As Russia-EU relations become even more strained, new poll reveals big majority of Germans desire CLOSER relationship with Moscow

A survey by Berlin pollster Forsa has revealed that almost two-thirds of Germans want an improved relationship with Russia. This comes after a year in which the two countries have cooperated and clashed heads in equal measure.

Commissioned by the German Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations (OA), an interest group that pushes Berlin to trade more with the east of the continent, the poll showed that the majority (62%) of Germans want to improve the country’s relationship with Russia.

“If it were up to the wishes of the German population, the EU-Russia relationship would be significantly expanded in many different fields,” OA chair Oliver Hermes said, noting that the people see value in cooperation and closer relations, especially in the economy and the energy sector.

Hermes also noted that Germans want to see a “common European economic space with the inclusion of Russia,” which includes finalizing the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project and opening the country up to the Moscow-made Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V.

The poll was published on Wednesday, the same day as the northern German region Mecklenburg-Vorpommern hosted ‘Russia Day.’ The state, which is also called Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in English, was part of the former East Germany and has close ties to Moscow due to Nord Stream 2. When the pipeline is complete, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern will receive gas from Russia’s Leningrad Region.

Despite close cooperation in the energy sector, and Berlin’s willingness to defy the US to work with Moscow to achieve its economic goals, the relationship between Germany and Russia isn’t all positive.

In August last year, Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny was flown to Berlin’s Charité Clinic after falling ill on a flight. German doctors later announced that Navalny had been poisoned with nerve agent Novichok, contradicting doctors in Omsk, where he was first treated.

The two countries have also clashed over claims that Russia was behind cyberattacks on German legislators and, most recently, over air traffic routes, with a proposed Lufthansa flight path avoiding Belarusian airspace being rejected by Moscow authorities.

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