EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told the European Parliament that it should be possible to freeze assets and ban trips to the bloc of anyone responsible for misinformation campaigns.
The aim, he said, was to expose such abuses and deception efforts as Russia’s offensive against Ukraine continues.
What did Borrell say about Russian misinformation?
“I will propose a new mechanism that will allow us to punish these malicious misinformers,” Borrell said.
He explained that he was not trying to define what was true or false in the news, but to protect himself from the manipulation of societies.
Borel specifically referred to the Russian state television network Russia Today and the Sputnik news agency.
“They are not independent media, they are assets, they are weapons, in the Kremlin manipulation ecosystem,” Borel told lawmakers. “We are not trying to decide what is true and what is false. We do not have ministers of Truth. But we must focus on foreign agents who deliberately, in a coordinated way, try to manipulate our information environment.”
While the channels are already blocked in the EU, Borrell said the new measures could impose further sanctions on them for their wider actions.
He described them as examples of “tools to push this narrative into manipulation and deception” of the Russian people about the invasion of President Vladimir Putin.
Moscow was not only bombing homes and infrastructure in Ukraine, Borrell said, but was also targeting Russians with fake news and misinformation.
“They are bombarding their minds,” he said.
The proposal, on which Borrell did not elaborate on the timetable, comes after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU would ban the channels.
It would involve several EU governments agreeing on names to target and drafting legal acts.
Efforts to reach out to Russians
Vera Jourova, EU Commissioner for Values and Transparency, also told lawmakers that every channel should be used to reach out to the Russian people with information about what is happening.
“President Putin wants his nation to be blind and deaf. Beyond that, I think President Putin would like the Russian people to be apathetic.”
“It’s more important than ever to reach out to the Russian people and provide them with information.”
Jourova also praised the decision of streaming giant Netflix to suspend its services in Russia.
“President Putin wants people to be entertained, not to care what happens,” he said.
“It would not be right to see Russians being entertained and Ukrainians next door being killed.”
The EU had already stepped up its efforts to curtail Kremlin rhetoric following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and began providing support to successors in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
rc / rt (AFP, AP, Reuters)
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