Chamomile, politics, and Putin: How Romania is combating Russian propaganda. A comparison with five other European countries

Monday, Apr 21, 2025

HotNews

Examines how various European nations combat Russian disinformation through state and NGO efforts.

๐Ÿ”— Read the article on hotnews.ro

[This is an automatically generated summary, for reference only]

The article discusses the manipulation through online means, particularly concerning election periods, and presents examples of state actions globally. It highlights a TikTok campaign spreading pro-Russian and anti-EU messages targeting Romanians, which led to the Romanian National Audiovisual Council (CNA) investigating the content for disinformation. Furthermore, investigations revealed that former presidential candidate Cฤƒlin Georgescu’s rise was influenced by online disinformation campaigns funded partly through AdNow, a company linked to the Kremlin, and TikTok reports showing false accounts targeting AUR and Georgescu in Romania’s 2024 election. Regarding institutional responses, Romania lacks specific anti-propaganda legislation, though a proposed law was abandoned; state bodies like the Ministry of National Defence’s InfoRadar monitor Russian disinformation. Estonia actively combats Russian propaganda through police action, expelling propagandists, and involving NGOs. Lithuania utilizes its Armed Forces’ Strategic Communication Department to monitor hostile media. Poland has no constant state body against disinformation, relying on ad-hoc measures. Bulgaria shows institutional hesitation despite being highly vulnerable to Russian propaganda, with efforts largely driven by NGOs. Moldova established a Strategic Communication and Disinformation Countering Center in 2023. The text concludes by noting the PULSE project, an EU initiative promoting cross-border journalistic partnerships.

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PULSE is an initiative for cross-border collaborative journalism in Europe co-funded by the European Commission under Grant Agreement n. PO 4500158093.

PULSE is an initiative coordinated by OBCT that has been promoting intensive journalistic cross-border collaborations in Europe since 2024. Its main aim is to help strengthen the European public sphere by reporting on and telling stories from new and diverse perspectives.

At the heart of PULSE are 10 leading national news outlets (Delfi โ€“ Lithuania, Denรญk Referendum โ€“ Czechia, Der Standard โ€“ Austria, EfSyn โ€“ Greece, El Confidencial โ€“ Spain, Gazeta Wyborcza โ€“ Poland, HotNews โ€“ Romania, HVG โ€“ Hungary, Il Sole 24 Ore โ€“ Italy, Mediapool โ€“ Bulgaria) and three transnational organisations, including OBCT , n-ost and Voxeurop .

Additional outlets and journalists are involved as associate partners, including EUobserver , Fรธljeton (Denmark), H-Alter (Croatia), Levila (Estonia), Rubryka (Ukraine), and The Journal Investigates (Ireland).

PULSE is driven by a sort of virtual transnational newsroom made up of journalists from all the publications involved. It collaboratively produces new journalistic content on European issues on a daily basis, coming in many different languages. The editorial output amounts to over a thousand publications per year, mostly in article form.

PULSE also runs 4 thematic networks open to any European journalist interested in crucial issues such as EU enlargement, relations between the EU and other global powers, the EUโ€™s green transition, or media and the information society. These networks function as online communities and periodically publish calls for pitches.