Welcome to Disinfo Bulletin, your daily update from the EDMO network. Today's most relevant stories:
🇪🇺 🗳️ Special edition! What kind of disinformation is targeting the EU one month before the vote?
Disinformation about the EU has been constantly monitored by EDMO since May 2023, when it started its dedicated monitoring efforts in its monthly briefs. As often highlighted, the main false narrative targeting the EU describes its institutions as authoritarian or corrupt, aiming to impose dangerous measures or unreasonable bureaucratic burdens on citizens’ lives. But what kind of false narratives are targeting the EU a few weeks before the European Parliament elections of June 6-9?
In recent weeks, several false claims have spread unfounded or misleading information about European policies. In fact, except for trivial conspiracies, the most insidious false messages about the EU try to exaggerate the actual scope or distort the true objectives of its laws. The false claims range from highly defamatory ones – such as that the European Digital Identity Wallet is a tool imposed to control bank deposits or that the approval of edible insects for human consumption is a way to force citizens to eat food containing insects – to less serious but equally significant false stories. For example, the EU supposedly plans to severely restrict cash payments or ban air in potato chip packages.
🔖 🌍 In this context, one of the key issues targeted by disinformers is the legislation aimed at reducing the effects of climate change. The Green Deal legislation has been a major target of disinformation for a very long time, with false narratives recently leveraging anti-EU sentiment surrounding the farmers’ protests. The most insidious false stories seek to instill fear about crucial issues in people’s lives. For example, falsely claiming that the EU wants to ban agriculture or that it will allow the member states to expropriate private homes and cars (or ban their repair), if they do not meet certain criteria. This kind of rhetoric is also being used by some politicians and in political manifestos in the run-up to EU elections.
At the same time, EU institutions are also claimed to blackmail member states to force some decisions, and in case of huge investments – such as NextGenerationEU – false claims allege they are hiding frauds for citizens. In Poland, for example, it was recently claimed that the money the country received for the recovery plan must be paid back at inflated exchange rates. Other false stories affect civil rights, while recently the false story has repeatedly emerged that the EU is planning to reintroduce the death penalty.
🎯 Check out the latest issue of the EDMO Weekly Insights and Early Warnings ahead of the June elections. This week’s edition looks at disinformation portraying the alleged willingness of the EU to oppose agriculture and the rise in Islamophobic rhetoric. It also includes early warnings on what kind of disinformation to expect ahead of the recent developments in EU support for Ukraine and the withdrawal of AstraZeneca’s anti-Covid vaccine from the European market. Read the full text here: WEEKLY INSIGHTS and EARLY WARNINGS, n. 5.
If you have suggestions, comments or requests about this newsletter, you can write to edmo.tfeu2024@eui.eu
This tool gathers material from the inputs of the EDMO fact-checking network, as well as a recently launched public database from the EFCSN network (Elections 24 Check), and the various national EDMO hubs, including community initiatives and insights from individual fact-checking organizations.
