Brussels Morning: Could the Green Deal be as divisive as migration in Central Europe?

Our Research Fellow Vít Havelka wrote an article for the Brussels Morning news website. The article presents the attitudes of Czech society towards the Green Deal. This main topic will be introduced on the Prague European Summit, which will take place on July 12-14.

As recent opinion polls conducted by STEM institute in cooperation with EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy showed no great public opinion cleavage between Czechs and Western Europeans. When it comes to attitudes towards environmental protection, they are on the same page. It should be recalled that an environmentally informed political agenda has deep historical roots in the Czech Republic: public outrage with appalling pollution levels was actually one of the driving forces behind the Velvet Revolution in 1989. 

Czechs generally are not climate change deniers either. There is a broad consensus that climate change exists (93% of the population). Climate-change deniers are on the margins, as elsewhere in Europe, unconvinced that global warming is linked to human activity or that the threat we face is imminent and existential (up to 9%). Obviously, there is a lively media debate, but sociological research clearly shows that there is a broad consensus that climate change must be stopped and reverted. At least, in general terms.

You can read the whole article here.

Vít Havelka
Senior Research Fellow

Expertise: EU institutional relations with member states, europeisation, transformation role of EU