Estonian lawmaker claims Europe will seize private bank deposits, echoing Russian media narrative

A post by Estonian lawmaker Aleksandr Tšaplõgin warning that private bank deposits could soon be taken across the European Union closely follows a Russian media narrative, the article says. The claim, however, does not reflect what the European Commission was discussing.

Tšaplõgin, a member of the Centre Party, published the warning on Facebook in Russian, Estonian and English on Aug. 30. He said the European Commission planned to put private bank deposits at the service of European companies, set a deadline at the end of the year and had left Europeans in panic.

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The European Commission plans to deal with taking away private bank deposits.

The post followed a speech by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Tšaplõgin invoked losses suffered by Cypriot depositors in 2013 and cash-withdrawal limits imposed in Greece in 2015, implying that similar events could happen again.

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Europeans are in panic.

The post received more than 560 comments and 288 shares. It appeared a day after Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda published an article titled “Ursula von der Leyen reaches into Europeans’ pockets: Brussels has run out of money for the war against Russia.” The Estonian lawmaker’s text repeated almost word for word passages from that article, including a translation of von der Leyen’s reference to “lazy” 10 trillion euros, claims about panic in Europe, and the Cyprus and Greece examples.

Komsomolskaya Pravda acknowledged that von der Leyen did not use the words “take away,” “freeze” or “confiscate.” Those terms came from Florian Philippot, the leader of France’s marginal right-wing Les Patriotes party. The Russian article also said the investment instruments mentioned by von der Leyen were legally voluntary and that the documents contained no provision for compulsory access to deposits.

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The French know they have far more reason to fear Macron and the EU than Russia.