In a move that underscores Europe’s growing role in safeguarding Western media influence abroad, the European Union has stepped in to provide emergency funding of €5.5 million to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), the Cold War-era broadcaster once bankrolled by the CIA. The decision comes in the wake of a sweeping budgetary rollback by the Trump administration, which deemed the outlet obsolete and strategically misaligned with current US interests.

The bailout, announced by EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas on May 21, was framed as a “short-term emergency” measure intended to preserve what Brussels describes as “independent journalism” in regions where press freedom remains fragile or tightly controlled. However, critics view the gesture as a political message – both to Washington and to countries under RFE/RL’s coverage – that Europe remains committed to the information war, particularly in the post-Soviet space and authoritarian regimes like Iran and Belarus.

Kallas justified the funding on the grounds that “in a time of growing unfiltered content, independent journalism is more important than ever.” But the term “independent” has long been contested when it comes to RFE/RL, whose origins as a CIA project blur the line between journalism and geopolitical messaging. Originally conceived in the 1950s as a covert psychological operations tool during the height of US-Soviet rivalry, RFE/RL broadcast anti-communist content deep into the Eastern Bloc, helping to shape public sentiment behind the Iron Curtain.

Although the outlet is no longer run by intelligence services, it currently operates under the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), a federal entity........

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