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Oil field near the Russian village of Nikolo-Berezovka
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Sergei Karpukhin / REUTERS
The war in Ukraine has largely isolated Russia internationally.
The Europeans have so far shied away from one particularly effective measure: stopping Russian oil supplies would hit Moscow hard.
Berlin in particular has so far shown little willingness to take such a step.
The majority of the population would support an oil embargo against Russia - this is shown by surveys by the opinion research institute Civey on behalf of SPIEGEL.
For example, 54 percent of those surveyed answered the question of whether the federal government should stop all oil imports from Russia despite possible price increases with "yes" or "rather yes".
38 percent positioned themselves against such a measure, 8 percent did not want to commit themselves.
A delivery stop would find the greatest support among supporters of the Greens (84 percent).
Among the sympathizers of the SPD (64 percent), FDP (50 percent) and Union parties (50 percent), there is still overwhelming agreement.
The majority of supporters of the left and AfD reject such a measure.
Opinions on a possible ban on imports of Russian oil differ greatly in East and West Germany.
In the old federal states, such a measure would receive far more support than in the new ones - in the east, supporters are in the minority at 38 percent.
A good 5,000 people were surveyed for the current survey between March 7th and 9th.
Read the background to the Civey methodology here.
The US issued an import ban on Russian crude oil on Tuesday.
However, imports from Russia make up just under eight percent of all US imports in this category.
According to the Federal Ministry of Economics, the share of Russian imports in crude oil imports to Germany is around 35 percent.
The USA is an exporter of gas and oil, which cannot be said for Europe as a whole, emphasized Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) on Wednesday in Berlin at a joint press conference with Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
"And that's why the things that can be done are also different," says Scholz.
Civey pollsters also asked people whether Germany's targeted coal phase-out for 2030 should be postponed given energy supply uncertainties related to the Ukraine war.
57 percent of Germans spoke out in favor of it.
Supporters of the Union parties (79 percent) and the AfD (86 percent) are most in favor of a possibly delayed timetable.
Green sympathizers, on the other hand, would hardly understand a postponement, 72 percent of them spoke out against it.
The SPIEGEL poll also suggests that Germans are quite willing to accept negative economic consequences for the Federal Republic in order to support Ukraine.
According to the survey, around two-thirds are in favor of sanctioning Russia for invading the neighboring country, even if this could have a negative impact on the German economy.
Only among AfD and Left sympathizers is there no majority for the sanctions, despite the negative economic consequences.
The Green Party has the greatest support (93 percent), followed by the Social Democrats (80 percent).
The clear majority of potential voters from the Union and FDP also answered this question in the affirmative.
Once again, however, there are differences between East and West: in the West (68 percent) there are significantly more supporters of a tough sanctions policy, despite possible economic consequences, than in the East (51 percent).
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