Poll: Many EU citizens don't know or don't approve of Commission chief von der Leyen
A new POLITICO/Public First poll finds that large shares of respondents in Germany, France and Spain either disapprove of Ursula von der Leyen's performance or have never heard of her. The results emerged hours before her annual State of the Union address.
A POLITICO poll conducted by Public First shows Commission President Ursula von der Leyen struggling to win approval across three of the EU's largest countries. Only around one in five respondents in Germany and Spain rated her performance as good, while in France just 12% agreed.
Negative ratings were more common: nearly a third of respondents in Spain and France, and 45% in Germany, said she was doing a bad job. In her home country, the poor marks were driven largely by supporters of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, more than half of whom rated her performance as "very bad."
In France and Spain, indifference or unfamiliarity was more widespread than outright disapproval. More than one in five French respondents said they didn't know who von der Leyen was, compared with 10% in Spain and just 5% in Germany.
State of the Union speech draws little attention
The poll was released just hours before von der Leyen was set to deliver her annual State of the Union address outlining her vision for the bloc's future. Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First, said von der Leyen faces the same anti-incumbent, anti-political mood that has cost leaders their jobs across Europe, and will need to work hard to convince citizens that EU policy addresses cost-of-living concerns.
Interest in the speech itself appeared limited. Across the three countries, roughly one in ten respondents said they would follow the address closely, and about a third said they'd follow it somewhat. German respondents showed more engagement than those in France and Spain, where more than half said they either wouldn't follow the speech despite knowing about it, or had never heard of it at all.
Those figures may still overstate genuine awareness, since some respondents also claimed they would follow a fictional "European Convention of Authority" invented for the survey.
Public First surveyed more than 2,000 adults in each of France, Germany and Spain between September 13 and 15. Results were weighted by age, gender, region, education, and — for France — the 2024 vote, to match each country's demographic profile. The margin of error is ±2.2 points for Germany and Spain, and ±2.1 points for France.
