MEPs on the European Parliament’s Special Committee on the European Democracy Shield (EUDS) adopted, on Tuesday 23 June, their draft report on the findings and recommendations relating to the protection of European democracies against foreign interference, information manipulation and hybrid threats. The text was approved by 20 votes to nine, with two abstentions.
All the compromise amendments were adopted.
The MEPs want to strengthen the ‘European Democracy Shield’ and improve co-ordination between the European institutions and the Member States. They also believe that threats to democratic processes are multiplying, whether in the form of disinformation, cyberattacks, foreign influence operations or attacks against critical infrastructure.
The text’s rapporteur, Tomas Tobé (EPP, Swedish), said that “information manipulation, disinformation and hybrid interference are becoming increasingly sophisticated and co-ordinated”. In his view, Russia remains “the main threat to Europe’s democratic integrity”.
According to the report, the country is the main external actor behind hybrid attacks against the European Union. Belarus, China, Iran and North Korea are also mentioned. The MEPs are calling for more resources for the European agencies to address sabotage, espionage, cyberattacks and information manipulation campaigns.
They are also calling for sanctions to be extended against actors that facilitate Russian operations.
The creation of a ‘European Centre for Democratic Resilience’ is among the main recommendations. The MEPs support a binding legal basis, a dedicated budget and governance involving all Member States. The aim is to co-ordinate European responses better and improve threat detection.
At the press conference held after the vote, Tomas Tobé argued that the future Centre should have genuine operational capacities. He also advocated the idea that an information attack against one Member State constitutes an attack against the European Union as a whole.
The report also calls for more rigorous enforcement of the Digital Services Act (DSA). The MEPs want a faster response to automated networks, co-ordinated disinformation campaigns and manipulated content generated by artificial intelligence, particularly during election periods.
They also propose several measures to protect the integrity of elections, including tackling malicious deepfakes and fraudulent advertisements, greater transparency in political funding and the protection of electoral infrastructure.
The Chair of the Special Committee, Nathalie Loiseau (Renew Europe, French), welcomed a text that covers all the threats facing European democracies. According to her, these include disinformation, cyberattacks, electoral manipulation and attacks on critical infrastructure alike.
The French MEP also called for faster use of the existing European instruments. On the DSA, she argued that the European Commission should inform citizens when it identifies large-scale online manipulation operations. She also recalled the role of press freedom and media pluralism in protecting democracies.
Democracy and security. Ahead of the vote, the members of the Special Committee exchanged views with the European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration, Magnus Brunner. He referred to the important links between internal security and the protection of democracy. “There is no democracy without security”, he said in that regard.
The Commissioner presented the links between the future ‘Democracy Shield’ and the ProtectEU European internal security strategy. He mentioned the use of criminal networks by certain States to conduct disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks or sabotage operations.
In addition, Magnus Brunner addressed reform of Europol’s mandate in order to facilitate real-time information-sharing between national authorities. The discussions also covered online radicalisation, the protection of minors in the digital environment and lawful access to data for law enforcement authorities.
The draft report will be put to a plenary vote in September.
The draft report: https://aeur.eu/f/mi7
The compromise amendments: https://aeur.eu/f/mgq (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)