Every day, there is a lot of discussion on the integrity of European elections and cyber threats. It was the European Parliament's turn to host a debate between the Parliament, the Council of the EU and the Commission on Wednesday 17 April in Strasbourg on this increasingly important subject in view of the 26 May election.
On this occasion, all reiterated the importance of fighting attempts at external destabilisation, with Claude Moraes (S&D, UK) even going so far as to mention a "sense of urgency”. Danuta Hübner (EPP, Poland) even suggested "amending the regulation on the statute and financing of European parties in order to protect elections from disinformation campaigns based on misuse of voters' personal data”.
The Romanian Secretary of State for European Affairs, Melania-Gabriela Ciot, reiterated the Romanian Presidency's commitment to this issue, especially since more than 50 elections are due to take place in Europe by 2020.
For the European Commission, the exercise was once again similar to a catalogue of initiatives put forward, referring in particular to the Code of Good Practice in the fight against disinformation or the early warning system to detect disinformation campaigns more quickly. She also reported that Member States' IT security teams were planning to meet in mid-May for a test right before the elections.
"But our commitment will not end after the election," Commissioner Julian King told MEPs. "There will be an evaluation at the June European Council, based on a report from the Romanian Presidency, the Commission and High Representative Mogherini. And there will be a review of the Code of Good Practice later this year, where we will assess the need to strengthen transparency”.
Facebook: a meeting is planned
The situation of Facebook, which recently decided to ban political party campaigns in countries where they do not have representatives, to the great displeasure of European parties, was also mentioned. "We discussed it at the Presidents' Conference last week. The three institutions wrote to Facebook expressing our concerns and asking them to reconsider their decision," continued Commissioner King, indicating, without further clarification, that a meeting was planned. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)