On April 2, Finnish politician Asseri Kinnunen sent out a claim on Twitter about the willingness to defend one’s country in the three most populous EU countries. Kinnunen is the chairman of The Finns Party Youth and a candidate in the upcoming European Parliament elections. The tweet was part of the discussion around the Finnish…
“Yearly, 825 billion euros in tax payments are being evaded in the European Union. On top of that, the EU loses 160 to 190 billion euros due to tax avoidance.” This is a claim by Belgian politician and MEP Kathleen Van Brempt. Astronomical numbers, but where do they come from? And how reliable can these…
Article 13 of the new European copyright law anticipates a lot of resistance. The law wants to ensure that content creators are better protected. On March 26, a Flemish member of the European Parliament Anneleen Van Bossuyt (N-VA) voted against the European reformation of copyright law. In an article that appeared on the website of…
After the attacks on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, the Australian senator Fraser Anning has claimed that Muslims are often executors of terrorist attacks. This claim has received worldwide attention. What do the statistics say about the religious background of terrorism? The statement was published by the Australian senator Fraser Anning on the 15th of…
It sounds great: 1500 to 2000 euro per year for every Dutch citizen, only because the Netherlands is a member of the European Union. This is what the Dutch progressive liberal party D66 states in a twitter response to a promotional ‘Nexit’ video by extreme right PVV leader Geert Wilders. To good to be true?
On 18 February, the Finnish MEP Heidi Hautala claimed that Finnish National Coalition Party and United Russia have been fraternal parties for a long time. The National Coalition Party denies the cooperation with United Russia as well as sharing the same ideology, although there are reports of cooperation between the parties in the past. The…
According to a Daily Express article, thousands of EU officials are earning more than 290.000 a year, which is more than German Chancellor Angela Merkel. We rate the claim as uncheckable. The salaries of EU officials have been a wildly debated topic over the years. Last month, the Daily Express reported on the German…
On 15 January 2019, Merja Kyllönen, the Member of the European Parliament, questioned the legality of the EU-Morocco Agreement in her tweet. According to her, an addendum to the agreement does not comply with the decision made by the Court of Justice of the European Union regarding the adjacent waters of Western Sahara. The claim…
On 21 January, Finnish parliament member Olli Immonen stated in his blog that “Finland currently has the loosest asylum policy in the Nordic countries when it comes to, for example, family reunification.” Our research shows that norms and practices related to asylum policies are so complex that it is not possible to make a reliable…
The Natracare brand of organic skin protection claims on its website that conventional menstrual pads are made of “90% plastic”. An unverifiable figure, but likely. “Did you know conventional menstrual pads are made up of 90% plastic materials?!” The brand Natracare, a pioneer in organic sanitary pads, uses this astounding figure to appeal to…