DISINFO: Ruined Europe is about to rob its citizens by assaulting their bank accounts
SUMMARY
Ruined Europe is about to rob its citizens, assaulting their bank accounts. French minister of economy Bruno Le Maire is showing the real face of the disaster: he admits that the European Union has run out of money and that they need to mobilise all the savings of Europeans that are inactive in their European banking accounts.
RESPONSE
This is a distortion of the original statement of French minister of economy Bruno Le Maire.
Although some sentences of Le Maire quoted in this disinformation story are real, the meaning of Le Maire's statements was misrepresented. Le Maire was only explaining that the Capital Markets Union (CMU) would allow to have the sum of 35 billion euros available to fund other European strategic projects. The goal of the CMU is to create a single market for investment in the EU and provide the block with more financial depth, which would allow things such as European companies being able to access financing from the whole of the EU.
Participation in the CMU is intended to be entirely voluntary, which should be totally clear as Le Maire had argued that since having the 27 EU members on the same page about the CMU is very difficult, a small group of countries could kickstart the initiative.
By no means did Le Maire “admit that the EU has run out of money”, a claim which is not backed by any actual data. The IMF estimates that the EU’s share of global GDP for 2024 will be 14.34%, only behind the US (19.05%) and China (15.2%). This is part of a long-term pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about ‘imminent collapse’ of the EU.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Europe’s fall continues and poverty is knocking at the door, that the EU's economic collapse is approaching, that Western global elites chose to plunge their countries into poverty and dictatorship to retain power, or that Europeans are on the verge of the most absolute misery.