The bloc will discuss saving Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which has been hit by Trump’s spending cuts
The EU will discuss ways to help US state-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) stay afloat now that President Donald Trump has slashed its budget, the bloc’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, has said.
RFE/RL was founded during the Cold War to spread pro-Western propaganda in the Eastern Bloc. The organization was initially funded by the CIA and continues to receive US Congressional grants.
A reporter asked Kallas following the Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels on Monday whether the EU would offer “temporary protection” to Russian journalists who’d had their contracts terminated. She argued that RFE/RL’s broadcasts during the Cold War were “very valuable.”
“It is sad to hear that the US is withdrawing the funding. Now the question for us is, can we come in with our funding to fill the void?” Kallas said. “The answer to that question is… not automatically because we have a lot of organizations that are coming with the same request.”
“But there was really a push from the foreign ministers to discuss this and find a way. So this is the [task of] our side to see what we can do,” she added.
The European Commission and officials from EU member states have condemned Trump’s decision to gut the news agency. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky wrote on X last week that he would discuss the possibility to “at least partially maintain its broadcasts.” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on Monday that the EU was “brainstorming” how to help RFE/RL, according to The Kyiv Independent.
On March 14, Trump signed an executive order mandating funding and staff cuts at the United States Agency for Global Media, which oversees RFE/RL and other state-funded news organizations, including the Voice of America. The White House said that the move is part of a wider campaign to rid the government of “unnecessary” bureaucracy. Trump has frequently accused media outlets of bias and spreading “fake news” about him and his policies.
RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus has described the cuts as “a massive gift to America’s enemies.”
In a call with journalists on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov labelled RFE/RL and the Voice of America “purely propagandistic media” and said that the cuts were the domestic affair of the US.