Europe is facing various challenges: Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the re-election of Donald Trump are causing uncertainty. Wolfgang Ischinger, former German ambassador to the United States, warns in an interview with Sandra Maischberger: “We have a security problem in Europe. We have a noticeable, significant gap in defense spending over the next few years.”…
During a broadcast of the Flemish current affairs program “De Zevende Dag”, Klaas Slootmans, a member of the far-right party Vlaams Belang, claimed that in the next 25 years one billion African immigrants will come to (Western) Europe. After checking the facts, it turns out that Slootmans’ statement is false. In the episode of De…
In an interview with the German news agency “RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland” (RND), Stefan Gelbhaar, transport policy spokesman for the German political party “The Greens”, said: “After novice drivers, older people are the most likely to cause accidents per kilometre driven”. According to our research, this statement is mostly false. In the RND article “Driving in old…
Although the term ‘eco-anxiety’ already existed before, it has gained significant presence in European media over the past few years. We have examined La Vanguardia (Spain), The Guardian (UK) and Le Monde (France) to see how three prestigious newspapers from different countries address this phenomenon. In all cases, we present a quantitative and qualitative analysis.…
Former Barcelona mayor Xavier Trias stated in an interview that “cars are related to pollution, but have nothing to do with climate change”. We decided to check it through different scientific reports. To analyse the claim, it was also necessary to consider the political context and to put Trias’ statement into relation to some recent…
Former Barcelona mayor Xavier Trias stated in an interview that “cars are related to pollution, but have nothing to do with climate change”. He added that “we should not mix concepts, since then good-faith people end up joining battles which are not connected”. After analyzing different scientific reports, the claim turns out to be false. …
On the 4th of May 2022 Rasmus Andresen, a member of the European Parliament, posted a Tweet in which he claims that more than 30 million Europeans live in energy poverty. This claim turns out to be mostly false. What is energy poverty? According to Marine Cornelis, an expert in energy policy and consumer rights,…
In an article titled “Chinese graphite dominance threatens electric car ambitions”, posted on 14th March 2022, “Deutsche Welle” reports that Chinese graphite dominance threatens electric car ambitions worldwide. The author Ashutosh Pandey (Senior Business Editor for DW) states that China is a dominating force in the graphite supply chain, bearing in mind that the material…
An urgent and almost pressing undertone is given by articles such as “The EU countries in comparison: Who vaccinates faster against Covid-19?” by Euronews or “Covid vaccinations – Which country is on the top?” by ZDF which are issued to the broad German-speaking population. It brings up the question: Is this constant comparison of European…
At the beginning of September 2021, a video report appeared on the website of the television news network Euronews with this headline: “Covid-19 divides Europe into two parts”. The author refers to the results of a study by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), which appeared in the same month. However, Euronews’ claim, that…