As the consultation period on the future defence of democracy package (see EUROPE 13116/17) draws to a close on Friday 14 April, associations are calling on the European Commission to exercise caution. To avoid harm to the civil society space, measures must be balanced and based on real risks, they argue.
Targeted transparency
Complementing its joint position of 46 organisations (see EUROPE 13156/23), the Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties) believes that, in its current form, the package could have deleterious effects on NGO freedoms.
In particular, it considers that it is “far-reaching” to consider any entity pursuing lobbying activities and receiving funds from third countries as “potential tools of covert foreign interference”. It also considers that the Commission’s definition of “lobbying activities” is “overly vague”. However, imposing “transparency obligations on the basis of flawed assumptions and vaguely worded concepts risks creating a burden for civil society actors disproportionate to the legitimate activities they carry out”, Liberties argues.
Instead, these transparency requirements for funding should be based on real danger and limited to “formal and structured lobbying activities involving communication with public officials with the aim of influencing public decision-making”.
Furthermore, Liberties advocates strengthening existing tools, such as the Transparency Register or the ethical rules for officials and MEPs. Its view is that “targeted and proportionate rules on the transparency of interest representation at national level” could be included in a European framework setting standards for NGOs, as requested by the European Parliament (see EUROPE 12893/13).
For Liberties’ position see: https://aeur.eu/f/6bt
No compromise to academic freedom
In the same vein, the European University Association (EUA) in turn advocates balanced instruments and “not letting the notion of protection stand in the way of dialogue” between different actors.
In particular, it notes that measures presented as “protection” against foreign interference can be used to limit academic freedom (see EUROPE 13150/24). To avoid abuses, the EUA therefore invites the Commission to draw inspiration from the principle of “openness by default” contained in its Global Approach to Research and Innovation cooperation (see EUROPE 12721/25). Rather than general prohibitions, specific exchanges could then be limited in cases of concrete and identifiable risk of interference.
The EUA also believes that contacts should not be limited to countries that share similar democratic values to the EU, as this would hamper academic freedom, the richness of research in Europe and the resilience of democracy “by depriving European citizens and decision makers of global knowledge”.
See the position of the EUA: https://aeur.eu/f/6bu
The future package should contain a recommendation and a directive introducing common transparency standards for interest representation services run or funded by third countries, and revise the ‘European Democracy Action Plan’. (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)