EUfactcheck #10 ‘EU Elections 2024’

This spring season students from the EJTA journalism schools will once again check statements about topics in the upcoming EU elections. In their home universities and in cooperation with students from other EJTA schools they will produce fact checks, analyses and blogs. We expect to publish the first posts in early April. Follow us here or on  X and on our 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

Mostly True: After Brexit Referendum Brits move to an EU country

The German News Show “Tagesschau“ claimed that after Brexit Referendum Brits move to an EU country. Although our research proved the fact true, we decided to classify the claim as mostly true because there are several Brits who left the UK before Brexit or had other reasons to leave the country. Due to the upcoming…

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Mostly true: “Increase in amount of seized heroin in EU is mainly due to seizures in port of Antwerp”

Flemish weekly Knack published an article on 22 October which explained that Belgium remains the biggest entrance gate for cocaine, in the whole of the European Union. More interesting was the fact that this statement was made about seizures of heroin: “The increase in seizures of heroin in the EU is mainly due to an…

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Mostly True: “The EU has six different vaccines, each of which will ensure 200 million doses”

In an interview published on the 15th of November by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the EP President, David Sassoli claimed: “The European Union has got 6 different vaccines, each of which will ensure 200 million doses”. According to official European Commission press releases, the EC reached 5 agreements with the pharmaceutical companies related to…

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False: In Croatia there are fewer deaths during the pandemic than last year

Prominent internationally recognized Croatian scientist Miroslav Radman claims that in Croatia there are 967 fewer deaths ”at this time“ compared to last year, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. While Mr Radman does not specify in his claim to what period he specifically is referring to, stats from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics – which he quotes…

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fact checking

Mostly false: “The Public Employment Service Austria disclosed that 95 percent of immigrated Chechens make a living from Austrians” 

“A recent job market study shows that about five percent of male Chechen immigrants living in Austria since 2016 have a job” states unzensuriert.at. As claim source the article mentions a study conducted by the Public Employment Service Austria (AMS) – this is false. Moreover, the authors of the actual study do not fully confirm…

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fact-check uncheckable

Uncheckable: “Russian news services advertise Covid-19 demonstrations in Germany”

Thomas Haldenwang, president of the German intelligence service “Verfassungsschutz”, claimed that “the Internet channel RT Deutsch and the news agency Sputnik advertised so-called Hygienedemos and exaggerated them afterwards“. Our research doesn’t prove Haldenwang right but it’s possible that the Verfassungsschutz uses different sources which is why we assess the claim as uncheckable. The Federal Office…

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fact checking

Mostly false: “The first doses of the vaccine will be available in Italy in early December”

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced that the anti-Covid drug will begin to be distributed in just over a month: “If the final stages of preparation of the Oxford-Irbm Pomezia-AstraZeneca vaccine will be completed in the coming weeks, the first doses will be available in early December. The statement, taken from the book “Why Italy…

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Mostly true: Belgium tightens measures, imposes a curfew and closes restaurants

Information that Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo announced a curfew was published at the Russian Internet portal “Izvestia” on October 16, 2020. The news portal says that since October 19 a curfew starts from midnight to 5 am for a month period, Christmas markets will be canceled, cafes and restaurants will be closed.

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Mostly True: German newspaper claims “people are hoarding cash” in the crisis

Referring to the European Central Bank (ECB) the german „Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“ (FAZ) headlined on September 24th, 2020: “In the crisis, people are hoarding cash.“ Even if the term “hoarding” is incorrect in this case, all other figures, facts, quotations and the context are correct, which is why the claim is to be assessed as…

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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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