Welcome to Disinfo Bulletin, your daily update from the EDMO network. Today's most relevant stories: 

🇪🇺 As EU citizens are called to the polls, no major disinformation incidents appear to be ongoing. Despite the spread of disinformation in the weeks leading up to the vote – especially false narratives alleging fraud and irregularities in voting procedures and those pushing citizens to abstentionism – these attempts do not appear to have resulted in major, Europe-wide disinformation campaigns during the election days so far, according to the monitoring activities carried out by the EDMO Taskforce on 2024 European elections.


🇺🇦 😡 The false story that the EU will impose a “Ukraine Solidarity Tax”. A few days before citizens head to the polls, disinformation used anti-Ukrainian sentiment to sow discord toward European institutions. In Germany, social media posts falsely claimed that the EU will impose a “Ukraine Solidarity Tax” of 80 euros per month starting August 2024, in an attempt to undermine support for Ukraine and at the same time push negative sentiment toward EU institutions, portraying them as imposing unfair measures on EU citizens. However, both the European Commission and the German Federal Ministry of Finance have confirmed that there are no such plans.


🇸🇰👨🏼‍💼 Fico speaks for the first time after the assassination attempt and recalls disinformation narratives about the shooting. The Slovak PM Robert Fico’s first address after his May assassination attempt, published online on June 5, is likely to impact the robust disinformation scene in the country, according to local fact-checking organizations. He began his filmed speech by preaching forgiveness, but very quickly started pointing fingers and identifying guilty parties beyond the shooter himself, including the EU. By painting the shooter as an activist who targeted him for holding political views that go against “big democracy”, Fico appears to feed the circulating falsehood that the attempt on his life was supported by Progressive Slovakia, the country’s main opposition party.

Fico also took the opportunity to accuse the “anti-government media” (including conspiracy theorist favorite George Soros, whom he mentioned by name) and “foreign-funded non-governmental organizations” of downplaying the assassination attempt, appearing to portray himself as the victim of “international imperialism” and a martyr for anti-establishment politicians.


🚶🏽A fifth of false claims about migrants in Europe aim to criminalize them. According to an analysis by EFE Verifica, a Spanish fact-checking organization part of the EDMO network, a significant part of the disinformation targeting migrants depicts them as violent or used to commit crimes. Spanish fact-checkers collected – thanks to Election 24 Check, a public database containing false stories surrounding the EU elections and one of the sources for this newsletter – 106 false claims and found that 21 of these portray migrants as criminals. False claims often exaggerate the supposed danger migrants pose to society, exploiting local concerns and contexts, and adapting narratives to resonate more strongly with local populations. Experts also note that disinformation about migrants is often aligned with political agendas, particularly around election times, and disproportionately blames international institutions, notably the EU. Read the full text here: Elections24Check: la quinta parte de las afirmaciones falsas sobre migrantes en Europa busca su criminalización (in Spanish). 

Other false claims also allege a political will to over-represent migrants, as in the case of the false information circulated in Spain that the “Socialist party in Brussels presented only Muslim candidates”.

If you have suggestions, comments or requests about this newsletter, you can write to edmo.tfeu2024@eui.eu

What is a “disinformation narrative”? Please find here a short methodological note about the definition used by the EDMO fact-checking network.

The Disinfo Bulletin 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.

Photo source: European Parliament