Embedding pro-EU propaganda in the classroom: the Jean Monnet Programme

New report of mine on how every year the EU channels large sums of money into universities worldwide, transforming academic institutions into vehicles of institutional propaganda

In a bombshell new report for MCC Brussels, I reveal how the European Union’s Jean Monnet Programme, ostensibly an academic initiative, is in fact a taxpayer-funded, global propaganda network designed to embed pro-EU narratives, quash dissent and shape public opinion far beyond the classroom. This programme, part of Erasmus+, funnels an estimated €25 million of public money every year into universities worldwide, transforming academic institutions into vehicles of institutional propaganda.

An explicitly political project — beyond academic study

While proponents often frame the Jean Monnet Programme as fostering excellence in academia, my report demonstrates that its core purpose, as openly acknowledged by the European Commission itself, is not merely to study European integration — but to “promote” it. The EU’s own directives require Jean Monnet Centres of Excellence and Designated Institutions to maintain “continuous and frequent alignment” of their teaching and research with EU policy priorities and to promote European identity. This goes far beyond neutral academic inquiry.

Enormous reach and funding for political influence

The Programme channels around €25 million per year to universities and research institutes globally and reaches around 500,000 students annually across more than 70 countries.

This is not for open-ended research; it’s an investment explicitly designed to influence academic curricula, align educational content with the EU’s political agenda and promote Brussels’s legitimacy. As former Jean Monnet Chair Joseph H. H. Weiler candidly admitted: “Part of our mission as [a] Jean Monnet Professor is to disseminate the values of European integration. The EU Commission think of us openly as intellectual ambassadors of the Union and its values”. This directly challenges any claim of impartial academic freedom.

Explicitly pro-EU agenda

Direct quotes from funded projects reveal the ideological mission of supporting EU institutions: funded projects openly aim to “promote EU integration”, “foster European identity”, “enforce EU values” and “challenge the rise of euroscepticism and of populist, extreme right parties”. They are also designed to “counter anti-EU disinformation and propaganda” and “reverse de-Europeanisation dynamics”.

Transforming academics into activists

Recipients of Jean Monnet funding are not just expected to produce EU-aligned research, but to act as “outreach agents”, organising public events, engaging with media and NGOs, and disseminating EU-approved narratives to the public. This creates a self-reinforcing feedback loop where EU-funded research legitimises EU policies

Academic freedom under threat

The funding structure incentivises conformity with EU priorities, discourages critical perspectives and promotes research with predetermined political outcomes. This undermines the Humboldtian principles of academic autonomy and transforms students into subjects to be moulded into “right-thinking” citizens.

Narrative control

While the EU claims to combat “disinformation”, my report demonstrates that this is often a strategy to curtail dissenting views, narrow the spectrum of public debate and consolidate institutional control over the flow of information. Projects explicitly target “eurosceptic framing of EU activities” and what are labelled as “denialisms and conspiracy theories” related to EU policy positions on issues like climate change and Covid-19. I highlight how this provides academic justification to the EU’s increasingly pervasive online censorship framework, exemplified by the bloc’s adoption, in 2022, of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which aims at secretly controlling the online narrative.

As I write in the report:

The report concludes that the Jean Monnet Programme is explicitly structured, at all levels, as an academic tool aimed at projecting and promoting the EU’s policy preferences. It is a stark example of how the EU’s politicisation of higher education represents not just a distortion of scholarly priorities, but a direct challenge to academic freedom itself. This is not education; it is indoctrination.

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Report overview

The Jean Monnet Programme, launched in 1989 and now part of Erasmus+, was originally framed as an initiative to promote excellence in teaching
and research on European integration. It has since evolved into a powerful instrument for embedding the EU’s political priorities and integrationist agenda within academia and society at large.

Scope and reach

• The Jean Monnet Programme channels around €25 million per year
  to universities and research institutes worldwide through professorial chairs, modules, Centres of Excellence and Designated Institutions.

• Activities extend beyond classrooms into media, civil society and policymaking circles.

• Jean Monnet activities are spread across more than 70 countries, involving over 1,500 professors and reaching around 500,000 students annually.

Ideological alignment

• Many funded projects explicitly aim to “promote EU integration”, “foster European identity”, “enforce EU values”, “challenge the rise of euroscepticism and of populist, extreme right parties”, “reverse de-Europeanisation dynamics in the EU and beyond” and “counter anti-EU disinformation and propaganda”.

• These are clearly designed to shape students’ perceptions of the EU and to amplify pro-EU narratives, by embedding them in all the fields of social sciences: history, law, political science, economy, etc.

• Jean Monnet activities are structurally aligned with the EU’s strategic prioritises — from the Green Deal and “countering disinformation” to rule-of-law initiatives and global governance.

• Overall, the programme transforms academic research — which should be open-ended, free from political influence and ultimately aimed at advancing knowledge and understanding — into advocacy research, which begins from a value position (“the EU is beneficial”) and aims to produce “evidence” in support for it.

Top-tier actors

• Jean Monnet Centres of Excellence and Jean Monnet Designated Institutions are the central hubs of the EU’s academic propaganda branch. They are formally required to maintain “continuous and frequent alignment” of their teaching and research with EU policy priorities and to promote European identity.

• The seven Designated Institutions, such as the European University Institute and the College of Europe, work closely with EU institutions and receive substantial funding.

From the classroom to society at large

• Jean Monnet Activities aren’t aimed at promoting the EU’s policies and goals just within education — but among society at large. Recipients of Jean Monnet Funding grants aren’t just expected to produce research that aligns with the EU’s normative and geopolitical agenda, but also to act as outreach agents — organising public events, engaging with the media, NGOs and other civil society organisations, and spreading the content of their “research” to the public. This is another trademark of advocacy research, as opposed to academic research.

• This may described as a form of “propaganda by proxy”, where research is funded and shaped according to EU priorities, which then produces EU-approved narratives that are subsequently disseminated to the mainstream through conferences, media engagement and outreach activities.

Public diplomacy

• The EU’s enlisting of academic institutions for political goals isn’t limited to the Union itself. The Jean Monnet Programme today operates in over 70 countries, where is it part and parcel of the EU’s broader public diplomacy or soft power efforts, shaping how the EU is perceived internationally and promoting the bloc’s geopolitical interests.

• The programme’s foreign operations tend to focus on countries that are pivotal to the EU’s geopolitical strategy: in recent years, for example, hundreds of Jean Monnet projects have been implemented in Ukraine, many explicitly aimed at furthering Ukraine’s integration into the EU and the Euro-Atlantic bloc more in general.

• The Jean Monnet Programme is also used to advance EU enlargement by pre-aligning the national legal, regulatory, and educational systems of prospective member states with EU standards.

Integration into a wider propaganda network

• These academic entities form part of a larger EU-NGO-media-academia complex, in which each sector amplifies and legitimises the other’s narratives.

• Partnerships with media and civil society on initiatives like the “anti-disinformation” European Digital Media Observatory blur the lines between research, advocacy and institutional propaganda.

Erosion of academic freedom

• Funding structures incentivise conformity with EU priorities, discourage critical perspectives, and promote research with predetermined political outcomes — i.e., advocacy research.

• This undermines the Humboldtian principles of academic autonomy and the pursuit of knowledge free from political interference.

Key finding

• The Jean Monnet Programme, far from being just an educational initiative, is explicitly structured, at all levels, as an academic tool aimed at projecting and promoting the EU’s policy preferences — by embedding pro-EU content in curricula, shaping discourse around European integration and extending the EU’s ideological reach far beyond its borders.

Policy recommendations

• Safeguarding academic integrity requires ending politically driven funding mechanisms, restoring institutional independence and reaffirming the Humboldtian model as the cornerstone of higher education, for example by:

• De-politicising research funding

• Respecting academic freedom and authority

• Allocating grants based on scientific and intellectual merit

• Encouraging diversity of views and critical inquiry

• Rejecting the use of academia as a tool of propaganda

• Promoting transparency and accountability in EU-academic relations

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Introduction

The Jean Monnet Programme was launched by the European Commission in 1989 to encourage teaching and research on European integration in universities. Since then, it has evolved into one of the European Union’s most effective — and least scrutinised — tools for shaping the way Europe is taught, researched and understood. Under the respectable banner of “fostering excellence in teaching and research on EU matters”, it channels millions of euros into universities and research institutes, rewarding those that align their work with Brussels’ political agenda.

What began as an academic initiative has grown into a sprawling network of Chairs, Modules, Centres of Excellence and Designated Institutions that now function as the EU’s academic outreach arm — embedding pro-integration narratives across curricula, producing research that mirrors official priorities and extending influence far beyond campus walls into media, civil society and policymaking circles.

This paper examines how the programme operates, the ideological assumptions built into its funding mechanisms, and its role in what can be described as the EU-NGO-media-academia complex — a self-reinforcing ecosystem that blurs the line between education and political advocacy. It also explains why this politicisation of higher education represents not just a distortion of scholarly priorities, but a direct challenge to academic freedom itself.

Read the full report here.

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Thomas Fazi

Website: thomasfazi.net

Twitter: @battleforeurope

Latest book: The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left (co-authored with Toby Green)