On Tuesday 1 March EU Member States adopted a decision to ban the Russian state media channels RT and Sputnik from broadcasting in the EU. This decision, a source confirmed to EUROPE, will be effective from Wednesday 2 March.
“There was consensus among the Member States,” the source said. “The Legal Service of the EU Council has introduced some small clarifications, but overall there have been no major changes. Everyone agreed on the subject”, she added.
In concrete terms, the sanctions adopted concern RT English, RT-UK, RT-Germany, RT-France, RT-Spanish and Sputnik, a document obtained by EUROPE outlines.
The measures, the same source told EUROPE, include a ban on the dissemination of content produced “everywhere”.
This means that news websites and other content distributed via video sharing platforms or social networks will also be affected, as will television channels.
It remains to be seen how long these measures will remain in force, although another source told EUROPE that they should be effective “at least (...) until the end of the war in Ukraine”.
The ban on RT and Sputnik had been under discussion for several days. On Monday 28 February, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland wrote a joint letter calling on the major players in the technology sector to take steps in this direction (see EUROPE 12900/11).
The day before, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, had already announced that a broadcasting ban would soon be imposed.
“The state media Russia Today and Sputnik, as well as their subsidiaries, will no longer be able to spread their lies to justify Putin’s war and to sow division in our Union. We are developing tools to ban their toxic and harmful disinformation in Europe”, said Ms von der Leyen.
See the EU Council document: https://aeur.eu/f/k9 (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)