The benefits of being a candidate country are not clear, or at least they are not quite trickling down to the Albanian population at large. This leaves a gap, a gap easily filled by conspiracy theorists who are more than ready to use their platforms to undermine the EU.
By some metrics, Albania may well be the European Union’s most stringent of devotees. It is understandable: the promise of a borderless Europe, more job opportunities, and improved economic prospects is hard to beat. It is still a promise, and perhaps because still unachieved, it holds much more potential and hope than the mundane realities of a political dream realized.
In April 2024, the International Republican Institute released the results of a survey in the Western Balkans on questions ranging from support for the European Union to the war in Ukraine. These are topics often considered vectors for the spread of disinformation in the region, especially disinformation fueled by the Russian state and its allies. Of the six countries polled for this survey, Albania and Kosovo continue to lead the pack on pro-EU/Western sentiment. More specifically, 92% of Albanians polled responded that they would vote “yes” on a referendum to join the European Union if it was held at the date of the survey.
The survey, which was conducted over February-March 2024, matches the results of previous studies on trust in the European Union and pro-EU sentiment in the Western Balkans. For instance, the Balkan Barometer for 2023 established that 92% of Albanians surveyed believed that EU membership would be good for the country’s economy. Trust in the EU has been pretty high, especially compared to other countries not only in the region but the continent more broadly: the 2023 Trust in Governance poll by the United Nations found that 74.7% of Albanians trust the EU—a stark contrast to the 29.1% who trust parliament or the 33.4$ who believe in Albanian courts.
Albania’s attitude toward the EU may be overall positive, but that does not mean that the country is immune to the growing threat of EU skepticism and the disinformation spawned by such sentiments. For the most part, mainstream and major Albanian outlets have shown restraint when covering the European Union and the 2024 EU elections that took place around the Union between 6-9 June. On the other hand, disinformation about the EU proliferates at the fringes of Albanian social media, in smaller portals and in anonymous Facebook accounts whose reach may seem small, but whose followers are invested and growing. A three-month research project conducted by the fact-checking organization Faktoje on Meta’s flagship social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, and Threads) showed that pro-EU sentiment cannot be taken for granted.
Fundamentally, anti-EU disinformation in Albanian language media and social media can be dangerous because they are embroiled in broader pro-Russian narratives, whether on topics like NATO and the war in Ukraine, to concentrated efforts against vaccination and climate change, to issues like the support of women’s rights or LGBT+ people in the country. As previous reports have shown, Russia often weaponizes anti-LGBT sentiment to spread its propaganda across Europe. What this means is that even for a pro-EU country like Albania, the slippery slope towards Euroscepticism begins by engaging earnestly with accounts and portals that spread disinformation about a slate of issues, and then fold that type of disinformation into narratives against the European Union as a threat to freedom and the rights of Albanian citizens.
Fake news concerning the European Union, and particularly the latest election, ranges from clickbait and careless reporting to straightforward Russian propaganda. On the careless end, we had articles that misreported the number of actual voters, and others that lauded candidates for results they had not quite achieved. But often, Facebook accounts with clear pro-Russian bias would post disinformation that aims to erode trust in the European Union. One portal on Facebook republished distorted claims by Italian politician Antonio Tajani, according to whom 80% of Italy’s laws came from Brussels. This claim belongs to those anti-EU narratives that accuse the Union of torpedoing the sovereignty of individual member states, portraying countries like Italy as subjected to the totalizing will of European bureaucrats without taking into account the needs of local populations.
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Of course, Tajani’s claims were unfounded: Italian fact-checkers found that only 2.4% of Italian laws come directly from Brussels, although the larger framework of the European Union does expect members to align some areas of policy more than others (such as agriculture, or foreign policy).
Such narratives attempt to undermine the credibility of the European Union across different fronts, down to its very existence: some portals and social media accounts claimed that after the 2024 elections and the rise of the far right, the European Parliament was threatened with dissolution. While the recent surge in Eurosceptic and far-right parties has the potential to affect European policy, weakening the Union at the benefit of national policy, that does not mean that the Union itself or the Parliament are anywhere near dissolution. But Albanian accounts that spread narratives of these natures have a vested interest in portraying the rise of the far right, whose ideologies they share, as inevitable, lowing the confidence in the Union.
On the same note, for example, one portal claimed that Macron's decision to dissolve the French parliament following the results of the European elections meant that his time as president was done. This interpretation of the events is not only factually wrong (even if Macron’s party lost the parliamentary elections, it does not mean Macron has to step down), but again advances the agenda of those who want to present the far right as representing the will of the European Union at large.
Nevertheless, the greatest threat of anti-EU narratives remains the way that they are embroiled in Russian propaganda, especially as they pertain to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Across a slew of pro-Russian accounts and portals, narratives abound that try to blame Europe (and by association NATO) for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. One account argues that individual countries like France have already sent soldiers to fight in Ukraine, thus involving NATO directly—or they are planning to open war with Russia by some arbitrary deadlines. Usually, such an article distorts the promises, plans, and statements of European leaders: in the case of NATO soldiers in Ukraine, these statements were Macron’s.
But he is not the only target: When Kaja Kallas, the Prime Minister of Ukraine, spoke of the dangers that Russia’s expansionist aims for the Baltics, her words were twisted by an account on Facebook. The account changed key moments in Kallas’s speech to pretend that it is the EU that does not want peace with Russia.
This happened also when the Georgian Prime Minister accused the European Union of threatening him with assassination if he did not comply with the EU’s suggestion that he does not pass a controversial law on foreign donations that would undermine the work of NGOs and civil society at large. Albanian portals were only too happy to spread this piece of disinformation, painting it as part of the EU’s attempt to silence opposition outside the Union.
This was the case too for the assassination attempt against Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico—some accounts on Facebook claimed that the attempt on Fico’s life was because of his pro-Russian, anti-Ukraine, and anti-West politics, even though his would-be assassin turned out to belong to pro-Russian groups.
For now, these narratives seem in contrast with Albania and Albanians’ pro-EU attitudes. As mentioned in the opening of this piece, trust in the EU is high, slipping only once in 2021 during COVID. Sometimes, however, the narrative around Albania’s faith in the European Union fails to account for the complexities of this support. Albanians may be eager to join the European Union for the opportunities it offers them financially, but there is no denying that there are misalignments, especially when it comes to social and cultural issues. Accounts that spread disinformation about the EU, tend to lure in users by spreading conspiracy theories about vaccines and climate change, which are popular with the Albanian public at large.
They can provide an entry point into disinformation about the EU and anti-EU sentiment. Furthermore, many Albanians continue to be socially conservative, especially when it comes to women’s issues and LGBT+ rights, another fault line in the relationship between the EU and Albania.
Furthermore, while trust in the EU is high, it is important to decouple the desire to join the EU with feelings about the EU proper. For instance, IRI’s survey found that while 92% of Albanians would vote to join the EU if the referendum was held today, only 54% believed the EU to be serious about integration. This resentment about the delayed promise of EU integration breeds distrust and contempt: While the EU finally opened ascension talks with Albania and North Macedonia after years of delays, there is little trust that this part of the process will be any faster. In the meanwhile, the benefits of being a candidate country are not clear, or at least they are not quite trickling down to the Albanian population at large.
This leaves a gap, a gap easily filled by conspiracy theorists who are more than ready to use their platforms to undermine the EU. It will take a concentrated effort on the part of the Union to stop them in their tracks.
