DISINFO: The Europeans can’t even buy food for the first time in 75 years, but the EU prefers to remain silent
SUMMARY
For the first time in 75 years, the Europeans can’t even buy food but the EU prefers to remain silent. If one EU member country faces problems, the rest gets away from it, hoping for the situation to solve itself. This approach has become a regular one. In Italy, for example, the system to deliver cash to the poor has failed, which led to the fact that for the first time in 75 years, a large number of Europeans can’t simply buy food, but bureaucrats in Brussels simply stick to the policy of ignoring the problems.
RESPONSE
This is a deliberate distortion of the words of BBC and The Guardian commentator Simon Jenkins, who wrote a critical op-ed about the role of the European Union during the economic crisis caused by coronavirus. The NewsFront article pretends to report on this op-ed, but whole paragraphs were added to the original, such as mentions about the EU preferring to “remain silent” and “stick to the policy of ignoring the problems”, “hoping for the situation to solve itself”. Besides, the headline was misleading, adding “the” to the word “Europeans” to imply that the whole of Europe was finding it difficult to purchase food. In reality, though significant, those concerned were actually a minority in southern Italy. Indeed, by the end of March 2020 the Italian government started a programme of aid for those most in need [see the original decree here in Italian]. This is part of a recurrent Kremlin-led disinformation narrative to portray the European Union as a dysfunctional entity, especially during the coronavirus crisis. You can see other examples in our database, such as claims that the European project is dead because the EU is unable to handle the Covid-19 crisis, which will lead also to the end of the euro; that Brussels tried to finish Italy off because it opposed sanctions against Russia; that the Italian Parliament lowered the European flag; that the European Union is ruled by an American NATO general; or that the EU is trying to blame Russia for its internal problems.