EUROPE–RUSSIA — Europe Must Get Over Its Propaganda Scare

Not to Spread Propaganda, but to Put European Values to Work

R.M. Westerink; 26 August 2026 

The EUROPE–RUSSIA series ended with a simple proposition: Europe has its own story of values to put to work.[A] That requires a stronger democratic communications capability — one able to make European values, realities and perspectives visible inside Europe and beyond it.

That may sound like a new European project. It is not. Much of the idea was already on Europe’s table ten years ago.

Europe Saw the Need

In 2016, the European Parliament called strategic communication a priority. It argued that the Union should communicate its successes, values and principles with determination, coordinate the many institutions and civil-society actors already involved, communicate both internally and externally, support independent media and Russian-language information, and become more confident in its own narrative.[1]

At almost exactly the same time, outside specialists were reaching a similar conclusion. Research commissioned by the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence warned that Russia was not merely spreading individual falsehoods: democratic values themselves were being contested. Simply supplying sound information to balance Russian propaganda, it concluded, was not enough. Politicians, experts and civil society also had to communicate and defend the concepts on which democracy rests.[2]

The broad direction was therefore already visible: defend the information space, certainly — but also explain Europe, strengthen independent voices and communicate democratic values with confidence.

Then Came the Propaganda Scare

Europe had good reason to be cautious. Russian strategic communication demonstrated precisely what a democratic Europe did not want to become: centralized messaging, manipulation, deliberate distortion and restriction of competing information. Even the 2016 European debate showed anxiety that stronger EU strategic communication might itself slide into propaganda.[1]

That democratic instinct was right. But Europe appears to have overcorrected.

The politically safer territory was easier on defense: expose disinformation, identify foreign information manipulation and interference, improve media literacy, support independent journalism and strengthen societal resilience. Europe became increasingly capable in all of these areas.

What remained much less visible was the other half of the original ambition: confidently explaining what Europe itself represents and making that European story strategically present.

Call this Europe’s Propaganda Scare: an understandable fear of becoming propagandistic that also made Europe reluctant to use its democratic voice with purpose and persistence.

The Need Never Disappeared

The strategic problem did not go away. In 2020, a Carnegie study prepared independently after an EEAS-commissioned process involving more than one hundred experts and practitioners described European responses as piecemeal and slow, constrained by legal, bureaucratic and political differences. It also recorded substantial ownership and coordination problems between EU institutions and member states.[3]

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the communication problem became still harder to ignore. A 2024 GLOBSEC analysis warned that insufficient engagement with Western domestic audiences was already visible in public debate and opinion polling as war fatigue grew.[4]

The recurring message across a decade is striking. Europe has accumulated institutions, expertise and instruments. What it has not made equally recognizable is an integrated capability for putting its own values and strategic purpose to work.

The Weakness Is Larger Than Public Relations

This matters because Russia does not treat communication as public relations. Narratives about identity, history, Western hostility, national sacrifice and Russia’s future are part of the environment in which political choices are understood. The same strategic attention is directed outward, including toward European societies.

Europe therefore faces two related requirements.
European citizens need sufficient awareness of what their political environment represents and why it is worth protecting.
People outside the Union should not have Europe explained to them principally by governments that portray it as hostile, decadent or threatening.

Fear of building propaganda has thus contributed to Europe underbuilding something quite different: the democratic capability to communicate itself.

Finish the Framework Europe Already Started

The EUROPE–RUSSIA Key Notes proposed giving that capability a clearer form.[A] We can now also label it as a European Values Communication Framework — EVCF.

EVCF would not be a European propaganda machine and need not be a large new bureaucracy. It would connect and strengthen capabilities Europe already possesses: institutional communication, independent journalism, public broadcasting, research, universities, civil society, cultural networks, Russian-language and other local-language media, audience knowledge and technologies that preserve access to information.

Its democratic rule is simple: coordinate capability, not opinion.

Journalists remain independent. Academics remain free to disagree. Citizens remain free to reject what European institutions say. Different European political voices remain different. The framework makes European values and perspectives easier to encounter; it does not manufacture agreement.

The distinction with propaganda is fundamental. Propaganda tries to narrow the space in which people can judge. A democratic EVCF should enlarge it.

Internal and Outward

The framework should deliberately not be labelled “internal” or “external”. Europe needs both.

Internally, stronger values communication can help Europeans understand the democratic inheritance they often take for granted: freedom to live their own lives, equality before the law, protection against arbitrary power, pluralism, peaceful political change and solving differences through rules and compromise. The WE ARE EUROPE series explored that values foundation.[A]

Outward, the same capability allows Europe to explain itself rather than leaving others to define it. In the Russian case, that means for Russian Citizens preserving access to independent information and European perspectives — and eventually making visible that permanent confrontation is not the only conceivable relationship between Russia and Europe.

Europe does not decide what Russian citizens should believe. It can help ensure that they have alternatives to consider.

A Protection Responsibility

There is also a responsibility toward Europeans themselves. If authoritarian states systematically work to weaken confidence in European institutions and values, citizens may reasonably expect the European Union and their national governments to do more than identify manipulation after it occurs.

They may also expect Europe to explain, clearly and repeatedly, what it is protecting and why.

That is not propaganda. It is part of democratic self-protection.

From this perspective we can call Europe’s Propaganda Scare: an understandable - but unresponsible - fear of becoming propagandistic that also made Europe reluctant to use its democratic voice with purpose and persistence.

Europe Has Its Own Story to Put to Work

The irony is that Europe does not lack the substance. Nor does it lack most of the instruments. The 2016 Parliament already understood much of the requirement. External specialists repeatedly reinforced it. The capabilities subsequently grew, but the strongest institutional development concentrated on defensive functions.

The correction therefore need not begin with invention. It can begin with integration — and with recovering the confidence to communicate European values without confusing democratic communication with propaganda.

Europe was right to fear propaganda.

It was wrong if that fear taught Europe to fear its own voice.

A European Values Communication Framework would be a way to finish what Europe already started: not by telling people what to think, but by ensuring that Europe’s values, realities and possible futures are present strongly enough for people to think about them.

References

[1] European Parliament, “EU strategic communication to counteract propaganda against it by third parties”, resolution of 23 November 2016. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-8-2016-0441_EN.html

[2] NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence / Center for International Studies, “Redefining Euro-Atlantic Values and Russia’s Strategic Communication in the Euro-Atlantic Space”, 2016. https://stratcomcoe.org/publications/redefining-euro-atlantic-values-and-russias-strategic-communication-in-the-euro-atlantic-space/200

[3] James Pamment, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “The EU’s Role in Fighting Disinformation: Taking Back the Initiative”, 15 July 2020. https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2020/07/the-eus-role-in-fighting-disinformation-taking-back-the-initiative

[4] Katarína Klingová, GLOBSEC, “War on Words: How to Communicate Ukraine?”, 20 December 2024. https://www.globsec.org/what-we-do/publications/war-words-how-communicate-ukraine

[A] EUROPE–RUSSIA — KEY NOTES
Russia built a powerful story that helps its society endure war, sanctions and sacrifice. But Europe has its own story—of values, openness and a different future—to put to work. https://europe-is-us.blogspot.com/2026/08/blog-post.html