EU toolkit against foreign interference and disinformation

Two years ago, the European Parliament established the Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union (EU), including Disinformation (INGE). The European Parliament has adopted the committee’s final report which is a crucial and substantive milestone which will lay the foundations for our collective EU effort to tackle foreign interference.

Russia, China and other authoritarian regimes have funnelled more than €260 million into 33 countries to interfere in democratic processes, and this trend is clearly accelerating.

Today, we can see the direct effect of malicious, coordinated disinformation in combination with misinformation - people are refusing to receive certified vaccines, leading to excess hospitalisations and countless preventable deaths. We have witnessed ongoing interference and information manipulation campaigns directed at all the measures against the spread of COVID-19, and online platforms have had very limited success in tackling them.

For building EU resilience and awareness, we need urgent further development of the EEAS Strategic Communications division, including greater resources for addressing hostile disinformation from China and other countries. Rather, the EU must not shy away from speaking the language of power to hostile authoritarian regimes in its neighbourhood.

The ongoing hybrid attack waged by the Lukashenko regime against Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, seeking to destabilise and splinter the EU, should serve as a potent reminder of what is at stake. At the same time, activities to counter third country interference will not bring results without parallel efforts to strengthen the resilience of our own societies.

Therefore, all Member States must include media and digital literacy in their educational programmes to combat the severe lack of awareness of the severity of these threats. The EU must also step up and demonstrate serious initiative in ensuring sustainable, durable and transparent funding for independent and investigative journalism.

Understandably, online platforms are at the centre of attention when discussing disinformation. It should be beyond doubt that we clearly need a robust Digital Services Act that requires greater platform accountability and transparency and a binding Code of Practice, comprehensively implemented at national levels.

We are also calling for an assessment of the regulatory situation and possibilities for stricter regulation for the data market. Although large parts of the data brokering industry are legal, the reality is that we are operating in a digital Wild West, where several thousand loosely regulated private companies possess thousands of data points on individuals.

We call on the Commission to devise the guidelines for Member States, aimed at closing all loopholes that allow opaque financing of political parties. In our view, all Member States should be seeking to prohibit political donations from third countries.

We should also talk about the growing and pervasive threat of interference through elite capture, attempts to manipulate with national diasporas and universities. The EU can, and should, take steps to mitigate this by reforming the Transparency Register, including stringent transparency rules, and updating the mapping of foreign funding for EU-related lobbying.

When focusing on critical infrastructures and strategic sectors, we need an EU-wide approach to tackling hybrid threats, securing financing alternatives to avoid large segments of the EU’s critical infrastructures falling into the possession of third countries.

In addition, to strengthen cybersecurity and resilience, the EU should invest more in its capacities in the area of 5G and post-5G technologies in order to reduce supply chain dependencies on foreign suppliers.

We are convinced that the issues we have covered in the INGE Committee work truly extend beyond party politics. Hostile threats to our democratic institutions should concern every single MEP across the entirety of the political spectrum. However difficult or unpleasant, some medicines and health maintenance may seem bitter and burdensome, but the alternatives are even more grim and unpalatable.