Multi-million-pound EU education fund 'brainwashes students to spout Brussels propaganda'

Hundreds of thousands of impressionable students are being brainwashed into parroting pro-EU propaganda, a bombshell investigation claims. The Jean Monnet Programme pumps £22 million a year into universities across 70 countries, reaching 500,000 students, to promote EU integration, fight euroscepticism, and train teachers and students to become ambassadors for Brussels' agenda.

But it is now sensationally claimed the fund is merely a front for pushing the EU's political priorities and integrationist agenda. Accusations of widespread indoctrination and the subtle silencing of dissent against the political and economic union have been made by independent researcher Thomas Fazi in a scathing paper called "Professors of Propaganda: How the EU's Jean Monnet Programme corrodes academia" written for the think tank MCC Brussels, which debates the policy and decision-making process of the European Union.

He said: "The soft-power scheme pays academics to promote EU ideology, align research with Brussels's priorities, and marginalise dissent under the guise of European studies. This is not a neutral academic initiative, but a powerful instrument for embedding pro-EU propaganda.

"Brussels calls it education. In reality, it's taxpayer-funded propaganda on a massive scale."

The Jean Monnet Programme, named after the so-called Father of Europe who was a key figure in the creation of the European Union, exists to encourage teaching, research and reflection in the field of European integration studies in higher education institutions. It is part of the European Union's education, youth and sports programme Erasmus+.

British students cannot directly participate in the programme because the UK left the EU after the watershed Brexit vote.

But there are fears propaganda is being routinely pumped out in classrooms and lecture theatres across the bloc's 27 member states in response to growing anti-EU sentiment triggered by the UK's decision to cut and run from the bloc in 2016.

MEP Anders Vistisen, of the Patriots for Europe Group, the third-largest group in the European Parliament, said: "As a Danish MEP elected to protect the interests of my constituents I demand an immediate freeze on Jean Monnet funding until academic freedom is guaranteed, full transparency on every euro spent and every professor funded, and a ban on ideological conditionality in EU research grants.

"Europe needs free universities, not Brussels-funded echo chambers. It's time to pull the plug on this propaganda machine."

It is claimed that money from the fund has been used to help schools promote Euroscepticism and populist views, shut down climate and COVID policy dissent, promote rabid green ideology, and train teachers to promote EU values.

The Jean Monnet Programme runs under Erasmus+, the EU education programme offering grants for individuals and organisations to study, train, or volunteer abroad.

It exists to support teaching, learning, research, and debates on all aspects of the bloc, particularly "promoting EU values and enhancing the visibility of what the European Union stands for and what it intends to achieve".

The European Commission was contacted.