European Green Deal: Mapping Perceptions in Central and Eastern Europe
Center for Propaganda and Disinformation Analysis (CAPD), in partnership with the International Republican Institute’s Beacon Project, tracked Polish language Facebook regarding the European Green Deal using CrowdTangle.
The European Green Deal is a set of policies launched by the European Commission in December 2019 as a part of European Union’s efforts to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. Measures proposed aim to reduce emissions by at least 55% by 2030 while creating new opportunities for innovations, investments and jobs.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, insecurities in European society have grown and the European Green Deal has become a target of disinformation as well as a proxy for communication of anti-EU or pro-Russian narratives. These narratives stoke a diverse variety of sometimes competing concerns from climate change, energy security and financial stability to increasing EU incursion into individual members states and increasing economic disparity benefiting certain member states. Ultimately this stymies balanced and informed discussion of this complex subject and serves to undermine EU integrity and cohesion as well as muddle discussion on energy independence and security that has risen to the forefront of Russian sanctions discussions in the wake of the invasion.
IRI’s Beacon project is leading an initiative of six partner organizations to monitor how the European Green Deal is perceived in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria. The monitoring will examine the context in which local actors discuss topics related to this policy package and the prevailing narratives being spread by political actors, mainstream media as well as sources known for spreading of disinformation. From monitoring of Czech chain emails scene to analysis of energy security discussions in Romania, each partner national perspectives and focuses on different aspects of “green” narratives.
All publications produced by IRI’s Beacon Project partners reflect their own opinions and not those of IRI: Center for Propaganda and Disinformation Analysis (Poland), Prague Security Studies Institute (Czech Republic), Europeum (Czech Republic), Infosecurity.sk (Slovakia), 45North (Romania) and Center for the Study of Democracy (Bulgaria).
Below you will find the first Center for Propaganda and Disinformation Analysis (CAPD) report on this topic.