BRUSSELS — European Union government ministers on Tuesday debated ways to keep Radio Free Europe afloat after the Trump administration stopped grants to the pro-democracy media outlet over the weekend.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty started broadcasting during the Cold War. Its programs are aired in 27 languages in 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East.
Sweden’s European Affairs Minister Jessica Rozencrantz insisted on the need to ensure that “Radio Free Europe really continues to be an important voice for freedom and democracy, especially in those places where it is most needed.”
“Sweden encourages all countries and the (European) Commission to really look into what we can do in terms of financing, to make sure that we continue to have a strong Radio Free Europe,” she told reporters in Brussels before the meeting.
In a post on social media, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said that the cut in funding puts “independent journalism at serious risk in regions where the free press is silenced, from Russia and Belarus to Iran and Afghanistan.”
Prevot warned that if the network “disappears, disinformation and propaganda will fill the void. That would a direct win for those who seek to undermine democracy. Europe cannot let that happen.”
The outlet got caught up as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday began making deep cuts to Voice of America and other government-run, pro-democracy programming.
“The cancellation of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s grant agreement would be a massive gift to America’s enemies,” the network’s president and CEO, Stephen Capus, said in a statement in reaction to the move.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, is trying to establish what impact the cuts will have on U.S.-funded media working in Europe and how it might be able to help plug any gaps.
“We know how important it is, the access to free and fair information,” EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič told reporters after the meeting. But he added that Radio Free Europe “is not unfortunately the only one of the projects which was cut.”
“We are doing (a) comprehensive assessment on where the financial support from the U.S. was stopped,” he said, to work out “how can we help, what we can do.”
On Monday, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas recalled the influence that the network had on her as she was growing up in Estonia, which was part of the Soviet Union when she was a child.
“It is sad to hear that the U.S. is withdrawing its funding,” Kallas told reporters, after chairing a meeting of EU foreign ministers.
“Coming from the other side of the Iron Curtain, actually it was (from) the radio that we got a lot of information,” she said. “So, it has been a beacon of democracy, very valuable in this regard.”
But Kallas said that finding “funding to fill the void that the U.S. is leaving” wouldn’t be easy. “The answer to that question is not automatically, because we have a lot of organizations who are coming with the same request,” she said.
The Czech Republic, which has hosted Radio Free Europe for a quarter-century although its corporate headquarters is in Washington, is leading the push to keep the network alive. Kallas said that “there was really a push from the foreign ministers to discuss this and find the way.”
