Debate: Cooperation and similarities between the Putin regime and extreme right and separatist movements in Europe
Date: WEDNESDAY, 6 APRIL 2022
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

This was a debate about extremist parties, who are seen – and we have evidence to say that – as Putin’s allies, who operate on European territory in our Member States. Some are doing it for political gains, some are doing it for money, and we, of course, have a very strong conviction, which is also the result of this debate, that we have to fight using our legal tools against the extremists in the EU. But I didn’t notice in the debate one question: why is it so easily possible? Why is it so easy to seduce the Europeans with toxic ideas, which are spread through Russian propagandist campaigns and through disinformation to our information space? Why is it so easy? Why are we so lacking in resilience? Where is the immunity we should have in a democratic system? I think that these are questions we should be asking as well and we should try to seek remedies and solutions, how to have more a resilient society. I read with great interest, two days ago, about Finland and why the disinformation campaigning does not bear fruit there. I think that the answer is that there is an education system which is making people more knowledgeable and more resilient. So maybe that’s also something we should think about.  This debate also shows that this is the right time for reflecting on whether we have not been too naive vis-à-vis Putin’s Russia and Putin’s regime and Putin himself. I believe we have been naive. We saw a lot of signs through the disinformation campaign spreading across Europe since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. We saw that Putin’s regime was preparing the ground by a very well—targeted spread of disinformation against Ukraine. There were some periods where we detected almost 40% of all the messages coming from the pro-Kremlin media which were describing Ukraine as the aggressor. It was preparing the ground and we did not fight against that. We didn’t do anything, or not too much. And this is also because we had a tendency to underestimate the potential of Russian propaganda. So, in my view, we should have fought for Ukraine much earlier than since 14 February this year.  I am over time, I know. I will be finishing. So why is it so easy to seduce European people, and why is the Russian propaganda successful? There are, I think, four reasons: frustration, fear, hate – they are always very close to each other – and ignorance. We have neglected something very important. Everybody in the European Union knows what Dachau was. Who knows about the Kolyma gulag? The atrocities there were comparable to those which we see in the concentration camps in the European Union. These were also Europeans dying in these horrible conditions. So my message is that we have to join forces. Everybody who can do something against this toxic messaging should do much more. The political forces, the media – that’s why we have to do more to have an independent and strong media, and also an economically strong media. We should also support culture and, as I said, education because it should not be that easy to convince the people that Putin is right.