Brussels, 26/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - The European Union expert group set up to counter Russian propaganda, the “east stratcom task force”, will celebrate its first birthday in September of this year. This gives EUROPE the opportunity to take stock of its first year of activity, the results of which are largely positive.
This group was set up under the initiative of the European Council in March 2015 (EUROPE 11279). At the time, a request was made to the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, in cooperation with the European institutions and the member states, to put together an action plan on strategic communication to respond to disinformation campaigns, particularly from Russia. The group, which has been up and running since September 2015 (EUROPE 11377), is currently made up of nine civil servants. After the summer, it will take on two extra members. Almost all of the team are Russian speakers.
“We have really filled the gaps”, a European official told EUROPE. This official took pains to stress that the support of the member states, the European Parliament and the community of experts had been “positive and overwhelming”. Although monthly valuations are carried out on the work completed by the group and the public audiences reached, there have still been no surveys carried out into the specific impact the work has had. This “missing piece, which is coming next, is on polling actually to see whether we have managed to change opinions and educate, and inform people more,” the official added, explaining that this would be done within the next year. The group's first year of existence has already seen it devise its communication strategy and launch several pilot projects. In 2017, “we are really going to start to integrate a different communication strategy and see whether it works”.
The group is known mainly for its responsibility to counter Russian propaganda. Since October 2015, 1,649 pieces of untrue or incorrect information, in 18 different languages, have been identified, including 936 in Russian. The group publishes two bulletins a week. One of these, general in nature, reports on the type of disinformation and is known as the “disinformation review” and the other looks more specifically at Russian propaganda. This is known as the “disinformation digest”. The group posts examples of disinformation on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter (@EUvsDisinfo) and attempts to re-establish the truth. The number of messages generated “is increasing really well” and we have “high-level followers” (people who sign up to automatically follow the activity of the group), he added. For instance, the group's Twitter account has more than 8,300 followers. Most of the audience comes from the member states, but also from the Russian Federation and countries of the Eastern partnership (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine). The English language version of the messages still has a higher readership than the Russian version.
Up to now, just one member of the group works full-time on responding to the disinformation. However, this member is assisted by voluntary contributions from diplomats, civil servants, heads of non-government organisations, universities and journalists, which send examples of disinformation in to the group.
The seven other members of the team work mainly on “positive communication”, seeking to promote better EU communication in the countries of the Eastern partnership regarding European policies and to better explain what the EU is doing in these countries. It was explained that the actions undertaken have made “a real difference”. In particular, the delegations of the EU to the countries of the Eastern partnership are assisted in their communication strategy. The idea is to communicate on the simpler, more straightforward subjects that are closest to the citizens. “The statistics are good. In Moldova, for instance, we have increased our presence on Facebook by 20”, the official explained by way of example. The communication is adapted to each country of the neighbourhood, so as to keep the local authorities onside.
Furthermore, a Russian version of the website of the European External Action Service (EEAS) went online in February 2016 and has been a real success. It represents around 20% of the total traffic on the EEAS website. Incidentally, the most-read press release of the High Representative is in Russian and is about the second anniversary of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.
Finally, concerning its third mission, improving the professionalism of the media in the Russian language, the group is not as far advanced, having carried out a few advisory missions. Even so, the first results are already visible, the official stressed. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)