Brussels – Calls are mounting to save Radio Free Europe, the historic voice of information in former Soviet countries, after Donald Trump dismantled the government agency (USAGM) that supported it. The Czech Republic – which has hosted the network active in 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Middle East in Prague since 1995 – has asked the EU to take on the burden of keeping Radio Free Europe going. The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, confirmed that member countries are “pushing” to find the resources but that “it will not be easy.”
The radio station was founded in 1950 to make inroads into the Communist bloc during the Cold War. Funded by the US Congress, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty now employs over 1,700 people and reaches 47 million listeners weekly. Following a decree issued by Trump on Friday, March 14, its employees and those of Radio Free Asia and Voice of America have learned that they will have to return their badges and equipment ahead of a withdrawal of funding by the US administration.
“By ending the activities of the USAGM and its media, the Trump administration is sending a disastrous signal: authoritarian regimes such as Beijing and Moscow now have a free hand to impose their propaganda unhindered,” said the press freedom organization Reporters sans frontières. To support Radio Free Europe, the Czech foreign minister indicated yesterday (March 17) to his counterparts in Brussels the figure of 120 million euros. “For Europe as a whole, it is an achievable amount, but for the Czech Republic alone, it is clearly beyond our capacity,” said the minister, Jan Lipavský.
According to a Radio Free Europe report, the three Baltic countries immediately supported the appeal that started in Prague, as did Poland and Germany. “Radio Free Europe and Voice of America played a crucial role in Lithuania’s efforts to gain independence” from the USSR in 1990, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys recalled, endorsing “the path” laid out by his Czech colleague. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski also insisted on the need to support the radio station that “his father” listened to during the Cold War. “That’s how we learned the basic things about our countries because communist propaganda was tightly controlled,” he said on the EU Council on Foreign Affairs sideline.
The fondness for Radio Free Europe and the awareness of the importance it has had and still has in some areas of the world is more pronounced in those member countries that have had direct experience of the Soviet Union’s control over the media. For example, Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, seemed much more cautious: “It has been discussed; something can be done,” he said, at the same time making it clear that “the decision of how to spend public money is an internal American matter.” The vice-premier hopes the radio station “can continue to provide news and inform areas where information is very limited.”
EU diplomacy chief Kaja Kallas spoke of a “push by foreign ministers to discuss it and find a way” not to shut down Radio Free Europe, “a beacon of democracy.” According to Kallas, “it is not automatic” that the EU can fill the gap left by the United States “because many other organizations are making the same request to us.” But the door remains open: “It is up to us to see what we can do,” he promised.
The international press in Brussels spoke in favor of possible EU funding for Radio Free Europe. In a statement, the Foreign Correspondents Association (API-IPA) emphasized the fight “against disinformation and authoritarian narratives” carried on “for over 75 years” by the radio station’s colleagues, pointing out that Trump’s decision “represents a serious setback” for independent journalism and the principles of press freedom. “We hope that the EU will find ways to help continue the invaluable contributions and expertise that RFE/RL has brought to the broader European and global information landscape,” the Brussels correspondents concluded.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
