The EU wants to make sure Belarus gets the right propaganda from Belarus’s enemies. From Martin Jay at strategic-culture.su:
The EU’s rank hypocrisy over journalism, murky relation with big U.S. companies and its own corruption cast a shadow over its recent Belarus move
A recent article published by the Financial Times might have amused the government of Belarus. In it, a European Commission boss pleaded with giant U.S. firms who are linked to the internet in Belarus to be more supportive of opposition journalists’ articles. Presently, Google does not support the Belarusian language on its search platforms, which, the EU official claims, gives a distinct advantage to the incumbent government of Lukashenko.
“Fighting disinformation and promoting media freedom are two sides of the same coin — and we want Big Tech to do both,” European Commission vice-president Věra Jourová blurted out to the Financial Times journalist. “This means ensuring the visibility of trustworthy information online, not the propaganda of Minsk or the Kremlin,” she added, criticising platforms for disseminating propaganda from Belarus and Russia, its close ally.
Of course, hardened analysts shouldn’t be surprised by the European Commission vigour in presenting itself as a state builder in the region and offering an alternative model to Belarus, other than the umbrella of Moscow. Many Belarussians might see this tact as just a tad delusional though, given the total dog’s breakfast the EU has made in neighbouring Ukraine, where it dangled EU membership in 2014 to its citizens.
But Brussels, we shouldn’t forget is an irony-free zone. Moreover the EU is an organisation which refuses to look backwards and consider its colossal defeats in its experimentation to be a superpower. Or at least a wannabee superpower. Let’s not get carried away.
