European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos has emphasized the “need to protect Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL),” warning that "if we don’t, we hand a gift to autocrats the world over."
Her remarks came during a debate in the European Parliament plenary in Strasbourg on April 1 that focused on safeguarding access to democratic media, including RFE/RL.
The debate was initiated in response to an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump on March 14, which reduced the size of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the body overseeing RFE/RL.
Shortly afterward, Kari Lake, a senior adviser to the USAGM CEO, issued a letter stating that the Congress-approved grant funding the broadcaster had been terminated.
While the grant termination has since been rescinded, the USAGM has not sent any of the congressionally appropriated funds, prompting RFE/RL to furlough some of its staff on April 1.
SEE ALSO: RFE/RL Continues Lawsuit As It Awaits Funds; Judge Blocks Dismantling Of VOAKos, speaking on behalf of the EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, said that “the European Union needs to be a refuge for independent media, including from Russia and Belarus, so they can continue their work; holding their political and business elites to account and exposing corruption.”
While the commissioner refrained from speaking about the potential of the EU stepping in to fund the media organization, several members of the European Parliament did mention the idea.
Stormy Discussion
Sebastiao Bugalho, a Portuguese member of the largest group in the chamber, the center-right European People’s Party, said that “we will pay the price and shoulder the burden.”
Lithuanian lawmaker Virginijus Sinkevicius from the Greens underlined that “we must ensure that RFE/RL has access to long-term and stable funding, including from the EU.”
Alexandr Vondra, who was a prominent dissident in communist Czechoslovakia and is now a Czech MEP from the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists, said that the radio helped spread information in repressive countries such as Iran, Belarus, and Russia, and called on the European Union to contribute to the station’s finding.
“Let us be open to finance [RFE/RL] also from EU money and find agreement on what form,” he said.
SEE ALSO: Why RFE/RL MattersThe one-hour debate became rather stormy at times with lawmakers shouting at each other in between speeches.
Several members from populist groups in the Strasbourg chamber spoke against potentially using EU money to finance the broadcaster.
Mary Khan, an MEP from the far-right Alternative for Germany party, said that RFE/RL “can finance itself” and added that “media should not be financed by European institutions.”
Slovak MEP Milan Uhrik, who belongs to the same Europe of Sovereign Nations Group as Khan, said that the EU should instead help farmers in Slovakia battling foot-and-mouth disease among its cattle, adding that “your independent media is the absolute opposite of independent media.”
Julien Sanchez, a French parliamentarian belonging to the Patriots for Europe, another populist right-wing fraction, said that the chamber was “hypocritical” in talking about this situation and “interfering with the situation in the United States.”
The debate will have no resolution to be voted on during this plenary session, which ends on April 3, but this could come at a later stage as several European parliamentary officials told RFE/RL that the house will continue to monitor the situation.