DISINFO: The EU is a prison of nations and IV Reich
SUMMARY
The EU is a restoration of the Fourth Reich. It is a liberal fascist regime with segregation and racism. France and Germany hold a central place in the EU whereas the Slavic countries and others are on the periphery. The EU can also be called a prison of nations.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the EU aiming to present it as a decaying totalitarian Nazi/fascist society. A flawed parallel with the USSR and Russia is also made by calling the EU the ‘prison of nations'. This phrase was used by Vladimir Lenin in relation to the Russian Empire to denote its backwardness and illiberal national policies. Some historians and publicists later applied this phrase to the USSR and today’s Russia due to their imperial practices.
The European Union’s democratic essence is guaranteed through several means, including political representatives at the European Parliament being elected by citizens through direct voting in the European elections. EU Member States are sovereign countries and make sovereign decisions about their own internal, economic, foreign and security policies. The European Union is explicit on the subject of national sovereignty: “the Member States all remain sovereign and independent states, they have decided to pool some of their 'sovereignty' in areas where it makes sense to work together.”
According to Reporters Without Borders, the nations with the most press freedom and freedom of speech are countries that are often described as ‘Western’, with EU nations predominating. Russia is considered one of the least free countries in the world, scoring 16 of 100 in the Freedom House index. This is the reason why pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives strongly attack democracy and the EU as a viable model to Russia’s increasingly autocratic system.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that EU’s fascist sanctions against Russia prove European countries are no longer democratic, that there is no freedom of speech in Europe, or that Russia is the first democracy in the world while the US is a police dictatorship.