to security. Across the nine countries covered, 63% of respondents considered the risk of open war with terrorist groups to be "high" or "very high".
Most of the people surveyed for the poll were supportive of the European Union. Nearly three-quarters of respondents wanted their country to stay in the EU. Among Belgian respondents, 69% thought their country should remain in the EU, with 22% wanting to leave the bloc.
