The EU is stepping up its campaign to counter disinformation and fake news from Russia by spending more than €1m a year on its specialist anti-propaganda unit.
For the first time since the team was set up in 2015, the East Stratcom taskforce will have money from the EU budget, rather than relying on contributions from EU member states or squeezing other budget lines. The unit has been granted €1.1m (£980,000) a year from the EU budget for 2018-20, according to a source familiar with the team’s work.
The new funding emerged after the European council president, Donald Tusk, warned that one of Europe’s real problems was “cyber-attacks, fake news, hybrid war”, following a summit with EU leaders and their counterparts in eastern Europe and the Caucasus on Friday. “We have to keep very cautious, vigilant and also honest. If we want to protect ourselves, if we want to help our partners, we have to be very aware about the threat inside the EU,” Tusk said.
Tusk referred to Theresa May’s recent speech, where the prime minister accused Russia of meddling in elections and planting fake stories in the media in an attempt to “weaponise information” and sow discord in the west.
But Tusk appeared to go further than May by linking “hostile” Russian activities to the EU referendum, while May did not mention any UK elections or referendums in her Mansion House speech.
The decision to dedicate EU money to the counter-propaganda unit for the first time follows a…