Disinfo: Berlin put pressure on neighbouring Luxembourg to deny RT's licence

Summary

According to reports in the German media earlier this year, Berlin put pressure on neighbouring Luxembourg to deny RT's licence.

Disproof

Accusations of censorship and attacks against freedom of expression are a recurring pro-Kremlin technique to defend the illicit actions of Russia’s state-sponsored disinformation outlets after local authorities adopt measures against them.

The claim is false. An article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung said there had been a meeting between Luxembourg's intelligence agency SREL, the media regulator ALIA, diplomats and their German counterparts about the possible application of a German-language channel by RT to stream from December. But according to government sources from the Grand Duchy, it had contacted the German authorities in order to ensure that an EU directive for audio-visual media was correctly applied. There is no evidence that the German authorities pressured their counterparts in Luxembourg to deny RT’s operation.

The network's English language channel is already available in Luxembourg, but the Kremlin-funded network wanted to broadcast in German from Luxembourg via satellite and by doing so circumvent German broadcasting rules. RT already has an office and staff in Berlin so its operating requirements were "deemed to be under the jurisdiction of the Federal Republic of Germany." So regulators from Luxembourg have banned Russia's state-owned news network RT from broadcasting its German-language channel from its territory.

See similar cases in our database such as that Germany declared a media war against Russia, and Berlin is ashamed to admit that it is fighting RT Deutsch with undignified methods.

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oroszhirek.hu (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 269
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 16/12/2021
  • Article language(s) Hungarian
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Germany, Luxembourg, Russia
  • Keywords: Media, RT, Censorship
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