mostly false

Mostly false: Russia spends $130 billion less annually on defence than European NATO states

In numerous media appearances, Jan van Aken, co-chair of German party Die Linke, has expressed his opposition to increasing Germany’s defence budget. He argues this point by highlighting the superiority of the European NATO states over Russia, citing a yearly difference of $130 billion in defence spending. This statement turned out to be mostly false.…

Mostly False: “Only 1% of the EU budget EU is a share of the GDP of all countries. America has 33% of its budget in relation to GDP”

During an interview on Croatian Radiotelevision on the 10th of May, the Croatian EU Parliament candidate Katarina Peović claimed: “Only 1% of the budget of the European Union is a share of the GDP of all countries. America has 33% of its budget in relation to GDP.” By comparing the budget of the EU and…

True: “80 percent of the European money for agriculture goes to the 20 percent largest farmers”

The current European agricultural policy runs until 2020. The discussions about this policy for 2021 have therefore started. Following this discussion, Menno Bentveld, a reporter at the Dutch national radio station NPO Radio 1 called Bas Eickhout, MEP on behalf of GroenLinks. Eickhout claimed that 80 percent of the European agricultural money goes to the…