Energy Crisis Governance and Public Trust: Assessing EU Policy Responses to the 2022–2023 Energy Shock

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 fundamentally reshaped the European energy landscape, exposing structural vulnerabilities in the EU’s energy system and elevating energy security to the forefront of political decision-making. The resulting shock—marked by extreme price volatility, inflationary pressures, and socio-economic strain—also intensified public debates about the legitimacy, effectiveness, and justice of EU energy governance during moments of crisis. This paper investigates how these crisis-induced developments interact with public trust in EU governing institutions during a period in which energy policy, economic resilience, and security considerations became tightly interwoven. Drawing on Eurobarometer data on institutional trust and Bruegel’s comprehensive datasets on EU regulatory and fiscal responses to the energy crisis, the study employs a fixed-effects panel analysis for EU member states during 2022–2023. This approach allows us to assess how macroeconomic stressors (inflation, unemployment, energy price surges) and the scale and nature of EU interventions—such as market-stabilisation tools, emergency regulations, and coordinated support packages—shape public confidence in EU institutions. We hypothesize that deteriorating socio-economic conditions erode trust, whereas visible, timely, and credible EU actions can offset these effects by signalling responsiveness and governance capacity. By linking crisis governance, energy politics, and political trust, this paper contributes to the Section’s debates on the legitimacy and public acceptance of energy policy, the governance of energy security under geopolitical turbulence, and the political consequences of rapid and contested shifts in Europe’s energy system. The anticipated findings would shed light on how supranational institutions navigate tensions between security, market stability, and societal expectations in an era of accelerating energy transitions and recurrent crises.