The European Early Warning System on Disinformation is organising its launch meeting on Monday 18 March; in order to actively participate in the public debate on European issues during the May election campaign.
Announced in its December 2018 plan to combat fake news (see EUROPE 12153/8), this initiative aims to network Member States and European institutions and coordinate their action in response to a phenomenon that is flourishing thanks to new communication technologies.
Through this mechanism, Member States will be able to alert their counterparts to concrete cases of misinformation campaigns, exchange on observed trends, provide verified and analysed data to academia and civil society, prepare a coordinated response, for example through information campaigns aimed at the general public.
On Monday 11 March, the European Commissioner for Justice, Věra Jourová, also urged national political parties and their foundations to take the necessary measures to ensure that EU citizens are able to clearly identify the political marketing campaigns they will implement during the European election campaign. The expenses they spend on it and the criteria used to target the recipients of their political message should also be visible.
Our work on the analysis of electoral laws in the Member States reveals that these laws mainly govern “an offline environment”, said a European source. According to her, around half of the Member States have put in place transparency rules for political advertising, a few have rules for foreign funding. The same applies to the silence period before the elections are held, which varies from one country to another.
The measures recommended by Mrs Jourová are contained in a specific recommendation on online misinformation that the European Commission issued in September 2018 on the occasion of the State of the Union address by its President, Jean-Claude Juncker (see EUROPE 12094/6).
The Commissioner also invites Member States to plan for sanctions against national political parties and their foundations that violate personal data protection rules to influence election results, such as the legislative measure targeting European political parties and their foundations (see EUROPE 12173/15). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)