East Stratcom taskforce will be funded from EU budget for first time after summit highlights threat from ‘cyber-attacks and fake news’.
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.
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.
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.
The decision to dedicate EU money to the counter-propaganda unit for the first time follows a rise in misinformation in Russian and Spanish about the Catalan independence referendum.
The East Stratcom unit was set up in 2015 to rebut false and misleading stories about the EU, following Russia’s hybrid war campaign in Ukraine.
Beyond its core staff in Brussels, the unit draws on volunteers and experts to monitor Russian media for the site the EU vs disinformation. »