BRUSSELS: The EU on Monday (Mar 17) warned that President Donald Trump’s freeze on US-funded media shops, together with Radio Free Europe, risked “benefitting our frequent adversaries”.
Trump’s administration on the weekend began shedding employees at Voice of America and different broadcasters together with Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFERL) after freezing their funding.
“We see these media shops actually as beacons of fact, of democracy, and of hope for thousands and thousands of individuals world wide,” mentioned European Fee spokeswoman Paula Pinho.
“Freedom of the press … is crucial for democracy. And this determination dangers benefitting our frequent adversaries,” she mentioned, with out naming international locations, teams or people.
Pinho added that the freeze could be mentioned throughout a gathering of EU international ministers in Brussels on Monday.
Based by the US through the Chilly Struggle to counter Soviet propaganda, RFE/RL was banned throughout the communist bloc together with former Czechoslovakia, the place regimes frequently jammed its sign.
The US-funded media have since centered on international locations like Russia, China and Iran.
Requested whether or not the European Union would “fill the void” left by the US, Pinho mentioned it could not at all times be doable for the bloc to take action.
“We’re reiterating our help,” she advised reporters, including: “We can not at all times step in for the US and for regardless of the US stops doing.”
Trump has already eviscerated the United States’ aid agency and its training division.
The media funding freeze impacts many different US shops in addition to Voice of America and RFERL, together with Radio Farda, a Persian-language broadcaster blocked by Iran’s authorities, and Alhurra, an Arabic-language community established after the Iraq invasion within the face of extremely crucial protection by Qatar-based Al-Jazeera.
Iran, China and Russia have all invested closely in state media shops created to compete with Western narratives and to push out authorities strains to international audiences.
