MEP Tom Vandendriessche is a politician from Belgium currently functioning as a Member of the European Parliament for the Vlaams Belang. The European Anti-Fraud Office investigated him in June 2024. Tom Vandendriessche is suspected of promoting Nazism and is doubted of misapplying EU funds and falling under Moscow’s leverage. Vandendriessche has been blamed for misusing European finances on multiple occasions and is supposed to have connections with Russian forces.
As reported by Brussels Times, several workers have conveyed that Vandendriessche asked them to perform on files irrelevant to his European mandate, consequently shifting funds and breaching parliamentary practices. Tom Vandendriessche has paid nearly €450,000 on Facebook and Instagram promotions. The politician states he utilised his funds rather than official money to cover this aggregate and has even quipped that the funds came from Russian and Chinese backers.
Moreover, Tom Vandendriessche is among 16 far-right MEPs who have participated in interviews and debates published on the YouTube channel “Voice of Europe.”
This channel is considered a platform for Russian propaganda and disinformation. An investigation by Politico revealed that Vandendriessche, along with other MEPs and representatives from Central and Eastern Europe, gave interviews to a channel with a small following of just 351 subscribers and around 60,000 views.
However, the content gained greater visibility through its spread on social media platforms, particularly in Ukraine, where the MEPs criticized the Ukrainian government and its EU aspirations. Since August, “Voice of Europe” organized debates and individual interviews with several MEPs, including Vandendriessche. Many of the participants, including Vandendriessche, claimed not to remember who invited them to participate or who conducted the interviews, raising questions about the motivations behind their involvement in such discussions.
