New EU task force hobbled by low funding, lack of political support.
By JAMES PANICHI 9/17/15, 5:30 AM CET Updated 9/17/15, 8:31 AM CET
Even as the EU mobilizes to fight Russian propaganda, European governments are fighting each other over the best way to go about it.
A new effort by Brussels to monitor and respond to the perceived bias of Kremlin-controlled media such as Russia 24 or Sputnik has exposed familiar fissures on the Continent.
As the Russia media task force known as #East_Stratcom begins operating at the end of this month, a new alternative project has emerged and is gaining some traction with countries that are dissatisfied with the existing EU initiative.
The divisions reflect deep-seated foreign policy differences within the 28-member bloc that came to surface after Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea last year and stirred up a violent conflict in eastern Ukraine.
People involved with East Stratcom say the team has been told to stick to a narrow mandate so as not to upset the delicate balance on Russia. The media rapid-response unit is part of the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU’s version of a foreign ministry.
According to one East Stratcom member, the office culture is “cautious” and the Russian-language experts are under orders to “fly under the radar” to avoid antagonizing EU governments that are looking to tone down tensions with Russia.
Those on the unit say the lack of a separate budget for it, insufficient resources and lukewarm support from some EU countries are hindering the counter-propaganda campaign.
“Not all member states wanted this team — we are not even sure that [former Italian foreign minister and current EU foreign affairs chief Federica] Mogherini wanted this team,” a member of the unit said.
[…]
The EEAS has not released details of the team’s make-up. It is headed by Giles Portman, a British career diplomat who has spent the past eight years working on EU relations with Turkey. Portman reports to Michael Mann, the head of the EEAS’s strategic communications team who was a spokesman for former high representative Catherine Ashton.
[…]
The sources said the unit includes five Russian-language specialists sent to Brussels from EU states: a Czech, a British national (in addition to Portman), a Dane, an Estonian and a Latvian. They will not become permanent members of staff, but have signed one-year contracts which can be extended for up to four years. Their salaries are paid by their individual governments. Sources say the EEAS has provided four of its own staffers to work with the task force.
EEAS refused to comment on staffing arrangements.
A Polish diplomatic source said his government had planned to contribute a Russian-language expert to the team, but withdrew its offer after being told that Portman, rather than the Polish candidate that Warsaw had put forward, would head the unit.
[…]
… Jerzy Pomianowski, a former Polish diplomat who heads the European Endowment for Democracy (EED), an EU-funded think-tank. [says] “If Europe limits itself to [the East Stratcom] unit and simply produces communication about Europe, then it will not be enough.”
The EED recently completed a feasibility study that called for “a range of coordinated, cooperative and cost efficient initiatives” supported by international donors to respond to the threat of Russian propaganda.
The group’s report proposed an alternative: The creation of a “news hub” to produce Russian-language news content, with a range of Russian-language programming, alongside a “content factory” which would provide non-news programming such as talk shows and drama.
Pomianowski is on a barnstorming tour of European capitals to raise funds to get the broad, content-producing initiatives outlined by the EED feasibility study off the ground. Pomianowski met officials from 35 donor countries in Warsaw last week and walked away with a €1 million pledge from Poland, with the Netherlands promising a further €1.5 million to support the EED’s Russian-language media initiative.
