DISINFORMATION

Disinformers reacted like a pack of wolves to the threat to EU funds. However, they continue to legitimise corruption and praise Russia

Infosecurity.sk provides an overview of disinformation trends that have been on the rise in the last two weeks:

• Passions were stirred by the visit of the European Parliament (EP) Committee on Budgetary Control, which came to Slovakia to investigate the use of European funds in the agricultural sector. The cases reported in the media did not pose anything of a problem for the disinformation scene. On the contrary, they saw the European Union (EU) as acting against Slovakia's interests.
• The EU has long been demonised in manipulative narratives about the totalitarianism of Brussels and the curtailment of the national sovereignty of member states. This time, it was supposed to be unfairly targeting Slovakia. For some, control over the use of financial resources is revenge for taking a different stance (i.e. a pro-Russian stance), while for others it is a conspiracy with a bloodthirsty opposition and paid media.
• The head of the committee, Tomáš Zdechovský, also faced attempts to discredit him. The Czech MEP was branded a liar and a fraudster. There were also attacks from Robert Fico and other government officials.
• The case of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was no different. In one of his interviews, he stated that Slovakia and Hungary could have their EU funding suspended for undermining the EU's unity. The reaction in this case was very similar – the problem for disinformers is not Slovakia's rapprochement with Russian interests, but the “Nazi remnant” Merz, who wants to turn Slovakia into a German colony.

Don't touch our European funds!

At the turn of May and June, two events caused tension in the Slovak information environment. The first was the visit of the EP control committee, led by Czech MEP Tomáš Zdechovský. Following previous experiences with corruption in Slovakia, the committee came to investigate the widely publicised cases of misuse of agricultural funds.

After his visit, Zdechovský concluded that despite dialogue with the Slovak government, concerns remain, as businesspeople close to politicians are also involved in questionable agricultural subsidies. He spoke of systematic theft of European money. The EP's audit caused a great deal of discontent – in addition to attacks from problematic websites and various figures on the disinformation scene, Zdechovský also faced vilification from politicians.

The second moment was a statement by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who mentioned the possibility of withdrawing EU funds from Slovakia in an interview with a journalist from the public broadcaster ARD. His statements that the EU's unified direction cannot be blocked by a minority consisting of Hungary and Slovakia, which constantly threaten to block sanctions against the Russian aggressor, were a kick in the hornet's nest.

What was the reaction? Disinformation, misleading statements and attempts to divert attention from the root of the problems – from the gradual dismantling of the rule of law to the so-called sovereign foreign policy towards all sides of the world, which can be understood as Slovakia's hijacking towards the East and autocracies.

That is why we have looked at these issues over the past two weeks using the Gerulata Juno analytical tool. We used it to analyse the most popular posts on Slovak Facebook that contained the keywords “control”, “eurofunds”, “Zdechovský” or “Merz”. We excluded posts that did not contain problematic narratives from the list. We then evaluated the posts based on the total number of interactions (the sum of all reactions, comments and shares).

The post with the most interactions belongs to Robert Fico. In a video, the PM called the audit of public spending led by Czech MEP Tomáš Zdechovský an “opposition comedy. According to Fico, the opposition is politically ordering “Brussels weirdos to smear Slovakia and turn the ‘guest houses scandal’ into a case against the current government”. In addition, he accused Zdechovský of “coming here on clear instructions, as a normal hired political assassin”. These are quite strong words in connection with last year's assassination attempt. Not only that, Fico is clearly trying to discredit legitimate European oversight. He adds that the Slovak government "has no scandal" and claims that this case has no bearing on the current term of office. The fact that the luxurious hacienda, which is supposed to function as a recreational facility but does not, like other similar properties, is linked to Norbert Bödör and other infamous oligarchs close to the SMER-SSD party is being ignored. This is a well-known tactic for Fico – spewing venom in all directions to divert public attention from his own connections to corruption cases is part and parcel of the repertoire of Slovakia's four-time prime minister.

In a second post published by Rudolf Huliak, the current Minister of Tourism and Sport of the Slovak Republic calls for tough and decisive EU reform. He claims that democracy has been lagging behind in recent times and that so-called Brussels totalitarianism, which demands only one correct opinion, is flourishing. Huliak was responding to the aforementioned statement by the German chancellor, who indirectly called on Slovakia and Hungary to consider destabilising European unity and common direction. The minister did not like the term “small minorities” and accused the EU of trying to completely subjugate Slovakia: “The Prime Minister of Slovakia cannot go to Russia. He cannot criticise Zelensky. We cannot criticise the European Union. We must hate Russia. We have to keep our mouths shut and wait to see what the big boys in the European Union say." Once again, Huliak (probably deliberately) ignores the root of the problem – the questionable use of public funds in Slovakia, which is reminiscent of past corruption scandals in agriculture. Instead, he prefers to focus on tried-and-tested narratives that he uses to continuously attack the EU, thus joining the ranks of those who seek to undermine European unity.

The third post was published by Ondrej Ďurica. A member and spokesperson for the far-right movement Republika, he questioned whether MEPs should come to Slovakia to check on the state of the rule of law. The politician, who also makes a living as a singer with some rather problematic lyrics, tries to distract his audience in a short video. He completely ignores the reasons for European scrutiny of public funds in Slovakia – according to Ďurica, Brussels should focus on its own issues, such as "Mrs Leyen, her vaccine purchases during Covid and other things, human rights violations, your senseless, sick migration policy, how you have endangered the whole of Europe and exposed it to security risks". In other words, Ďurica has resorted to the old adage that the best defence is attack. Instead of focusing on the government's mistakes in drawing EU funds, he bet on fighting against evil Brussels. Of course, he did so with the help of narratives that the far-right has been using to demonise the EU for a long time.

Another post was published by Milan Uhrík. The leader of the far-right movement Republika used the inspection from Brussels to discredit the Slovak opposition. He returned to the useful mental shortcut of the so-called evil progressives who are trying to harm Slovakia and drag it into the clutches of dangerous Brussels elites. According to Uhrík, they want “Slovakia to lose EU funds”. The opposition allegedly wants to come to power through the EU – according to Uhrík, potential corruption and the undermining of the rule of law are part of the opposition’s plan to harm Slovakia in Brussels as much as possible. To break it down, Uhrík is basically saying that the problem is not potential corruption schemes, but criticism from the opposition and the media, which are using legitimate means to protect the Slovak rule of law.

The last post in the thread was published by Judita Laššáková. The MEP for SMER-SSD repeated narratives similar to those mentioned above. She also decided to launch a direct attack on Tomáš Zdechovský, who headed the control committee in Slovakia. According to Laššáková, this is a “pre-election campaign” by the Czech MEP. She also ironically hopes that Zdechovský has already “checked the transparent purchase of vaccines from Pfizer”. She is thus exploiting the blemish on the EU’s transparency to delegitimise the EU’s control activities – but whataboutism is, of course, not a logical argument, but rather an attempt at manipulation. Laššáková used similar (il)logic in her response to F. Merz's statement, presenting it to her audience as follows: “smaller states do not have the right to their own opinion and, in fact, are not even allowed to publish it publicly”. In addition to this highly manipulative fabrication, the MEP is also hiding behind her ‘own opinion’ a long-standing legitimisation of the Russian worldview and the creation of obstacles to the EU's common direction.

The circus keeps on rolling

In addition to the most popular posts, other disinformation actors also addressed these topics. Fico's SMER-SSD party made a video with a group of its MEPs who strongly opposed the audit and Tomáš Zdechovský himself. They described the legitimate mechanism for monitoring the use of European funds as a “punitive expedition” and attacked Zdechovský as a “liar and a fraudster” who is “supported by MPs from Progressive Slovakia” and “came to provoke and insult just to get himself noticed”.

Uhrík and his “criticism” of European control, mentioned above, were naturally joined by his party colleague Milan Mazurek. Like his other disinformation partners, he resorted to ad hominem attacks on Zdechovský, calling him a “circus performer” and a “clown”. Minister of the Environment Tomáš Taraba (Slovak National Party) took a similar approach. In his video, he described Zdechovský as an incompetent person who “is only interested in politics because the Slovak opposition has no real agenda”.

He did not forget to mention that the Czech MEP allegedly comes “from an institution that stood by and watched as money was stolen in secret contracts involving Pfizer”. Taraba is clearly trying to divert attention through manipulation – as we reported in our previous report, in May, the CJEU ruled in the so-called Pfizergate case that the European Commission had only committed a misconduct by not sharing text messages relating to the purchase of vaccines.

Tibor Gašpar, the criminally prosecuted deputy speaker of parliament for SMER-SSD, deliberately undermined Zdechovský's concerns about the spread of hatred against him in Slovakia in his video. He said there was nothing to be surprised about. According to Gašpar, it is normal if “someone smears the Slovak Republic, denigrates its institutions wherever he goes, slanders and spreads alarmist reports that we need to stop drawing EU funds, he cannot be surprised that Slovakia disagrees with this”. We would like to point out that these are highly inappropriate words coming from a former police president who naturally has experience in being responsible for people's safety. No wonder Gašpar is deliberately trying to ignore allegations of corruption in his post. He has plenty of experience with that too.

A Nazi remnant and warmonger? This is how Slovak disinformers respond to criticism

As for the statement by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, criticism of Hungary and Slovakia's efforts to undermine the common European approach towards Russia was met with a sharp reaction from several well-known figures in the Slovak disinformation scene.

The fact that Merz does not want any conflicts with these EU member states and that resorting to Eurofunds is only a last option was not mentioned by the disinformers. They preferred to bet on revisionism and relatively primitive comparisons of present-day Germany with Nazi Germany in the mid-20th century.

MEP Ľuboš Blaha of SMER-SSD conspired that Merz was playing “tough guy” who wanted to “make Germany a dictator in a forcibly united Europe”. He could not resist remarking that Merz was “driving the world into a third world war” because of his support for Ukraine. Pavol Slota, leader of the small nationalist party DOMOV, also resorted to manipulative comparisons with Hitler. In his post, he tried to discredit Merz by calling him a ‘warmonger’ and a ‘Nazi remnant’. Uhrík, in turn, told the German chancellor to focus on saving Germany, which he said was ‘increasingly resembling Africa in terms of population’. Why Uhrík might consider this a problem is clear from his past, when he made no secret of his far-right background and racist views.

Tibor Gašpar reacted similarly to Chancellor's claim, believing that “this is about dragging European countries into this war” and “a step towards the escalation of another military conflict”. He presented Merz's statements as “something along the lines of these small countries having no right to their own opinion on matters of war and that they should submit”. There is probably no need to elaborate; the comparison of the two statements speaks for itself.

Andrej Danko (chairman of the Slovak National Party), in turn, warned the German chancellor that “it is precisely such statements that are destroying the EU”. He emphasised that Slovaks are not German slaves. A similar message was published by Marek Géci from the Republika movement – “Slovakia is no one’s vassal” and we do not live “in the era of Hitler”. For Miro Heredoš, an unsuccessful far-right politician, Merz is a “lackey of globalists” and their interests. He labelled him this because of his professional past as a lawyer in this company.

The conclusion is therefore almost unanimous – the disinformation scene is united by a rather sick conception of protecting Slovak national interests. These include obtaining funds from the EU, which disinformers otherwise demonise on a daily basis. They are also united by their attitude towards any criticism. Despite relatively tangible suspicions of corruption in the agricultural sector, disinformation actors consider scrutiny of the use of funds to be inappropriate.

The problem for them is not corruption, but the EU and the opposition, which they claim are trying to harm Slovakia. And when the German Chancellor tells Hungary and Slovakia that they are undermining the unity of the EU, from which they mainly reap benefits, political disinformation actors respond with manipulative references to Germany's Nazi past and praise for the current aggressor from the Kremlin. It has no rhyme or reason. It brings nothing productive. Just statistics on social media and the decline of our shared future.

Project Infosecurity.sk organized by Adapt Institute, which is supported by the Prague office of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, continuously monitors the activities of both Slovak and foreign disinformation actors, but focuses mainly on the former. The project activities are built upon daily monitoring of emerging disinformation, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories in the online information space. This approach allows the analysts to identify disinformation posts and narratives that resonated with the public the most, as well as to find out where they originated, and how they spread and evolved on social media. The report takes the form of a bi-weekly summary of arising trends in the spread of malicious information content online. Based on that, Adapt Institute can inform the public about emerging and current trends in the field of disinformation, manipulation, and propaganda.