According to the Austrian Freedom Party (FPO), Brussels bureaucrats need to clean up within their own house, instead of hiding behind trumped-up charges to dismantle democracy.

Speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday, Austrian MEP Petra Steger pointed out that Brussels’s policy on disinformation is extremely dangerous.

„When the European Union talks about the fight against so-called fake news and disinformation, alarm bells should go off for all democrats and true fighters for the freedom of expression,”

warned Steger, who sharply criticised the instrumentalisation of the battle against disinformation, citing in particular the recent events in Romania. „The fact that the EU applauds when a country cancels an entire election on the pretext of disinformation because of TikTok posts, and is plunged into a national crisis, is a low point. In actuality, they are abusing the fight against disinformation to cancel elections if they do not produce the desired result,” she highlighted in reference to the chaotic Romanian elections.

The FPO politician left no doubts that this is about something other than defending against fake news: „So-called liberal democracy is increasingly proving to be the opposite of democracy,” she stated while also lashing out at the EU’s double standards.

„Stop pretending that elections can only be influenced from the outside. Disinformation is also a practice of the EU itself,”

she remarked, referring to the EU’s handling of Covid-19 and the Digital Services Act, which she considers a tool for censorship. The intensifying repression of opposition opinions and the media was particularly worrying: „Many supposedly democratic governments resort to methods that have no place in a free society. The social media accounts of people critical of the government or even of the media are being deleted – as was recently the case with the Austrian magazine Freilich. In Germany, opposition media such as Compact magazine have been banned, and journalists such as the editor-in-chief of Deutschlandkurier have been hit with draconian fines,” the MEP said, calling on the EU to review its own policy.

„If you want to talk about the influencing of elections, start by putting your own house in order. A democracy that suppresses and censors dissent is no longer a democracy. It is nothing but a controlled society with controlled thinking.”

the FPO politician said.