EUfactcheck #8 ‘Cross-national fact checking’

This winter season students from the EJTA journalism schools will work together in cross-national teams on fact checks and blogs. A variety of European topics will be addressed: polarisation, climate change, migration, defence budgets and more. Follow us here or on our Twitter and Facebook page.

EUfactcheck, an initiative of the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA) fights misinformation about European policies and topics. Journalism students from all over Europe factcheck claims made by politicians and others and rate them. Our focus is not to debunk fake news or disinformation but to give correct information to the reader.

Latest fact-checks

fact checking

Mostly false: Sputnik-V vaccine is only available in 5 of the 85 regions in Russia

In a Dutch news article of late February, Russia expert Helga Salemon claims that the Sputnik V corona vaccine is available in just 5 of the 85 regions of Russia. Also, she claims that the vaccine is better available for the so-called elite than for other people. These claims appear to be not completely true.…

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fact checking

Mostly false: “Spanish Government pull effect makes Spain the main European entrance for illegal immigrants”

At the beginning of January, VOX, a Spanish far-right party, issued a statement in which they blamed the current government’s immigration policies for making Spain’s coasts “the principal entrance for illegal immigration in Europe”. The release is chronologically connected to the massive arrival of irregular migrants to the Canary Islands, where the regional authorities were…

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fact-check uncheckable

Uncheckable: “The biggest lie from this election is that nuclear energy will help to achieve the climate goals”.

In the first national election debate, broadcasted by RTL4, leaders of political parties in the Netherlands were asked to take a stance on several important issues. One of the statements, about climate change was: “In order to achieve the climate goals the Netherlands must build new nuclear power plants”.  Conservative parties such as the VVD (liberal party), the PVV (nationalist party)…

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fact checking

Mostly false: “Around 20 percent of illegal migrants are bringing the coronavirus to Austria”

In a press release on February 24th, 2021, the right wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) stated that around 20 percent of illegal migrants who are picked up by the border police in the Austrian state Burgenland “are bringing the coronavirus along to Austria.“ The statement is mostly false. The FPÖ-statement refers to unnamed police sources…

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fact checking

Mostly false: “WHO does not recommend antigen testing in schools”

On February the 24th the Irish minister of Education Norma Foley of the party Fianna Fáil made a statement about antigen testing at schools. “The World Health Organization does not recommend antigen testing in schools.” Her claim is mostly false. The Education minister stated in a radio interview with RTÉ radio 1 that the WHO…

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False: “The average monthly retirement pension in Latvia is 77 thousand rubles”

On July 3rd, 2020, the Moscow City Duma held a meeting during which Deputy Yevgeny Stupin presented a draft of federal law on the abolition of pension reform. A video of his speech (in Russian) was posted on the YouTube channel “Совесть Некрасовки” (Сonscience of Nerkasovka). In his report, Mr. Stupin proposed to increase pension…

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Mostly true: “Lockdown in Slovenia is one of the longest in Europe and a thorough one”

On 7 December 2020, Slovenian Minister of Economic Development and Technology Zdravko Počivalšek made a statement about the second lockdown in Slovenia. In television programme Studio City he said that generally speaking Slovenia has had one of the longest “lockdowns” in Europe. He also stated Slovenia had a thorough system that, in his opinion, did…

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fact checking

Mostly false: “Dutch finance minister claims healthcare costs exceed 100 billion euros. He is off by 30 billion.”

On 28 February the Dutch minister of finance and leader of the Christian democrat party CDA, Wopke Hoekstra, participated in an election debate broadcast by RTL. During this debate, he stated that the costs of Dutch healthcare exceed 100 billion euros. In a response on Twitter, member of Parliament Fleur Agema, number 2 on the…

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UNCHECKABLE: “Russian workers are twice less productive than Italian ones”

On November 10, 2020, at 20:28 the Internet version of the Russian edition of “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” published an article with the headline: “To Catch up with Italy Russia has to Fire Half of its Workers”. Anastasia Bashkatova, Deputy Head of the Economics Department of “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” quoted First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov saying that…

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True: “Only 4% of Dutch nature reserves are in good condition and the number of wild animals has halved since 1990”

“Only four per cent of Dutch nature reserves are in good condition. The number of wild animals has halved since 1990,” states Dutch political party D66 in its election programme for 2021. With these statements, D66 tries to convince Dutch citizens to support the party in the upcoming national elections. D66 promises to create more…

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Latest blog posts

Blog: How to make the world a better place

With great enthusiasm we started the European Factcheck project this winter. Working together with 19 J-schools in 15 European countries is interesting. Besides that, we underline the bigger aim of this project: teaching students verification skills to become eager journalists to make ‘a better world’. Students don’t always like doing research but when you say…

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Blog: Fact-checking the project YES! and their intention to represent the opinions of the European Youth for the upcoming elections

We discovered the survey YES! due to an article published in the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia that talked about a project run up by young people for young people. We thought that the idea was innovative, and it was a good way to make young people voices heard and vindicate their claims as well. Results…

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Blog: Why and How Russian Disinformation targets Europe and the EU in Georgia

The Kremlin is engaged in hybrid warfare in order to strengthen its positions all over the world. To achieve its geopolitical goals, Russian authorities use a mix of different tools, including military, financial, economic, cultural and informational tools. During the last decade, the Kremlin has intensified the use of propaganda and disinformation as a weapon…

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European Journalism Training Association EJTA
Council of Europe
evens foundation
Group photo EUFACTCHECK 240119

The EUFACTCHECK project

EUFACTCHECK is the fact-checking project of the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA) that intends to build a sustainable curriculum unit on fact-checking within a European network of Journalism schools.

Through fact-checking European political claims and trying to tackle misinformation, we want our students and our public to grow a deeper insight and interest in democratic processes, both on national and European level.

EUFACTCHECK wishes to motivate fact-based debate in the EU and to stimulate media and information literacy.

Our history

After the success of the students’ publications, the participants of EJTA’s fact-checking project EUFACTCHECK decided at the EJTA AGM in Paris (July 2019) to move on with the project and to take new steps in the academic year 2019-2020.

By January-February 2019 a manual with guidelines and tips & tricks was published. In February 2020 a second Bootcamp will be organised in Ljubljana, with financial help from the Evens Foundation. This Train the Trainer focused on Central Eastern European countries, some new schools joined this project.
During corona the EJTA-schools continued to verify claims and publish fact checks. Now we are looking ahead to the 2024 EU elections.

For information about the EUfactcheck project please contact the programme manager: carien.touwen@hu.nl 

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