ESPAÑOL
PORTUGUÊS
ITALIANO
Editor's Сhoice
EU ‘looking into’ funding Radio Free Europe after Trump cuts budget
March 19, 2025
© Photo: Public domain
Washington terminated its contracts with the CIA-founded media brand after finding “national security violations” and hundreds of millions spent on “fake news” to promote the liberal agenda.

Join us on Telegram, Twitter, and VK.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

The Czech Republic proposed that the European Union should pick up the tab for the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), headquartered in Prague, after the notoriously liberal media organization known for foreign interference and color revolutions around the world was defunded by President Trump. Brussels is already “looking into” the possibility of pouring public money into the project.

The Czech foreign minister raised the proposal to continue financing the RFE/RL from EU taxpayer funds during a Council meeting in Brussels on Monday, March 17th, arguing that it is Europe’s responsibility to ensure that ‘independent media’ can continue its news coverage in authoritarian countries where free speech is suppressed.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski was the first to back the idea and look into “what can be done” from Brussels. EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas hailed RFE/RL as a “beacon of democracy,” but was cautious not to pledge anything too quickly, “because we have a lot of organizations who are coming with the same request to us” after Trump defunded the USAID, adding

But there was really a push from the foreign ministers to discuss this and find the way, so this is the tasking to our side, to see what we can do.

RFE/RL’s (and its sister company Voice of America’s) government funding was slashed as part of Trump’s recent executive order to reduce the budget of their parent organization, the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), to its statutory minimum after finding evidence of high-level corruption, national security violations, and the promotion of anti-American interests.

Moreover, USAGM was working in tandem with USAID in its ideologically-driven foreign interference crusade, which now has been suspended by the Trump administration. Kari Lake, Trump’s new senior advisor for USAGM referred to the organization as “pound-for-pound the most corrupt agency in Washington,” and said in its current form it was “unsalvageable.”

In a press release published on Saturday, March 15th, Lake detailed the “most egregious findings” at USAGM so far, including:

  • “Eye-popping” corruption and “obscene” overspending
  • Massive national security violations, including spies and “terrorist supporters” infiltrating the agency
  • Hundreds of millions of dollars spent on “fake news” outlets, including RFE/RL, that “often parrot the talking points of America’s adversaries”

It’s well-known that Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were founded by the CIA during the Cold War to prop up the democratic opposition within the countries of the Soviet bloc and to facilitate regime change.

However, RFE/RL largely kept its original purpose even after the Cold War ended, serving as one of the main mouthpieces of the U.S. intelligence community around the globe. Especially in the last decade, it has been frequently criticized for being a soft power tool of foreign interference not only in clearly autocratic regimes (such as Iran or Belarus) but in any sovereigntist or conservative country that resisted previous Democrat administrations’ liberal worldview.

For 2025 alone, RFE/RL was earmarked over $150 million, while Voice of America was to receive $300 million—figures that Brussels is now looking to match.

Original article: The European Conservative

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.
Tags:
Print this article
March 19, 2025 | Editor's Сhoice
EU ‘looking into’ funding Radio Free Europe after Trump cuts budget
Washington terminated its contracts with the CIA-founded media brand after finding “national security violations” and hundreds of millions spent on “fake news” to promote the liberal agenda.

Join us on Telegram, Twitter, and VK.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

The Czech Republic proposed that the European Union should pick up the tab for the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), headquartered in Prague, after the notoriously liberal media organization known for foreign interference and color revolutions around the world was defunded by President Trump. Brussels is already “looking into” the possibility of pouring public money into the project.

The Czech foreign minister raised the proposal to continue financing the RFE/RL from EU taxpayer funds during a Council meeting in Brussels on Monday, March 17th, arguing that it is Europe’s responsibility to ensure that ‘independent media’ can continue its news coverage in authoritarian countries where free speech is suppressed.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski was the first to back the idea and look into “what can be done” from Brussels. EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas hailed RFE/RL as a “beacon of democracy,” but was cautious not to pledge anything too quickly, “because we have a lot of organizations who are coming with the same request to us” after Trump defunded the USAID, adding

But there was really a push from the foreign ministers to discuss this and find the way, so this is the tasking to our side, to see what we can do.

RFE/RL’s (and its sister company Voice of America’s) government funding was slashed as part of Trump’s recent executive order to reduce the budget of their parent organization, the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), to its statutory minimum after finding evidence of high-level corruption, national security violations, and the promotion of anti-American interests.

Moreover, USAGM was working in tandem with USAID in its ideologically-driven foreign interference crusade, which now has been suspended by the Trump administration. Kari Lake, Trump’s new senior advisor for USAGM referred to the organization as “pound-for-pound the most corrupt agency in Washington,” and said in its current form it was “unsalvageable.”

In a press release published on Saturday, March 15th, Lake detailed the “most egregious findings” at USAGM so far, including:

  • “Eye-popping” corruption and “obscene” overspending
  • Massive national security violations, including spies and “terrorist supporters” infiltrating the agency
  • Hundreds of millions of dollars spent on “fake news” outlets, including RFE/RL, that “often parrot the talking points of America’s adversaries”

It’s well-known that Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were founded by the CIA during the Cold War to prop up the democratic opposition within the countries of the Soviet bloc and to facilitate regime change.

However, RFE/RL largely kept its original purpose even after the Cold War ended, serving as one of the main mouthpieces of the U.S. intelligence community around the globe. Especially in the last decade, it has been frequently criticized for being a soft power tool of foreign interference not only in clearly autocratic regimes (such as Iran or Belarus) but in any sovereigntist or conservative country that resisted previous Democrat administrations’ liberal worldview.

For 2025 alone, RFE/RL was earmarked over $150 million, while Voice of America was to receive $300 million—figures that Brussels is now looking to match.

Original article: The European Conservative

© 2010 - 2025 | Strategic Culture Foundation | Republishing is welcomed with reference to Strategic Culture online journal www.strategic-culture.su.
The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.
Also from EDITOR'S CHOICE
EDITOR'S CHOICE
President Trump: Stop bombing Yemen and exit the Middle East!
The death of free speech in America?
We’re running out of eggs
New Zealand’s record of colonial oppression of the Cook Islands
Imminent end to proxy war