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: “Decline in insect populations is a big environmental risk that should be studied more, also in Finland.”

On 12 February 2019 the Finnish Member of Parliament and candidate in the European elections, Ville Niinistö, tweeted that decline in insect populations form a large environmental risk. An additional tweet linked to an article published by the Finnish national broadcasting company YLE concerning the subject. Niinistö also claimed that the presumed decline should be…

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Mostly true: “An active Croatian judge can participate in the upcoming European Elections”

In a television interview one Croatian Commercial Court judge Mislav Kolakušić announced his plans to stand as a candidate in the upcoming European Elections. The statement raised the question whether Kolakušić, being an active judge, has the right to do so. We examined national and EU laws and regulations on political participation of judges which…

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fact checking

Mostly false: “While countries all over the world are switching to green energy, Belgium stays behind. Already, our energy bill is the third most expensive of Europe”

The political party Groen (the Flemish green party) claims that Belgium is way behind when it comes to green energy. They also say our energy bill is ranked the third most expensive in Europe. Groen mentions this claim on both Facebook and in an article on their website. The party repeats the claim multiple times,…

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Mostly true: „Between 25.000 to 30.000 lobbyists“ are working in Brussels

In an article on the Viennese online news portal, www.vienna.at, Julia Herr, Austrian Social Democratic Party candidate for the European parliament election, was recently quoted, that there were supposedly „between 25.000 to 30.000 lobbyists“ working in Brussels. According to the article, Herr had made this claim on March 5th, 2019 during a discussion on the…

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False: “The increased homophobia in The Netherlands is caused by uncontrolled immigration and open borders”

  On March the 4th Dutch leader of the right-wing Forum for Democracy Thierry Baudet reacted to a statement by liberal politician Rob Jetten about homophobia in The Netherlands. Baudet stated on Twitter: ,,Jetten’s anger about the increased homophobia in The Netherlands is justified, but he doesn’t see the causes: the uncontrolled immigration and the…

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fact-check uncheckable

Uncheckable: “4,000 EU officials are paid more than Merkel”

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…

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fact-check uncheckable

Uncheckable: “The addendum to the EU-Morocco Agreement does not comply with the decision made by the EU Court of Justice”

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…

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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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