STRASBOURG (Sputnik) – The draft resolution on EU strategic communication to counteract propaganda against the bloc by third parties says that Russia is allegedly engaged in propaganda against the European Union. Authors of the document equate counteracting Russia with the resistance to Daesh terror group, outlawed in Russia, and call on EU member states to boost financing counterpropaganda projects. Lawmakers will debate on the document later on Tuesday and the vote is set for Wednesday.
"This document overlooks the fact that there is a strong anti-Russian propaganda in the major world media, they speak about Russia Today, but they do not mention the CNN, The BBC and other Anglo-Saxon and French channels," Chauprade told RIA Novosti.
Chauprade stressed that there are at least two sides in any information war, although the author of the resolution did not take this into account.
The French lawmaker added that Russia is an important international actor and it should be such on the world information market.
Chauprade added, that he hoped that his EU colleagues would understand that the document was aimed at undermining the freedom of speech and of the media and that they would not adopt it.
The document was put forward in October and contained a number of mistakes of fact, for example, the RIA Novosti news agency was called a TV channel.
Reacting to the motion, Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency's Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan advised the European Parliament to "begin with checking facts."
The European Union and the United States regularly accuse Russia of being engaged in information warfare with the West. In March, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told US Secretary of State John Kerry that the United States should put an end to its anti-Russian campaign in the Western media.
Relations between Russia and the West deteriorated in 2014 after the overwhelming majority of the Crimean population voted in a referendum to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia. The move prompted the United States, European Union and their allies to impose sanctions on both Russia and Crimea.
