MEP insists on EU assistance to combat the COVID-19 pandemic

Lisbon, 27 March 2020 - MEP Francisco Guerreiro (PAN) signed a letter today to denounce the attempts to instrumentalise the current crisis by countries with adversarial geopolitical ambitions.

Disinformation and propaganda efforts regarding the Covid-19 pandemic, coming especially from China and Russia, undermine the EU and sow mistrust among the local population and European neighbours towards the EU, its democratic values and institutions. 

Directed at the European Commission President, the President of the European Council and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, this letter calls on European Union (EU) institutions and its Member States to act along three dimensions in fighting disinformation strategies: - European Humanitarian Dimension, European Transparency Dimension, and European Geopolitical Dimension.

The humanitarian dimension is related to the assistance to the countries most severely affected by the health crisis (Italy, Spain, other European regions and partner countries); the transparency dimension should seek to develop a clear communication strategy to highlight such assistance, counter misinformation and signal to the citizens of the EU that solidarity among them is ongoing; and the geopolitical dimension highlights the need to establish a strategy to face and recognize geopolitical realities in times of crisis and thus to acknowledge and mitigate the attempts by foreign governments to exploit the COVID 19 crisis to the detriment of the EU.

Know more about disinformation attempts here.

Read the full letter here:

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