Mostly True: The European population perceives climate change as a serious problem

On July 20th, 2023, the German representation of the European Commission published a press release entitled: “Eurobarometer survey: climate change is a serious problem and should be tackled more quickly”. The claim that can be derived from this is that the European population perceives climate change as a serious problem. The statistics are correctly reproduced…

False: “300,000 rejected asylum seekers receive full welfare benefits”

Friedrich Merz, Federal Chairman of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), said in an interview on the Television show “Welt Talk”: “People go crazy when they see that 300,000 asylum seekers are rejected, don’t leave the country, get the full benefits, get the full welfare benefits.” After checking the facts, it turns out that…

Uncheckable: “Oktoberfest 2023: Numbers of assaults against girls and women significantly decrease”

In an article from the German news website “Merkur.de”, journalist Lisa Metzger claims that the number of assaults against girls and women decreased significantly. According to our research, this statement appears to be uncheckable. In the article “Wiesn 2023: Significantly fewer assaults on women than the previous year – Suspected cases of date rape drugs…

Mostly True: “Unemployment rate in the euro area at record low”

On 2nd of October 2023 the German newspaper FAZ published an article stating that the unemployment rate in the 20 eurozone countries in august 2023 was 6.4% (10.9 million people). The headline of the article is: “Unemployment rate in the euro area at record low”. This claim turns out to be mostly true. The German…