[Salon] Assassination Attempt on Slovak PM Highlights Dangers of Constant EU Demonization of Project Ukraine Opponents and Hypocrisy of ‘Misinformation’ Crackdown

[Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>]

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/05/wheres-the-uproar-over-corporate-medias-history-of-spreading-hate-and-misinformation-about-slovak-pm-who-just-survived-assassination-attempt.html

Assassination Attempt on Slovak PM Highlights Dangers of Constant EU Demonization of Project Ukraine Opponents and Hypocrisy of ‘Misinformation’ Crackdown

Conor Gallagher May 20, 2024

It has been four days since Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot five times, and mum’s the word over months of misinformation from the corporate media, which has relentlessly labeled him as some sort of Russian stooge for the sin of opposing Project Ukraine. I suppose that’s their right even though the information appears inaccurate, but when these official media channels are supposed to be the source of supreme truth and counterpoints are silenced, the hypocritical house of cards that is the EU effort to supposedly combat misinformation falls apart.

As far as I can see, there has been no reflection on this since the assassination attempt; instead media like AFP and the Financial Times subtly suggest “divisive” and “toxic” politics of Fico and others in Slovakia are to blame.

It’s interesting that the EU censorship-industrial complex doesn’t appear inclined to take a deeper look at this considering it’s been hellbent on rooting out what they label misinformation in recent years. Consider that while the shooter is being described as a lone wolf, he was motivated – at least in part – by the Fico government’s opposition to Project Ukraine. Here’s CNN:

He said that the suspect told law enforcement officers that he disagreed with Fico’s policies and that he decided to act after the recent presidential election, which saw a Fico ally – Pellegrini – emerge as the winner.

“The reasons (the suspect gave) were the decision to abolish the special prosecutor’s office, the decision to stop supplying military assistance to Ukraine, the reform of public service broadcaster and the dismissal of the judicial council head,” Šutaj Eštok said.

That means European officials and media who have been relentlessly hyping the Russian threat while simultaneously labeling Fico as pro-Russia, created an environment where Fico’s opposition to supplying military assistance to Ukraine is treated as some unholy act and apparent motivation for the assassination attempt. Even the other issues that allegedly  the shooter gave almost certainly received outsize negative media attention largely due to Fico’s opposition to Project Ukraine.

Fico is a relatively standard center-left politician. The one difference – and it is a major one in today’s Europe – is that he opposed Project Ukraine. His party, Smer, for example, was recently suspended from the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats group in the parliament for questioning NATO and its focus on bread and butter issues over identity politics. Why the opposition to Project Ukraine? It has been a disaster for Slovakia, which initially suffered from the biggest GDP growth revision in the entire EU –– dropping from five percent to 2.3 percent. More from the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies:

Industry and automotive production have been badly affected and are in decline. Industrial production fell by almost 4% in the first seven months of 2022. The main manufacturing industry in Slovakia – the automotive sector – fared even worse, suffering a 6.3% decline in the same period. It is troubled by the continuing shortage of chips and the disruption of its supply chains: the Russian invasion of Ukraine has affected supply chains since March…

The damage to households is similar, according to Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung:

Rising energy prices have been challenging not only for households (where there is a risk of increased energy poverty), but also for industry (due to risk of suspension of production or of higher costs) and municipalities. While financial compensations of high energy bills could be among short-term solutions (financial compensations for industry, households, and municipalities were agreed by the government by the end of 202225), it is unsustainable from the point of view of long-term public finances. Well-targeted measures and policies to protect vulnerable consumers on the one hand and decreased energy demand on the other should be among the key solutions. In December 2022 the government had debated the materials drafted by the Regulatory Office for Network Industries, which proposed a definition of energy poverty,  pointing out that nearly one out of four Slovak households live in energy poverty.

Slovakia is still dependent on Russian nuclear fuel, but is being pushed by the EU to diversify options; the problem is there aren’t options readily available.

Slovakia has been unable to figure a way out of the mess without severe pain for its citizens or blowing holes in the national budget. The government set aside 1.25 billion euros for this year in an effort to prevent a 20 percent hike in household electricity charges, but that leads to other problems. From Euractiv:

The European Commission expected Slovakia will put an end to the energy aid but in 2023, the net budgetary cost of these energy measures was projected at 2.1 %. Even with the prediction counting on these measures to be phased out, the general government deficit is expected to increase to 6.5 % of GDP in 2024, the highest in the EU, according to the latest EU economic forecast.

Meanwhile the European Commission is insisting on stricter fiscal rules for European nations, which will likely only worsen the economic pain already being felt by millions across the bloc largely due to the economic war against Russia. In February, a last-minute agreement between the European Commission and Parliament will force EU member states to slash debt ratios and deficits while maintaining investment in “strategic areas such as digital, green, social or defense.”

At the same time, according to Bloomberg, EU officials and investors are using the fiscal rules to push for an EU-wide bond program that would bring the investors big time profits while allowing the bloc to ramp up military spending without individual nations incurring more debt.

After years of using the escape clause in order to deal with the economic fallout of the pandemic, the return of fiscal rules in the form of the new “economic governance” framework might help the EU get its coveted war bonds, it will also mean more austerity. – especially for those nations with high public debt ratios, which now includes Slovakia.

Despite all that, it’s the questioning of the NATO line and opposition to digging the Project Ukraine hole even deeper that got Fico and Smer in hot water with the Atlanticists that run Europe nowadays.

Fico and Smer are relentlessly labeled pro-Russia for nothing more than their belief that Project Ukraine is not good for Slovakia. Not that there’s anything wrong with being pro-Russia, but since when does not wanting to go to war with Russia make one “pro-Russia”? And when Putin is compared to Hitler on a daily basis, these become dangerous charges to repeatedly level against a politician like Fico.

So we find ourselves in a situation where in Europe you now need to use a VPN to access Russian news sites like RT and Sputnik, which have been banned to save minds from misinformation. Meanwhile, our trusted sources have been peddling this de facto Fico=Putin=Hitler line for the better part of a year. A brief sampling, but the examples are near endless:

Robert Fico: Who is Slovakia’s pro-Russia prime minister? Reuters. May 16, 2024.

How Robert Fico turned Slovakia into one of Russia’s only allies The Telegraph. May 15, 2024.

German Defense Chief Compares Putin to Hitler at Churchill Event Bloomberg. April 11, 2024

Putin Is ‘Losing Control’ in Russia: Dictator Expert Newsweek. March 27, 2024.

Slovakia’s Fico cheers as pro-Putin biker gang boss is removed from EU sanctions list Politico. March 13, 2024.

Hitler didn’t quit in 1938 and Putin won’t stop at Ukraine, Lithuanian leader warnsPolitico. March 13, 2024

Author Timothy Garton Ash: ‘Vladimir Putin is the Adolf Hitler of our day’ France 24. January 25, 2024.

Slovak PM decries Western strategy on Ukraine, says Russia ‘also needs security guarantees’ Kyiv Independent. January 10, 2024.

Slovakia: Is populist PM Robert Fico a threat to EU, NATO? Deutsche Welle. November 3, 2023.

Why Slovakia’s Fico hates Ukraine. Politico. October 19, 2023.

EU Socialists urged to kick out Slovakia’s pro-Russian election winner Robert FicoPolitico. October 3, 2023.

Who is Robert Fico? Slovak leader’s ties with Russia exposed in hacked filesEuromaidan Press. October 3, 2023. What was “exposed” was that Fico as PM took an interest in Slovakia’s deals with Russia for natural gas and nuclear energy as one would hope any responsible PM would do.

Slovakia Appears Set to Join the Putin Sympathizers After Election New York Times. October 3, 2023

Pro-Russian politician wins Slovakia’s parliamentary election CNN. October 2, 2023.

Who is Robert Fico, the pro-Russian leader poised to head Slovakia’s coalition government? The Guardian. October 2, 2023.

Robert Fico doubles down on pro-Russia stance after Slovakia election win The Guardian. October 1, 2023

Slovakia’s Fico, populist ex-premier with penchant for Putin. AFP. September 26, 2023.

What Putin learned from Hitler The New Statesman. September 12, 2023.

Leaving the comparisons of Putin to Hitler for another day, there is no evidence that I’ve been able to find that Fico has any sort of connection to Russia aside from being a head of state that interacts with Russia.

The fact is he’s a politician who campaigned on what he believed were in the best interests of Slovakia, which included ending support for Project Ukraine and all the economic harm that has meant for Slovakia, Europe, and especially working class Europeans, and he was elected on that platform.

One would think that an EU so concerned with misinformation would be going after all these media outlets that parroted this pro-Russia line. Obviously, that isn’t going to happen, though, and we all know why.

Crossing Red Lines on the Homefront

For the past few years the EU and individual countries have been destroying democratic rights at home in their quest for “freedom” for Ukraine. Events airing any Russian point of view (or Palestinian) are frequently banned and the crackdown on online speech continues to pick up steam.

This nonsensical and repressive climate is maybe best summed up by the following lines from  the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), which argues that no one can be allowed to hide behind quaint ideas like freedom of speech:

Organizers of pro-Russian events meanwhile invoke democratic rights and freedom of speech in response to criticism…Allowing Kremlin disinformation agents to operate freely has nothing to do with freedom of speech.

In fact, it has everything to do with freedom of speech because what CEPA labels “Kremlin disinformation agents” are simply individuals that dare question the official line on Russia and Ukraine. And the EU Digital Services Act is coming for what’s left of freedom of speech, as Nick Corbishley recently described:

The goal of the DSA is to combat — i.e., suppress — mis- and disinformation online, not just in Europe but potentially across the world, and is part of a broader trend of Western governments actively pushing to censor information on the Internet as they gradually lose control over key narrative threads.

Or here’s European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen salivating over these new tools at her disposal:

These are acts of scared people who know their reasons for war are bogus, and they’re afraid the plebs will realize that and punish them for their epic malfeasance. So instead it’s become commonplace to hide behind misinformation or disinformation – blanket terms for anything that tries to tap the brakes on war with Russia. Facts, opinions, warnings – they’re all dangerous and should be banned.

It has become so pervasive it’s almost difficult to pick out the most egregious examples of inconvenient facts being labeled Russian misinfo. Here’s one that was true before it became untrue and fell under the Russian misinfo umbrella: that neo-Nazis are a major part of the government and armed forces of Ukraine. Nowadays, here’s the German Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community listing Russian disinformation and “the facts”:

They are in fact neo-Nazis, and they’re neo-Nazis in a country where the government is [checks watch] no longer democratically elected as the president’s term is up today but elections were cancelled. And they’re neo-Nazis who might be looking for a new home soon as Ukraine continues to lose the war, and they potentially flee the country. Who knows what kind of mischief the Ukrainian Nazis and those they inspire throughout Western Europe will get up to, especially in an environment where the shooting of Fico is treated as divine justice. We now have Sky News basically saying Fico got what he deserved:

There’s a lot of talk about red lines in Ukraine laid down by Russia or the other side, but increasingly the West is speeding past lines that only a few years ago would have been considered dangerous to cross – and they’re all at home.
The EU placed all its bets on Uncle Sam, Project Ukraine, and the dream of plundering Russia; and now has nowhere to go and no power to do anything except become more repressive, destroying it’s supposed ideals, its working class, their standard of living, destroying welfare states and social cohesion.

The crackdown on democratic rights is coming so fast now it’s almost difficult to keep up. The Fico assassination looks like a byproduct of this climate of fear, and in hindsight might serve as a milestone on the road to a Europe at war with itself.