EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell (c) (Photo: consilium.europa.eu)
1st May 2020
China did try to pressure the EU into diluting a report on coronavirus disinformation, the EU’s top diplomat has admitted.
But this was just normal diplomacy, he added, while attacking an EU whistleblower.
«China expressed its concern when they knew what the document contained and they did this through diplomatic channels,» Borrell told MEPs in a videoconference on Thursday (30 April).
«Diplomatic démarches [complaints] can be accompanied by a range of incentives and disincentives, which don’t even need to be explicitly mentioned,» he added, in a hint of what the Chinese said.
Information Environment Assessment (IEA)