Page 39 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine May 2024

bne May 2024 Central Europe I 39
Czech security agency BIS detailed the Voice of Europe media platform's support for selected politicians as the European Parliament elections approach.
Voice of Europe in a number of EU member states, secures financing of cooperation with journalists and covet financial support of chosen individuals among candidates to the European Parliament,” state the Czech security service documents quoted by daily DennikN.
Some of the politicians promoted in the scheme include Belgian separatist Filip Dewinter, European Parliament candidates from the German far-right party Alternative fur Deutschland Petr Bystron and Maximilian Krah, Dutch Thierry Baudet, Czech ex-cabinet members Cyril Svoboda and Jiri Paroubek, and Slovak legislator Erik Kalinak from Prime Minister Robert Fico’s ruling leftist populist Smer party.
The Voice of Europe platform is registered in Prague, and its official CEO is Warsaw resident Jacek January Jakubczyk. According to BIS, however, Marchevskiy is the de facto head of the platform.
“Activities of the company were run by Artyom Marchevskiy; it was he who dealt with content, represented the company and communicated with
European politicians,” a source from the Czech Office of the Government was quoted as saying by DennikN.
DennikN and other Czech media wrote that BIS also documented specific politicians who accepted cash as part of the scheme but did not release
any names. Czech media later reported that Bystron, an AfD politician of
Czech origin, is one of the politicians who accepted cash payments in Prague.
Speaking to the Czech online news outlet iDnes.cz, Bystron said: “I was
in Czechia at a conference, but the secret service accusation is nonsense.
I only spoke to the journalists from this website” Voice of Europe.
Besides Paroubek, another former Czech prime minister, Vaclav Klaus, who is
now a backer of the Czech anti-EU party SPD, has been promoted by
Voice of Europe. Klaus and Bystron have reportedly been in regular contact in the past.
Director at the Vienna-based Centre for Democratic Integrity, Anton Shekhovtsov, wrote on his LinkedIn social media profile that the list of European politicians promoted at Voice of Europe since August 2023 also includes former Slovenian prime minister Janez Jansa, President of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska’s Milorad Dodik, Italians Francesca Donato
and Matteo Gazzini, French Patricia Chagnon, Herve Juvin and Thierry Mariani, Croatian Ladislav Ilcic
and Slovaks Jan Carnogursky and Miroslav Radacovsky.
“Czech media later reported that Bystron, an AfD politician of Czech origin, is one of the politicians who accepted cash payments in Prague”
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