Media Resilience
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty: The Cost of Retreat and the Case for EU Leadership
The abrupt suspension of U.S. government funding to Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in 2025 triggered a cascade of newsroom closures and layoffs across Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia — regions where disinformation and authoritarian influence are rapidly expanding. The crisis exposed the structural fragility of independent media ecosystems long reliant on a single donor and underscored how strategically vital European support has become.
Context
For more than six decades, RFE/RL served as a cornerstone of pluralistic journalism, operating from Prague with over 20 local language services and bureaus across 23 countries. In mid-2025, the U.S. Congress rescinded the appropriation for the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) that financed RFE/RL — part of a broader rollback of public-interest media funding in Washington.
The decision effectively dismantled one of the largest international newsgathering networks in Europe’s eastern neighbourhood. Journalists in Georgia, Armenia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan were left without salaries or safety support; several bureaus faced eviction within weeks.
According to BBC Media Action’s Crisis in Journalism (2025) and Free Press Unlimited’s Global Fallout of U.S. Government Funding Cuts, the loss of U.S. support immediately disrupted independent coverage in multiple languages and created a vacuum quickly filled by Russian and Chinese state-aligned outlets.
Implications for Europe
During the TED Toolkit interviews in 2025, EU officials described the RFE/RL crisis as a “rude wake-up call” for European policymakers:
“The EU is suddenly realising the very real consequences of the potential failure of RFE. It affects our neighbouring countries directly — and shows just how much the U.S. has been contributing to the information ecosystem in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.” — Senior official, European Commission
The collapse revealed the dependency on U.S. grants and the absence of a coordinated European safety net for cross-border journalism. Without continued support, local reporters face two choices: accept funding from authoritarian sources or close entirely — what one interviewee called “bricks or broke.”
As highlighted in the High-Level Panel on Public Interest Media (2025), dismantling independent information supply chains damages governance, market stability, and Europe’s own security architecture.
🇪Why EU Support Matters Now
The EU is already the second-largest global donor for media and information integrity, yet its funding instruments remain fragmented and modest relative to the scale of need. The RFE/RL case demonstrates that Europe can no longer outsource strategic communication and information resilience to trans-Atlantic partners.
Building on lessons from this crisis, the EU and Member States can:
Stabilise critical information ecosystems through rapid-response funds under DG INTPA and the European Endowment for Democracy (EED) to keep independent cross-border services alive.
Scale up Creative Europe and IJ4EU journalism partnerships to include operational-cost coverage for former RFE/RL bureaus or successor initiatives.
Embed media resilience into Global Gateway and Neighbourhood Programmes, ensuring that infrastructure investments are matched by transparent information environments.
Integrate RFE/RL-type oversight into the European Democracy Shield, combining safety, distribution, and audience-reach support for exiled or relocated journalists.
As one EU official noted, “This crisis may finally fuel the political recognition needed for sustained, European-led media support.”
Lesson
The RFE/RL shutdown is more than a funding story — it is a stress test of Europe’s democratic preparedness. Without coordinated EU intervention, the collapse of U.S. support risks turning vast regions on Europe’s borders into information vacuums dominated by authoritarian narratives.
Strategic, multi-year European investment in independent journalism is therefore not charity; it is security policy — a prerequisite for resilience, rule-of-law, and credible EU engagement abroad.
Media Oversight and Global Gateway Partnerships: Why Infrastructure Needs Independent Journalism
As the EU scales up its Global Gateway programme — a €300 billion investment strategy spanning energy, digital, transport, health, and education — concerns have grown about transparency, public trust, and vulnerability to corruption in partner countries. This case illustrates how independent journalism is essential to safeguarding EU investment, strengthening democratic governance, and maintaining Europe’s credibility abroad.
Context
Global Gateway was launched to offer a democratic alternative to authoritarian financing models, promising transparency, sustainability, and high socio-economic impact. But major infrastructure investments — by any actor — attract corruption, elite capture, procurement manipulation, and opaque public–private partnerships.
TED Toolkit interviews highlighted the scale of the challenge:
Large-scale infrastructure projects regularly exceed budgets, miss deadlines, or become entangled in political patronage.
Local communities often perceive projects as opaque, especially when procurement information is undisclosed or when contracts involve state-linked companies.
In competitive geopolitical environments, China and Russia exploit information vacuums by framing EU-funded projects as neocolonial, inefficient, or elite-serving.
Several EU Delegation officials noted that failure to ensure transparency in infrastructure delivery can undermine the EU’s reputation as a promoter of rule-of-law and democratic values:
“If Global Gateway is not accompanied by clear information and independent oversight, the EU risks being judged not on its commitments but on what people see — or don’t see — on the ground.” — EU Delegation official, 2025 interview
Stakeholders across interviews stressed that infrastructure delivery is not only a technical exercise — it is an information environment challenge. Lack of reliable scrutiny weakens accountability and allows hostile narratives to flourish.
Implications for Europe
Without independent media oversight, Global Gateway faces several strategic risks:
1. Corruption and procurement manipulation
Investigative outlets across the Western Balkans, Eastern Partnership, and Africa have repeatedly uncovered inflated contracts and politically connected subcontractors in large infrastructure tenders. EU officials interviewed for this toolkit emphasised that journalistic monitoring often reveals misuse earlier than audits or evaluations.
2. Erosion of public trust in EU action
Communities affected by major projects — such as road corridors, renewable-energy infrastructure, or telecoms connectivity — frequently lack access to information on:
who benefits,
who was consulted,
environmental impacts,
or whether contractors met obligations.
Research from BBC Media Actionshows that perceived opacity fuels disinformation, conspiracy theories, and anti-EU sentiment in regions where Russia and China have strong media footprints.
3. Strategic information competition
As one senior EU official warned during consultations:
“If the EU does not ensure public transparency around its investments, other geopolitical actors will define the narrative for us.”
In several partner countries, authoritarian states already broadcast narratives alleging corruption, mission creep, and political interference — narratives that spread more easily when no independent local reporting exists.
4. Missed development outcomes
Evidence from Global Gateway feasibility studies, World Bank governance analysis, and OECD anti-corruption reports consistently shows that infrastructure projects succeed when independent scrutiny is present, and degrade when it is not.
🇪🇺 Why EU Support Matters Now
The case for embedding investigative journalism in Global Gateway delivery aligns with OECD Principle 3 – Take a Whole-of-System Perspective, as well as with EU commitments under the European Democracy Shield, Global Europe, and the European Media Freedom Act.
TED interviews made three points repeatedly:
1. Infrastructure and media support cannot remain separate silos
Several EU Delegations are already experimenting with cross-sectoral integration, such as:
including journalistic monitoring in anti-corruption programmes;
funding cross-border reporting consortia to track procurement;
supporting local partners to follow the full lifecycle of projects.
2. Media oversight is a security and governance investment — not a communications add-on
Interviewees stressed that the EU should avoid framing media support as “visibility”. Instead, journalism must be treated as an accountability instrument that protects public funds and maintains legitimacy.
3. Europe must learn from RFE/RL
Following the collapse of U.S. media funding, several officials noted that the EU can no longer rely on external partners to provide oversight and information resilience:
“The RFE crisis showed what happens when donor support disappears. Global Gateway could face the same vulnerability if we fail to invest in local information systems.” — Europe-based media development specialist, 2025 interview
What the EU Can Do
Earmark media components within Global Gateway projects (e.g., procurement monitoring, investigative reporting on project delivery).
Use Creative Europe, IJ4EU, EED, and DG INTPA bilateral funds to support local outlets covering infrastructure, governance, and fiscal transparency.
Support training on data journalism, procurement monitoring, and environmental reporting, especially in regions with opaque contracting systems.
Fund partnerships between European and local investigative outlets, including cross-border collaborations in the Western Balkans, Eastern Partnership, Central Asia, and Africa.
Embed transparency obligations in EU-funded infrastructure contracts, including proactive publication of procurement, environmental assessments, and delivery milestones.
This reflects a wider trend: the EU must understand media as a strategic enabler of investment success, not a parallel sector.
Lesson
The Global Gateway example shows that information integrity is as essential as engineering quality in the success of major infrastructure programmes. Without independent journalism, corruption goes undetected, geopolitical competitors fill the narrative void, and public trust declines.
Embedding media oversight is therefore:
a governance tool,
a safeguard for public investment, and
a strategic pillar of Europe’s presence abroad.
Incorporating independent scrutiny into every stage of Global Gateway strengthens media resilience, reinforces rule-of-law, and ensures the EU is seen not only as a funder of infrastructure — but as a defender of transparency and accountability worldwide.
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