Bridging the gap? EU communication and German public awareness of the European Green Deal

The European Green Deal is the European Union’s (EU) most ambitious framework for environmental and climate policy to date. Despite legal and institutional commitments to transparent communication on environmental policies and the EU in general, recent surveys suggest that public awareness of the EU and its environmental policies remain limited. This thesis adopts a mixed-methods approach combining an original quantitative survey targeting German citizens with semi-structured expert interviews to investigate whether a communication gap persists between EU institutions and German citizens regarding the EU in general and the European Green Deal in particular. The results show that while citizens express high concern for environmental issues and climate change, awareness of the European Green Deal is mixed and shaped by media usage and trust in traditional sources. The expert interviews contextualize these findings and highlight institutional, political, and structural obstacles that hinder effective communication. The thesis concludes that bridging this gap requires more targeted communication strategies, as well as more structured opportunities for citizen participation to strengthen public engagement.