DISINFO: The EU is NATO’s white label
SUMMARY
The European Union is nothing but NATO’s white label, and that’s why the US promoted the EU: because promoting it meant, de facto, to expand NATO. First the European Union with its peace doves and then NATO with its tanks. And NATO, as the EU’s puppetmaster, organised the expansion towards the former Soviet countries, annexing most of them and incorporating the Baltic Republics, only to try later also with Ukraine and Belarus, countries bordering with Russia.
RESPONSE
This is a mix of several recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about NATO, the EU as a US vassal, Russia’s neighbourhood and encircling Russia.
The EU is not NATO’s 'white label' nor is the North Atlantic Alliance the EU’s puppetmaster. Though EU-NATO cooperation constitutes an integral pillar of European defence and their security are inter-connected, both are independent of each other, as it is clear from the list of their nation members. NATO includes 9 states that are not members of the European Union, while 6 EU members are not part of the Atlantic Alliance. The European Union is a sovereign entity created by the voluntary initiative of European nations and it has its own, independent foreign policy.
Contrary to the claim, NATO and the EU didn’t annex the Baltic Republics. EU membership was requested by these states and backed by referendums in Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. NATO membership was also a strategic goal and a popular request of these countries, granted once they met a series of economic and democratic developments and commitments.
The affirmation that the EU and NATO were attempting to annex Ukraine and Belarus is also false, part of a pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign framing popular protests in both countries as Western-led colour revolutions.
See other examples in our database, such as claims that NATO will be reformed as part of the Western effort to rule the world, that the sovereignty of the former Soviet republics is a relative concept, that Europe is a colony of the US or that Baltic countries get their position on international issues from the US State Department via fax.