Nazio Batuen Erakundea (NBE) eta Nazioarteko Arlo Penaleko Epaitegia (NAPE) (56)

mar. 21

On Israel’s official national television, without hesitation or ambiguity:

“Everyone in Gaza must die.”

“They should all be left to starve.”

“I don’t even care about the children.”

mar. 19

HOLY SHIT:

Mearsheimer reveals Trump secretly allowed Iran to sell its oil to keep global prices under $100

But Israel intentionally bombed Iranian gas fields to ruin the plan, sending prices skyrocketing to $119

mar. 19

European activists delivered five tons of medical supplies to a Havana hospital, part of an international solidarity convoy aimed at breaking the US blockade on Cuba and supporting the island’s struggling healthcare syste

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/2034586933368680953

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Russian Mission OSCE

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Fleur Morel@Forhalinton

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/2035348702630379774

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Radar ?￢ﾀﾋ Archie@RadarHits

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/2035435347664871656

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Alfred de Zayas@Alfreddezayas

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Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/2035836667769020488

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DD Geopolitics@DD_Geopolitics

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Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil@ivan_8848

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/2035774471441654239

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pocalypsis pocalypseos ?

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China News@ChinaENX

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/2035872608302842341

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Drop Site@DropSiteNews

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/2035777376328818894

Aipamena

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Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/2035886747536461921

(8:57 m)

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China live@ChinaliveX

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THE ISLANDER@IslanderWORLD

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Peter Cronau@PeterCronau

Dear UN Member States, As I prepare to deliver my 8th report to the UN, I reiterate: Israel poses a threat to international peace and security. I have documented its most egregious crimes. Now the obligation to act, and stop it, sparing innocent lives, rests with you.

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Manu Pineda ? @ManuPineda

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Shadow of Ezra@ShadowofEzra

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Anadolu English@anadoluagency

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0:01

[music]

0:10

propaganda and censorship for keeping people free in the European Union.

0:14

That’s a topic today. Welcome. This is the Den Institute video podcast called lectures and my guest is Thomas Fazia, a

0:22

writer, journalist, Italian and British uh actor in a public sphere in Hungary. you were a guest in our uh conference.

0:30

Thank you very much for participating in this podcast. And one quotation from uh the internet. I research uh and ask the

0:38

artificial intelligence help on the European Democracy Shield topic and the answer came from the AI quote here.

0:48

European Democracy Shield is a comprehensive initiative proposed by the European Commission in 2025 2026 to

0:55

defend democratic processes against foreign information manipulation,

1:00

interference, hybrid threats. Uh it aims to safeguard electorate integrity, free media, boost resilience against digital

1:08

threats like deep fakes and misinformation. I think it’s a good uh uh description and it sounds quite okay

1:15

with me because it means that they defend us in the age of digital disinformation. But I wrote your article and you didn’t welcome this uh event.

1:25

Why? Well, I think the AI is being a bit optimistic there. Or maybe it should check its sources again because um the

2. kapitulua: Does the European Commission defend us from foreign interference and disinformation, or the opposite?

1:34

problem is that we live in a in a really Orwellian world where the language that is used by the uh the the political establishment, the political leaders

1:42

does not reflect reality. In fact, it often reflects the opposite of reality. So in this case the European Commission,

1:50

the European Union more in general and European governments, they claim that they are [snorts] defending democracy

1:57

from foreign interference, from disinformation.

2:01

Um but the paradox is that in order to defend democracy, they have to effectively destroy democracy. That’s what they’re saying cuz they’re saying

2:09

we need more censorship. We need the ability to intervene more directly in elections. We need to do all this to save democracy. Um,

2:18

but in in in this sense, don’t you agree that in the age of Russian cyber attacks or disinformation campaigns, the

2:26

European Union, the whole Europe needs some shield to protect against that? Is it is it true or not?

2:31

What is the evidence for this uh alleged Don’t you have evidence for this alleged? Yes, I’ve looked at I’ve looked at all these uh alleged cases of uh

3. kapitulua: Are the stories of Russian cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns real or fake?

2:40

supposed, you know, Russian drone incursions, Russian hackings, um Russian disinformation uh schemes.

And in fact, when you look at these uh claims, there’s, you know, it’s it’s hard to uncover any actual evidence that the that you know, Russia or any other

2:57

foreign actor for that matter is behind um is behind these events. Uh and so in fact uh you know those that claim to be

3:05

protecting us from disinformation uh and from this alleged Russian threat are themselves engaging in disinformation by

3:13

spreading uh unfounded allegations about this supposed you know massive hybrid

3:21

war that has been waged against Europe of which there’s very little evidence. I mean let’s remember in excuse me uh 2016

3:29

the US presidential election there was some allegations and proofs that there was some uh uh you know getting into the

3:37

democratic there were allegations which were subsequently completely uh disproven. So we know that Russia gate was a hoax.

3:46

It’s now been admitted even by the um you know the FBI and um and American intelligence services. So that was a

3:54

complete hoax and what we are seeing today in Europe is a different version of Russia gate. It’s a European version of Russia gate. Uh in in that case the

4:03

objective was to target Trump and to stop Trump from getting uh into the white house. And today the kind of eurorussia gate uh is aimed at all uh

4:12

you know populist or anti-establishment movements and parties that threaten the status quo and threaten the establishment. Let’s not forget that in

4:20

just over a year ago in Romania, an entire election was announced, was cancelled on grounds of alleged Russian

4:28

interference uh of Russia allegedly running some kind of disinformation scheme on Tik Tok that supposedly

4:35

convinced voters to vote for the um you know independent populist candidate who ended up winning that first round of the elections. um and the EU along with the

4:44

Romanian establishment argued that this was a you know a clear-cut case of foreign interference and that on these grounds the election had to be

cancelled. Well, they provided no evidence whatsoever for for for that alleged uh disinformation scheme and in

4:58

fact uh we know that you know internal documents from Tik Tok the social media that was allegedly used to run this disinformation scheme uh even Tik Tok

5:07

claimed that there was no evidence of this uh of this manipulation. And so the European Union and the Romanian establishment knew full well that there

5:14

was no uh grand disinformation scheme but still they used that argument to overturn an election that it yielded a

5:22

result that they did not like. So, so you claim that the EU itself interfere the election process in Romania and you mentioned in one of the articles in

5:31

Moldova the Moldovans and yesterday in the in our conference you mentioned in your speech I think Georgia right that

5:40

the EU tries to interfere uh on behalf of the the parties which are leaning to the pro- European parties to win the

5:48

elections etc. Do you keep this Absolutely. Absolutely. So,

5:52

and what’s the proof? Because you you say that Russian interference has no proof. But do you have a proof of the EU in? Well, I’ve written hundreds of pages

4. kapitulua: What is the proof of the EU’s interference in elections?

6:00

uh of reports about this and uh I can easily prove it because uh what I do is

6:06

that I track all the EU funding, all the EU money that goes to quote unquote

6:13

NOS’s and media and universities across Europe and beyond Europe to essentially

6:20

promote um pro-EU narratives and to promote Brussels agenda. So, uh, you know, there’s, uh, there’s very, very

6:28

hard proof. [clears throat] You’ve got the money trail and then you’ve got the projects that these supposed NOS’s and these media outlets, uh, carry. Um, and

6:37

these are easily, um, can be easily found and they clearly all have a, you know, a pro-EU, pro- integrationist

6:45

bias. So what the EU is running here is a scheme that is very similar to the to what USID uh was doing uh has done for

6:53

many years across the world essentially uh sending money to uh NOS’s and alleged independent media outlets in third

7:01

countries to promote America’s economic and geopolitical interests. Now the European Union does exactly the same thing. It uses these funds to uh

7:10

manipulate civil society in countries uh to promote its own uh its own interests and its own agenda. The big difference

7:17

with USAD is that at least America did that in third countries, right? It didn’t do it within its own borders.

7:24

what the European Union runs these schemes not only in non-EU countries like Georgia which is bad enough but it also runs these schemes in member states

7:33

of the European Union in especially in countries that are ruled by forces or governments that um you know that are

7:41

kind of euroskeepic or have a more euro critical attitude and obviously Hungary is um is the most obvious example of

7:48

that uh just as Poland was under the previous conservative government in these two countries The EU has channeled huge amounts of funds, tens and tens of millions of dollars.

7:58

Can you can you precisely say that how how big amount of money is involved in this process annually?

5. kapitulua: What amount of money is involved in financing pro-integrationist biased NGOs and media companies?

8:05

Right. So uh so let’s take the um you know the the EU program that is the um

8:12

sort of the key tool um for what I would consider EU propaganda and that is the um [snorts] um the serve program which

8:21

was launched in 2021 with the explicit aim of promoting European values uh and simply and what that effectively means

8:29

is uh promoting uh Brussels own very unique interpretation of those values.

8:36

Uh but more importantly just promoting um the European Union itself and the idea uh of European integration uh the

8:44

supposed intrinsic benefits of European integration. Um and so in the case of uh Hungary um simply through the serve

8:52

program so that’s not the full amount of EU money that’s coming into Hungary but simply through the single program around 40 million euros have been channeled to

9:00

uh Hungary uh just over the course of the past few years. The program was launched just in 2021 as I said if if you see the 27 member states was

9:09

the amount then well overall we’re talking uh so the self program for the 7-year um budget uh

9:15

so the 2021 2027 budget uh was allocated €2 billion so that’s quite a bit of money I mean we’re talking hundreds of

9:23

millions of euros every year that are effectively um uh uh channeled into what can only be described as really

9:32

propaganda ander uh programs. I’m not saying that some of the projects, you know, that they’re find they’re funding aren’t, you know, aren’t actual aren’t

9:40

doing actual work. You know, there’s also support for uh you know, um uh children [snorts] who are victim of violence and uh you know, women’s

9:47

violence. I mean, so some of the projects are probably genuine NGO project.

9:52

How could you how could you describe the percentage of the propaganda of it and how could you describe the percentage of the real work? I mean really humanitarian or real value propagation.

10:05

I would say that you know the propaganda aspect is by far uh where most of the money goes. Uh I’ve looked at you know

10:12

hundreds and thousands of projects and most of them are really uh simply aimed at sort of promoting uh Brussels agenda

10:20

and it’s agendaful because what is the agenda? Can you can you name concrete values which they call common values of

10:27

the European but you consider them a segment of the ideology what they share in a bureaucracy or European elite which

10:35

is not a common value but their values more be mostly a liberal ultra liberal values. Can you name what some of them

10:42

which you consider a propaganda and not a common value?

10:45

Right. So when it comes to values, I mean the EU claims to promote European values and on paper European values are very vague and are values that most

6. kapitulua: What are the “European values” and narratives of the European Commission? What percentage of the financed NGOs promotes liberal propaganda, and how many of them promote real values?

10:53

people would share. Democracy, human rights, uh you know, the struggle against uh discrimination, these are all

11:01

concepts that most people support. Who’s against democracy? Who’s against human rights? Right? Um so but the question is how how does one interpret these values?

11:09

These are all incredibly vague terms that can be um uh interpreted in very different ways. And so for example, when it comes to the struggle against, you

11:18

know, discrimination, for example, the discrimination of u um you know, gender discrimination or other forms of discrimination. Now, one thing is

11:26

protecting individuals from discrimination. And I would argue that that’s a good thing. No one should be discriminated for, you know, the the skin, the color of their skin or for

11:34

their, you know, sexual orientation or whatever. But a very different thing is trying to impose norms and languages and

11:41

behavioral attitudes on an entire society that don’t reflect what the what the prevailing uh sort of social consensus is. And we’ve seen this for

11:50

example with the attempt to impose you know a very maximalist interpretation of LGBT rights for example across um across Europe. Uh we see it for example with the approach towards um immigration. So,

12:02

I would say that most people aren’t racist, right? Most people don’t judge other people based on the color of their skin. Um,

12:11

but a lot of people are concerned about immigration, not necessarily for racist reasons, right? But the European Union,

12:17

it conflates these two issues. And so if you it uses the struggle, you know, the anti-racist trope to then say, you know,

12:25

to then promote these very um uh liberal immigrationist uh um values, for example, you know, and so this is this these are just two obvious examples of

12:34

the way the EU promotes a very specific kind of liberal progressive interpretation of these rights, which in many cases um are not aligned with what

12:42

you know, with the with the overwhelming sentiment of people across Europe, but especially in more traditionally conservative countries. like Hungary and

12:50

um and other countries. And I would argue when you’re trying to impose these values in a country where people clearly have a different set of values where

12:58

they have elected governments that reflect those different values and you try to impose your own values surreptitiously. So not by engaging in

13:07

an open debate with the Hungarian people, with the Hungarian government,

13:11

but by channeling money to organizations that are largely dependent on that funding for for their existence. and you

13:18

use them to promote uh you know your ideology um while pretending that these are independent uh actors who are simply

13:26

doing it you know out of their own will um when in fact they’re simp you’re simply using them as vectors to promote your ideology well in that case as I

13:34

said where we’re faced with something that is very similar to what USAD was doing uh which many would claim is a clear form of foreign interference where

13:43

you’re you’re trying to change the uh the political course in that country and So when you channel millions of millions of euros to NOS’s and media um that are

13:52

opposed to the elected government in a certain country, well in that I mean you’re effectively engaging in an attempt to uh destabilize or you know even regime change that.

14:02

Yeah. But on the other side of the coin it might be a counterproductive step too because it can strengthen the government if if the government has in the state a

14:12

majority of the voters against all this uh influence from abroad. one question about and and I would add one more topic

14:19

Ukraine to this but before that I I I’m very interested how many NOS’s how many think tanks or media outlets get this

14:27

kind of financing from the European Commission annually can you tell us a number who who you consider a propagandist and not doing the normal think tank job [snorts]

14:39

well I mean it’s look we know that there are thousands and thousands of again quote unquote NOS’s um across Europe uh

7. kapitulua: How many NGOs and media companies receive EU money for promoting the Brussels agenda?

14:46

who received money from the European Commission. I mean, we’re talking, you know, hu tens and tens of different funding programs uh tens of thousands of projects. So, it’s impossible to track,

14:57

you know, the the the exact number also because the definition of what exactly is an NGO isn’t clear even in the EU’s own databases. Uh but what is clear is

15:06

that simply through the serve program the EU has um supported uh I think simply since 2021 uh I think more than

15:14

3,000 uh projects um um and has supported thousands of of NOS’s uh so

15:21

you know we’re talking about very vast ecosystem and um you know there’s nothing wrong

15:28

with an NGO actually a genuine NGO I would say is a good thing right an NGO u is where people, you know, civil society

15:36

get together and they organize politically to convey certain demands or certain aspirations to the political establishment. That’s great. I mean,

15:44

that’s one of the pillars of democracy,

15:46

I would say. Um, but what we what’s what what has happened over the past decade is that uh essentially the political

15:53

establishment has uh cultivated a fake civil society. So mo a lot of these NOS’s uh they are entirely uh you know

16:02

if not you know almost entirely dependent on um either state funding or EU funding. So how can you claim to be

16:10

an NGO, a non-governmental organization when you you most of your money uh if not all your money comes from uh essentially the political establishment,

16:19

the political the political institutions um and in many cases the European Union uh itself. In the in this case, you can’t claim to be independent. You can’t

16:27

claim to really be conveying the aspirations of civil society to the political institutions. What you’re doing inevitably is the is the opposite.

16:35

you you know you you become a tool for the political establishment to convey their ideas and their ideology to public opinion to the to civil society. So it’s

16:44

a literal inversion of what NGOs and what civil society um should do. And I think this is concerning and should be concerning for anyone who cares about

16:51

genuine um NOS’s but the problem is that most of the NOS’s or a large number of the NOS’s that operating today and especially the ones that are engaged in

17:00

political advocacy are not uh are not independent and I would say that are simply extensions of the political establishment of the uh sort of state or super state in the EU’s case apparatus.

17:12

I would add to this uh one more thought that the civil society should be heterogenetic like like the political life of the European is is like very

17:20

complex. Uh the motto of the US is united in diversity which itself says that ironic.

17:26

Yeah. Because it says that if the civil society should be liberal, ultra liberal even should be nationalistic too because

17:34

they are nationalistic feeling people living here should be rightwing should be conservative should be social

17:41

democratic and my question is that how how many percentage of the these kind of nos or think tanks are conservative who

17:50

gets finance from the commission and how many percentage of them liberals or social democrats to gets the finance from the commission. Is it proportionate

17:59

or disproportionate? The this scene, you know,

18:02

I could find I couldn’t find a single case of a conservative uh or euroskeepic uh think tank that received EU funding

8. kapitulua: How disproportionate is the EU funding system? Why doesn’t the European Commission finance conservative NGOs at the same level?

18:12

uh to promote sort of euroskeptic uh ideas. I couldn’t find a single example of that. And I think this is a perfect example of just how profoundly anti-democratic this whole practice is.

18:24

uh is anti-democratic on a number of levels. So for first and foremost, as you said, it completely skews the um the

18:31

public debate because it artificially boosts certain ideas at the expense of others at the expense of maybe other

18:39

ideas that actually enjoy uh a genuine organic support in civil society. We know that a lot of people um you know

18:48

they have issues with the European Union rightfully so I would say but these voices are suppressed are repressed and

18:56

marginalized and increasingly so uh actively censored while other voices are voices which often represent minority

19:05

views in society. So when we take these very maximalist interpretations of LGBT rights for example, they represent the views of a small minority in society,

19:14

but these views are artificially boosted. Um, and that that in itself is a profoundly anti-democratic uh practice

19:21

because you’re trying to essentially um superimpose over the real civil society an artificial civil society and you

19:29

create an artificial civil society uh an artificial public opinion because then you’ve got all these NOS’s demanding these policies that no one really wants

19:37

but you give the illusion that this is an organic demand that is coming uh from civil society and I think sort of the

19:45

most um uh you know telling example of this is that it was it emerged that the European Commission was at some point

19:54

paying uh NOS’s to lobby the European Parliament and the Commission itself for tougher green policies. So this gives

20:01

you gives you an idea really of just how this is a completely I mean it’s almost like you’re living in the matrix. I mean like a lot of what we see a lot of what

20:08

is happening at the level of supposed civil society is really completely fake.

20:12

So here you have the commission paying NOS’s that are largely dependent on uh EU money to begin with to lobby the commission itself so it can implement

20:20

policies that the commission wants to implement but feels that it doesn’t have sufficient consensus to implement and so it will say well we don’t we don’t it’s

20:28

not we’re not choosing to implement these policies but you can see civil society is asking us to implement these really tough green policies. So I think this is just a very kind of telling example of how this system operates.

20:39

Yeah. You mentioned the the gender issue, the migration and you mentioned now the green uh debate in the European

20:46

Union and I would add I promise to add one more thing Ukraine issue which is a burning issue itself in the European Union whether we should support the

20:54

Ukraine army to defend itself against the Russian aggressor or finance the rebuilding of the country

21:03

21 minutu eta 3 segundo

after the war or uh supporting the accession of uh Ukraine to the European

21:10

Union as a member. Huge debate in Hungary. We have because I live here and you live in Italy and Britain. So we

21:18

have different reality around us. We have a debate here. We we hear the the think tanks and NOS’s finance from

21:25

Brussels here to do this mainstream opinion to support Ukraine and we hear the government Hungarian government’s

21:33

voices is very loud here because they finance their opinion too from the background to be a different alternative

21:40

opinion about this. But do you have in Italy and in Britain the same balance opinion? Does the alternative sounds

21:49

sound enough in Britain and Italy to oppose the mainstream European Brusselit opinion about Ukraine?

9. kapitulua: Do different opinions emerge besides the EU’s Ukraine narrative in European public discourse?

21:56

No, not at all. Not at all. We know that um we know from polls that have been carried out in a number of countries um

22:03

like my own country Italy but also Germany, France and other countries that um you know the support for the EU NATO

22:12

strategy of neverending war uh is very is is declining uh across all of Europe for obvious reasons. Ordinary people can see that this war isn’t going anywhere.

22:22

uh you know people are continue to die uh continue to die for absolutely um no reason whatsoever. Um and this is

22:30

something that is damaging uh not just Ukraine obviously but also European societies and economies themselves. Um so you know a growing number of people

22:38

oppose this war but this isn’t reflected at all in the public debate precisely because uh you’ve got all these you know

22:45

you’ve got these media uh institutions you’ve got these NOS’s you’ve got uh also academia and you’ve got universities

22:54

uh all of which uh receive on some level or another EU money um which are promote which are constantly promoting the pro

23:01

the pro-war narrative and the pro-NATO uh narrative at the expense of a diplom diplomatic uh solution. So I think this

23:08

is you know another clear example of how these practices um you know not only uh really make a mockery of democracy but

23:17

um don’t even allow us to truly uh sort of have a say on key issues of uh of war

23:24

and peace um and saying you know so I think this is I think a very good

23:31

example of why these practices are so dangerous because you know we’re not talking you know we’re not talking about green, you know, the Green Deal or whatever anymore. I mean, we’re talking

23:40

about a war that has been raging on for 4 years. Um, which the Brussels elites is intent on uh, you know, continuing,

23:47

you know, to the last Ukrainian. Um, even at the risk of, uh, you know,

23:51

dragging all of Europe into a potentially catastrophic war with Russia. Um but unfortunately uh you know all pretty much all the think tanks for

24:00

example let’s take the research think the security think tanks or the defense think tanks if you look at where they’re getting their money from and these are and these are often [snorts] the members

24:08

[clears throat] of the the members of these think tanks are very present in the media uh and they present themselves as being neutral analysts neutral

24:16

experts they’re always pedalling the sort of the the Brussels line EU line the NATO line but they present themselves and they are presented in the

24:23

media as neutral um independent observers. Well, in fact, in literally every single case, what people should do when you see uh a supposed, you know,

24:32

security or defense expert speak on TV,

24:35

you should look what what organization organization does work for, what think tank does they do they work for? And then most think tanks uh have to public

24:42

have to publicize where they get their their funding from. So you can find it on their website and 10 times out of 10 um these think tanks uh these security

24:51

think tanks are funded by EU governments by the European Commission and by the arms industry in every single case. Yeah, I guess many

25:00

European citizen don’t have time to check this background. But if if I may,

25:06

I would close this conversation because I we discussed everything what I planned before. One thing left and going back to

25:13

the democracy shield project of the commission. you wrote uh interesting uh stuff in your one of your articles and

25:21

unheard and I quote from you democracy shield is just a latest vision of unfreedom suppressing decent speech

25:29

under the pretext of defending democracy from foreign interference and fake news uh and in the this line suppose you fear

25:38

that these kind of fact checkers of the European Union or I don’t know uh be will become uh sensors of free speech Why are you afraid of this?

25:48

They won’t become sensors. They already are sensors. We already have se still you see the Tik Tok and and Facebook. It’s almost free. Even they applied fact checkers and sensors there.

26:00

We can use them these platforms. Why aren’t you afraid of the EU doing the same?

10. kapitulua: Why is it a real danger that the EU’s “fact-checkers” will evolve into censors?

26:05

Because the EU is already doing this. I mean, we have, you know, several examples of um of um uh people that have

26:13

been uh who have been deplatformed or whose posts have been taken down uh as a result of the the the digital services

26:21

act, the DSA, which is the the kind of the online the EU’s online censorship tool. So, we know that this is already uh happening. uh we know that these uh

26:30

that the big social media companies receive uh thousands of requests every month from the EU and from European

26:37

governments to take down this or that um post. So this is already happening. Um it might not be not be obvious or might

26:44

not be visible uh in every country. Uh in some countries it’s it’s probably happening to a happening to a higher

26:50

degree than in other countries. um you know in the case of the digital services act um there you know this there is also

26:58

the involvement of the local government so one might assume that maybe in Hungary the government is trying to um to restrain these policies to a certain

27:07

degree um but what happens is that under you know the these policies um tend to exacerbate under elections so the DSA

27:15

itself uh has sort of a tool which allows it to uh implement

27:22

even faster censorship policies under elections. It’s called a rapid response system. And um and we know that they’ve

27:29

used this uh in previous elections. We know they use this in Romania uh and in other elections um you know where you

27:37

know huge number of of posts were taken down um as a result of the of the DSA.

27:44

So uh so this is already u this is already happening and now the democracy shield is simply you know building upon

27:51

that and creating sort of an even more pervasive system that will kick in uh

27:57

into action under elections and so um and they will you know and the idea is that you know they will claim that again

28:05

Russia is supposedly you know any kind of opinion that they don’t like they will claim that that is Russian disinformation and that we have you in

28:14

order to protect democracy, they have to take that uh that information down. This is this is how they operate basically.

28:19

And I think so what we’re seeing is that uh the EU is escalating from simple propaganda and censorship to direct

28:28

electoral interference. And again, let’s not forget what happened in Romania. Uh you know, they’ve done it once and they’ve done it in a kind of

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parapherical uh country uh where people wouldn’t uh be too concerned about what the EU does there. But you know thes

28:43

tools are first tested out on smaller countries uh and maybe minor countries and then they are you know they tend to

28:50

be uh applied um across the board. So we know they’ve done it before and so we know this is how desperate they are to

28:58

um sort of you know cling on to power and um and protect the status quo from these challenges that arising uh from

29:05

different parts you know and um so you know I think we can expect them to uh try to manipulate the outcome of the of

29:13

the Hungarian elections. Um this is why um along with a think tank that I collaborate with MCC Brussels uh we have

29:21

set up this democracy interference observatory which um through which we are monitoring uh you know what you know

29:29

the EU’s potential interference in the Hungarian elections and in other elections in the future. Um

29:36

I think what what we’re seeing now is that they’ve realized as you were saying that overt forms of interference tend to

29:42

backfire. Um but they have a lot of covert uh ways to uh to try to uh to try

29:50

to influence public opinion and I think they will try to use them. They will try to use the the local NOS’s. They will try to use the the local uh in some

29:57

cases you know foreign funded media um to influence the outcome. Um and this is uh you know this is something we’ve seen

30:04

before and so we can expect them to uh try to pull off the same dirty tricks in Hungary as well.

30:10

I see who you see one month left. We’ll see for the campaign. Thank you very much,

30:15

Mr. Fazi. Thank you for being here. And thank you, dear viewers, for watching [music] us. Bye-bye.

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