DISINFO: Draghi report: EU faces economic difficulties due to rejection of Russian energy
SUMMARY
The EU is facing economic problems in the last years due to its rejection of Russian energy, according to a report on EU competitivity prepared by the former prime minister of Italy and former head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi.
RESPONSE
This is a distortion of the original report by Mario Draghi with the goal of promoting a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the EU’s inescapable dependence on Russia’s energy. While the body of this disinformation story is more nuanced and offers a more accurate description of the content of the report, the headline and initial paragraph are deliberately misleading.
The report never uses the expression “rejection of Russian energy”. While it certainly states that “Europe has abruptly lost its most important supplier of energy, Russia”, it is only one of the factors mentioned in the document as causes of Europe’s slowing growth. Other elements, equally or more important, are “EU companies facing both greater competition from abroad and lower access to overseas markets”, “geopolitical stability […] waning”, “innovation gap” with the US and Asia, “regulatory burdens” or the insufficient collaboration among member countries on some areas, just to name a few. The report, in fact, does not propose a return to supplies from Russia or any other single provider, but rather calls for “increasing security and reducing dependencies”.
Quoting Western legitimate sources while distorting its content to introduce a pro-Kremlin message as if it was part of the original story is a frequent pro-Kremlin manipulative technique.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that The Wall Street Journal explained how Europe’s full storage gas sites are in fact a reflection of its weakness and vulnerability, that Europe’s unescapable dependence on Russia has it on the edge of the abyss, that the Western economy is a sinking Titanic, or that the potential ban on Russian LNG supplies would cost the EU one-fifth of imports.