Disinformation, Deliveroo & lithium debates

Hi everyone,

Platforms such as TikTok or Facebook are often the conduits for the spread of deepfakes, misleading political advertising and disinformation. In an attempt to tackle these growing threats, the EU on Tuesday adopted new guidelines requiring social media companies to mitigate misinformation risks. It is hoped the guidelines will help quash falsehoods shared online in the run-up to June’s parliamentary elections. In truth, election interference and influence can take many forms.?

?? Russian influence across Europe. After the recent re-election of an unchallenged Vladimir Putin, Russia is set for another six years of rule by unchecked authority and control. Russian power and influence are also a central concern for the EU ahead of its parliamentary elections. Last week we published a new story examining the extent of possible Kremlin interference across Europe and analysed how the Putin regime aims to “sow divisions” among Europeans before ballot boxes open on 6 June. ?

Thank you for reading and greetings from our team across Europe ??.?

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Your IE Team

Charting Europe

The supply of lithium and other important raw materials such as nickel, cobalt and copper has become one of the world's most pressing problems. The demand for these materials is constantly increasing. They are crucial in strategic sectors such as defence and aerospace, as well as for our mobile phones, televisions, computers and car batteries. And now plans are afoot across the EU to open swathes of new mines and reduce the bloc’s dependency on China and elsewhere. As the chart shows, new facilities are needed if we want to meet future demand, but the risks and costs of opening new mines are many.

And opposition to new projects is mounting among Europeans. Earlier this week hundreds of concerned residents gathered in Echassières, a village in central France, to debate plans for a huge lithium mine. The event was part of a series of official meetings that the state must organise in order for the mining project to be approved. Residents fear that the project, run by mining giant Imerys, could irrevocably affect their way of life and potentially lead to water shortages, arsenic and lead poisoning in the surrounding area. In our Mine Games investigation, launched in October, we examined Europe’s plans for a mining revival, exposed the associated environmental risks and explored the potential impact of mega-projects like the one in Echassières on local communities.

Read more here.

In Focus

In 1998, the little-known Energy Charter Treaty came into force. The agreement aimed to protect Western energy companies investing in projects in former Soviet states which was considered a risky venture at the time. Much has changed since that time though, and over the years the ECT effectively became a stick used by fossil fuel firms to beat governments across the EU.?

Under the opaque treaty, fossil fuel investors have been able to sue EU governments for billions if they perceive that their investments were damaged because of new environmental policies. This could potentially lead to member states watering down their climate policies and eventually missing the EU's ambitious climate targets. After unsuccessful attempts at modernisation, France, Germany, Poland and other states withdrew from the treaty with many more signalling their intention to leave. On 6 March, EU ambassadors agreed on a proposal that will lead to an EU-wide exit from the treaty. The European Parliament is expected to vote and finalise this withdrawal in April.?

Recently the treaty might have made headlines but it was little known until 2021 when we exposed the bleak reality of the ECT and demonstrated how it has prevented countries from taking ambitious climate action in recent years.

Recently the treaty might have made headlines but it was little known until 2021 when we exposed the bleak reality of the ECT and demonstrated how it has prevented countries from taking ambitious climate action in recent years.

?What we're reading

• French forces are endangering the lives of migrants. Footage obtained by Lighthouse Reports and others shows French police forcibly intercepting dinghies sailing to the UK, endangering the lives of those onboard. Although France has previously refused to do this on the grounds that it would endanger human lives, the evidence indicates otherwise. France appears to be mimicking the deadly strategy used in the Aegean and Central Mediterranean by the Greek and Libyan coastguards with tactics apparently paid for by the UK.
• International labour exploitation. BIRN, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, has produced a striking investigation revealing the horrendous working conditions and realities faced by Indian nationals employed in Serbia by a Chinese construction firm with a chequered past of organised labour exploitation.?
• Data on femicide. The lack of consistent data on femicides continues to be a persistent problem which is the basis of this cross-border analysis coordinated by EDJNet and the Mediterranean Institute for Investigative Journalism. The analysis, with a strong focus on Greece, shows how authorities routinely under-report femicides and emphasises the urgent need for legislative measures to address this problem.
• Destruction of medical infrastructure in Gaza. Since October, there have been repeated attacks on hospitals and medical facilities in the north of the Gaza Strip. Research group Forensic Architecture has compared and analysed hundreds of reports from Al-Jazeera, Alaraby and Shehab News about these attacks to illustrate the consistent pattern.?

Inside Investigate Europe

Investigate Europe often explores issues that are not in the general news - yet. IE co-founder Ingeborg Eliassen in Stavanger, Norway, looks back to 2017 for one such example.?

When joining Investigate Europe in 2016, I brought an interest in labour issues. A massive transfer of power had just happened - from workers to employers - through loosening of labour laws across Europe. It was after the financial crisis. New jobs were to be created and new growth to be kick-started.

Then the digital platform economy emerged. In cities across Europe, biking food delivery workers appeared, in glaring outfits and with containers strapped on their backs. Their boss was not a person to negotiate with, but an app, with algorithms that one-sidedly could “update” their shift plans, alter their pay – and that might suddenly “de-activate” them.?

It was as if a century of labour struggles never happened.

As part of our 2017 project “Race to the bottom: Europe’s precariat”, we reported from Germany and Norway on one early initiative among delivery workers, in Berlin, to turn back that tide and organise. London, Torino and Bordeaux had seen the first delivery workers’ strikes. In 2019, after another strike, Foodora in Norway signed a landmark collective agreement with the United Federation of Trade Unions.?

Fast forward to this month: EU governments finally endorsed a directive to secure minimum rights for all "gig workers", now a workforce estimated to be anywhere between 28 and 43 million people in Europe. This law did not appear in a vacuum, but from staunch efforts by many who for years have been insisting on fair conditions in a digital economy and thereby reviving the labour movement.?

I like to think that our early reporting encouraged some of those efforts.

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