Disinformation in full swing in Slovakia ahead of EU elections

Disinformation is in full swing in Slovakia, with pro-Russian forces accusing opposition leader Michal Šimečka of the Progressive Slovakia party (PS) of planning an uprising similar to the 2014 Maidan in Ukraine, alongside narratives that foreign entities plotted the assassination of Prime Minister Robert Fico and that the EU wants to kill cows and force citizens to eat worms instead.

Slovakia is the EU country most susceptible to fake news, and local politicians, well aware of this, have used several disinformation narratives in their campaigns for the upcoming EU elections.

Michal Šimečka, leader of the leading opposition party Progressive Slovakia (PS), is known for studying international relations and political science abroad, including at Oxford University.

However, his CV has been used against him by the ruling Smer-SD party, particularly its member and Deputy Speaker Ľuboš Blaha. In two posts in the first half of May, he accused Šimečka of having “written subversive manuals for maidans and coups d’état as a young student”.

“Are you planning another Maidan in Slovakia, agent Šimečka? Will innocent people have to die again?” asked Blaha, who is known for his pro-Russian views, which he aired on Russian state television last month.

“Fico and Blaha should know that if a scientist writes about the Egyptian pyramids, it does not mean that he built them,” Šimečka said in reaction to the accusation.

The PS leader explained that 15 years ago when he was a student at Oxford, he wrote an academic paper on the so-called colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine.

“Today, this academic text is being used by Smer to fight the political opposition,” Šimečka added.

Foreign entities behind Fico’s assassination attempt

Blaha, who is running for the European Parliament on the Smer list, has also spread conspiracy theories about the “real mastermind” behind the shooting on Fico, which took place on 15 May.

The shooter was arrested on the same day, still holding a gun in his hand. He confessed to the act.

At Smer election rallies in late May, Blaha nevertheless quoted the Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, who claimed that the secret services of a country “closely linked to the Global War Party” were behind the shooting on Fico.

“As of right now, I am not going to say which secret services and which country. You can probably guess it…” Blaha told the audience, as reported by Denník Postoj.

Meanwhile, Pavol Slota, the leader of a small non-parliamentary party, DOMOV, spoke “openly” in a Facebook post on 16 May, accusing the CIA, MI6 or the Ukrainian secret service of the attack – all without evidence.

EU forcing farmers to kill cows?

Agricultural disinformation has also been very successful in Slovakia. One of the most ‘successful’ videos on the subject was recorded by Branislav Becík of the ruling Hlas party. In it, he claims that the EU is ordering Slovakia to kill cows.

“We will have to get rid of one of our cows. Why, you ask? Because the green experts from Brussels are ordering us to do so,” said EU MEP candidate Becík.

This disinformation has also been spread by the candidates of the far-right Republic party. They all agree that the reason is “the Union’s desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”.

However, this is not the case, as there is currently no European regulation that would force farmers to reduce the number of animals on their farms to reduce emissions.

But representatives of two far-right parties, Republika and ĽSNS, continued to build on this hoax.

“Instead of milk and meat, the European Union wants us to eat crickets and genetically modified food,” claimed ĽSNS leader Marian Kotleba in a video in early May.

Republika’s leaders added this statement is present in the EU’s “From Farm to Fork” document, but there is no such thing in this EU food plan.

(Natália Silenská, Marián Koreň | Euractiv.sk)

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