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Last week the Oxford Dictionary has named “post-truth” the word of the year 2016. Post-truth describes a situation – I quote from the Dictionary – where “objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

This phenomenon has always existed for sure, but it has become even more relevant in the age of internet. We know that the quality of the information is not always what makes content “viral”. Social media and search engines tend to promote contents that confirm the user’s views, instead of challenging them. And we all understand how relevant this can be in political terms, including for our European Union.

So I am glad that the report we discuss today has given this Parliament the opportunity to reflect on such a delicate and crucial issue – where security has to be taken into account, but also everyone’s freedom of expression.

As the report states, exposing disinformation is an important task and I am glad that the report commends the work carried out by our East StratCom Task Force. It is clear from the Task Force’s work that the challenge coming from disinformation is not receding.

Let me thank the Parliament for its close interest and support for the work we are doing with the Task Force over the past year; and also the Member States who have contributed to the team. I can only welcome the proposal that this Parliament has advanced, to strengthen both our East and South Task Forces on Strategic Communications.

As I mentioned both of them, StratCom East and South, let me stress that our work on disinformation is very different and depends on a case by case scenario. Disinformation can be contrasted with fact-checking and rational arguments. The propaganda of terrorist groups like Da'esh needs instead to be confronted first and foremost by taking down the illegal contents from the internet.

To address the issue of the accessibility of terrorist materials, the Commission established an Internet Referral Unit at Europol that actively scans for terrorist content online and then refers it to the internet companies. So far – we are still in an initial phase – we have referred over 15,000 pages and in 90% of cases, the material has been removed.

Yet we know that this part of our work, however crucial, cannot be enough. What matters even more is to explain what the European Union is doing, and how it is making a real and positive difference to the lives of so many people, inside and outside the European Union.

Now, the report tackles the issue of propaganda by third parties, but let me say that this is an issue that would be interesting to see also inside the European Union, starting maybe from inside this very same hemicycle.

We need to give voice to the people who have benefited from our policies, amplify the positive stories, simplify our messages, talk about real life. The truth both to the East and to the South, and inside our Union is that this positive, this added value of the EU has to be more visible. And this is why we have put public diplomacy among the key areas of implementation of our Global Strategy.

The East StratCom Task Force is doing  this: providing expert guidance to our Delegations, working closely with Governments in the Eastern Partnership region, and with the Commission, reaching out to a Russian speaking audience who want better access to information about the European Union – in real time, in Russian, and from a source they can trust.

Similarly, the Task Force South is addressing Arabic-speaking communities in North Africa and the Middle East, together with our Delegations and in particular engaging with young people, working closely with the Anna Lindh Foundation; talking to the youth of the region, but also listening to their concerns and their aspirations.

Last but not least we need to engage with civil society, with young leaders, independent journalists, NGOs– credible voices that often lack the skills or the financial resources, or sometimes the space, the freedom to express themselves.

So our policies also aim at improving media plurality, both to the East and to the South, helping journalists get the training, the networks and the quality information they need to do their job. For instance, our new “Young Mediterranean Voices” will twin young journalists with more senior professionals, and reach out to the media industry.

So to conclude, in this “post-truth” era, the European Union must stick to objective facts and at the same time appeal to emotions, and personal beliefs and motivations. We have so many stories to tell that are positive – stories of reforms against corruption and of innovative start-ups, stories of reconciliation or economic growth. The future of our Union will also depend on our capacity to tell these stories, explaining the facts and reviving the passion for our European project and we can start, indeed, in this Parliament. Thank you.