The four main groups in the European Parliament (EPP, S&D, Renew Europe and Greens/EFA) expressed their support for a resolution to combat foreign interference and disinformation on Tuesday 17 September in a debate in the Strasbourg Chamber.
“All Europeans have the right to free and democratic elections without interference from foreign states. Unfortunately, this is not the case in Europe today”, said Tomas Tobé (EPP, Sweden), pointing to Russia as the main culprit, but also to China, Iran and North Korea.
For its part, the S&D group welcomed the broad support for this resolution, while reiterating its call for the creation of a special parliamentary committee dedicated to foreign interference and disinformation.
While many MEPs from pro-European forces stressed the need to fight against the financing of populist parties by foreign powers, the members of the Identity and Democracy group present at the debate accused the European Union itself of conducting disinformation campaigns and wanting to limit freedom of expression.
Although he lauded the EU's resistance to disinformation during the last European elections (see EUROPE 12275/11), Security Commissioner Julian King stressed the importance of continuing efforts. With this in mind, he explained, the Commission will soon deploy a new European online platform that will bring together 38 “fact checking” organisations from 17 different Member States.
Representing the Council of the European Union in the debate, Tytti Tuppurainen, Minister for European Affairs of Finland, confirmed that the issue of foreign interference and disinformation, in particular the fight against hybrid threats, is one of the Finnish Presidency’s matters of priority.
The vote on the resolution, initially scheduled for this Thursday, has been postponed to the next plenary session of Parliament. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot - intern)