MEPs call for a coordinated strategy against foreign interference and information manipulation to protect the European elections and increase the EU’s resilience and discuss the report by the Special Committee on foreign interference. The report includes recommendations for a coordinated EU strategy and addresses issues such as interference on online platforms or protection of critical infrastructure and strategic sectors. MEPs receive answers from the Commission on how it plans to ensure that the existing tools against information manipulation and new initiatives, such as the defence of democracy package, will help protect the integrity of the 2024 elections. Opening statements by Sandra KALNIETE, Rapporteur, Raphaël GLUCKSMANN, Chair of ING2 Special Committee and by Věra JOUROVÁ, VP of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency. The transcript is the result of an automated process. Please check against delivery.

Brussels

statement

plenary session

JOUROVÁ, Věra (EC)

joint debate

KALNIETE, Sandra (EPP, LV)

fight against hate speech, populism, and fake news on social media (T)

GLUCKSMANN, Raphaël (S&D, FR)

Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the EU, including Disinformation II

Joint Debate - Foreign interference in democratic processes and election integrity: Opening statements by Sandra KALNIETE, Rapporteur, Raphaël GLUCKSMANN, Chair of ING2 Special Committee and by Věra JOUROVÁ, VP of the European Commission

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, Dear colleagues, today it is my great honour to present my second report on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, I often hear that democracy around the world is in retreat. I would say that it is an incorrect statement. Democracy is not simply in retreat, democracy is under attack. In today's intervention, I would like to especially focus on two overreaching aims of the report.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, The first link of our work in the ING2 Committee with following gap, the implementation of the recommendations of the first report, which was approved last year. Second, we must examine the issues under the mandate of our Committee. This way, Russia's ongoing brutal war against Ukraine and to build on the lessons learned.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, Our assessment shows that we have significantly increased our situational awareness and several necessary steps have been launched and progress has been attained. Examples, Digital Service Act, Democracy Defence package is on the way, growing expertise acquired. However, in the view of the upcoming EU elections in 2024, we still should urge for stronger measures and more coordination to protect our European democracy.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, Along with dialogue, outlined some of the priorities from our report, which would make a significant difference in making our Union more resilient. First of all, we need to move beyond a reactive approach centred on fact checking, the backing, etc. and instead focus on resilience, building and vaccination of our societies against disinformation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, Therefore, we need to establish a dedicated EU programme to invest in our democracy in a sustainable way. It will not give a solution tomorrow and it will be expensive, but it is certainly a worthwhile long-term investment.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, Another important conclusion of our report is that in tackling disinformation, the EU is still suffering from a fragmented approach without clear coordination, mechanism and goals. We simply cannot afford splintering our resources and our democracy is at stake.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, Third, we should also greatly raise the costs for perpetrators. Therefore, I reiterate that the toolbox of the EU counter-measures should include a specific sanctions regime on foreign information, manipulation and interference.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, Russia's imperial war of aggression against Ukraine has clearly exposed the interconnection between hostile information warfare, weaponization of energy, attacks on critical infrastructure and threats to the EU, to our immediate neighbourhood, as well as to the global security and stability. Europe now understands that the Cold War logic of buffer states is over.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, Today, grey zones in European security only create instability, risk and oportunity is for hostile interference. The EU must invest in closing these grey zones and supporting the resilience and integration of Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and our European family and nature.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, To strengthen our resilience, we must learn both, from our partners like Ukraine in building resilience and tackling disinformation, but also from our own misjudgement, allowing to fall in the type of energy dependency and elite capture in the past. When I recall the State of Affairs even three years ago, I am glad to say today, Europe is far less naive about Russia, China and other adversaries.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, A few words about structural priorities and new challenges we are facing. For years, we have been following a country agnostic approach that treats all foreign influence efforts in the same way, regardless of their source country and thus the aim, scale and impact.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, We should not be afraid to call out those seeking intentionally and in a coordinated way to manipulate our democracy. Therefore, we are suggesting moving towards a risk based approach based on objective criteria. A similar approach already has been used in the EU legislation on money laundering or terrorist financing. Immense challenge presents rapid development of artificial intelligence tools.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, If so far, we still are able to identify what is fake. Artificial intelligence will make creating this information at scale much easier and cheaper and much more difficult to recognise. We are waiting for Artificial Intelligence Act, with great expectations. Another challenge is the speed of decision making process. We must face the fact that today's legislation concerning consequences of digital revolution already addresses the problems of yesterday.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, This is not only the EU challenge, it is a global problem to be addressed together with like minded partners. Moreover, I am convinced that this House in the next legislation will need a dedicated cross-sectoral committee dealing with foreign interference and information manipulation issues, including new technological challenges.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, In conclusion, I would like to thank my shadow rapporteurs for excellent cooperation through this entire process. Also, the Secretariat and our political advisors. Working on challenges of the ING1 and ING2 committees has certainly been one of the most important missions throughout my time as a member of European Parliament. I truly hope that all of you can support the report. Thank you for your attention.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Chair of ING2 Special Committee and Author, Vice-President, Colleagues. There are moments in history when it becomes a crime to stand by, turn a blind eye, and one of these moments now on behalf of the Committee in Foreign interference in all democratic processes. I would like to say that for 20 years now, leaders in Europe have been too complacent and naive, looking at sovereignty and democracy in Europe.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Chair of ING2 Special Committee and Author, We've been the victims of coordinated, sophisticated attacks from outside for 20 years. We've been opening our doors to our enemies. There's financing of anti-EU political parties to cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, corruption in elites, hybrid wars against democracy. Our leaders have just refused to see this for too long. It takes many different forms. It's on our phones, on social networks, trolls, bots.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Chair of ING2 Special Committee and Author, And in St Petersburg, there are manipulation, information manipulation campaigns, combating democracy on a massive scale. There are private individuals. There's Team Jorge, the Israeli company. There's dictatorships attacking our democracy, China and Russia. This is affecting the choices that the electorate faces, exploiting the vulnerabilities of our open societies and encouraging hate speech in our societies.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Chair of ING2 Special Committee and Author, Anything which polarises our debate brings in an atmosphere of confusion and civil war on our networks and anything which undermines confidence in our institutions is playing into the hands. Information chaos, which we've now getting used to, is a gift to tyrants and is fatal to democrats.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Chair of ING2 Special Committee and Author, Corruption of elites always precedes the fall of civilisation. We have the poison of corruption in our midst. In fact, at the highest level. How have we been able to accept this for so long? How could we have so many heads of state and government ministers, top officials working in the interests of Russia or China? How is it possible for German democracy with Gerhard Schröder working for Gazprom?

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Chair of ING2 Special Committee and Author, Only a few weeks after strategic choices were being made by the German leader, and then when he's in Germany to take his strategic decisions, few weeks later, he walks out and works for this company. France, Austria, Belgium, many other member states claim to have a democratic system, but have also accepted having ministers also working for Gazprom or for other companies that are part of the Putin system. How can they accept this?

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Chair of ING2 Special Committee and Author, How can we accept that so many ministers should have been working for China? We can't just have this free for all where autocrats come in shopping for influence and picking people out to buy them. This is a betrayal of our values. We have to combat demagogues and the far right who are too close to these enemies. We have to combat the financing, which is leading to servitude.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Chair of ING2 Special Committee and Author, There are political parties in Europe that need to respond to strategically to these challenges from abroad. We're seeing now, for instance, Marine Le Pen in the French parliament, who has talked about having a strategic vision in relation to a regime. But there are millions of euros that her political party has received from that same regime in 2024 in the context of the war in Europe.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Chair of ING2 Special Committee and Author, We will hold elections. We need to defend our integrity. We count on the Commission to start organising that concerted defence. Vice President, I put this question to you how will you effectively combat information manipulation campaigns during the election campaign? How will you ensure that new initiatives such as the package for democracy will be up and running over the next few months?

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Chair of ING2 Special Committee and Author, How can you ensure that they will allow our election campaign to be to show integrity. In the digital sector, major platforms, how can we ensure that they play by our rules and at our service, not the service of others? All the institutions effected by the elections will have to be examined and supported in this way. Governments of Member States too, will need to participate in order to ensure that the elections will be clean.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Chair of ING2 Special Committee and Author, We have seen during this term of the Parliament the life of this Parliament. We were fighting COVID 19. We saw war return to our continent. We saw Qatargate. And we have been going through unprecedented times. So we cannot be weak and Europe must stop being impotent. That's the whole reason why we've been working together across the board in ING across the political groups.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Chair of ING2 Special Committee and Author, So we count on you, we count on the commission and member states, and we need to count on ourselves too, to protect our own democracy. That is our noble mission in the Parliament. We need to protect this House. This House allows us to express our different views.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Chair of ING2 Special Committee and Author, The others see their freedoms trampled under foot, and they're trying to do the same here. We are strong and we can be powerful. We just need to decide that we are going to be powerful and the time has come to do that. Thank you.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, Madam President, Honourable Members, Madame Rapporteur, the topic of foreign interference is both timely and important. I would like to thank the European Parliament and the Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation, for its hard and relevant work. The work of the ING Committee and this House has been a real source of inspiration for the Commission.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, I want to congratulate the rapporteur, Madame Sandra Kalniete, for bringing forward this work, which seems to command broad support across this House. That is testament to the importance of the report in analysing the phenomena of foreign interference and reflecting the need for a truly whole of society approach.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, The report explores many dimensions. It looks at interference via elite capture, national diasporas, universities and cultural events. It includes valuable and concrete recommendations on sanctions against foreign interference. In recent years, the Commission and the European External Action Service have stepped up their work to protect our democracies from foreign interference. This was a key strand of the European Democracy Action Plan.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, For example, the Commission is working intensely with platforms, and I am confident that the recently adopted Digital Services Act and the revised Code of Practice on Disinformation will help limit the foreign information manipulation and interference online.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, The Commission is very conscious of the danger of information manipulation and interference in the electoral processes. This is why my proposal on the transparency and targeting of political advertising will introduce common high standards of transparency for political advertising services for all media.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandra KALNIETE (EPP, LV), Rapporteur, It will also limit the frame the use of personal data in targeting and amplifying political ads. The European External Action Service, in close cooperation with the Commission, has continued its work on foreign information manipulation and interference.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, The progress made on a common analytical framework and methodology, in conjunction with the work on the information sharing and analysis Centre will significantly increase our situational awareness and understanding of suspicious and malicious activities and cooperation in a whole of society approach.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, In conclusion, the European Democracy Action Plan allowed us to undertake unprecedented legal and other actions on strengthened resilience of elections, to promote independence of the media and address disinformation. But you are right, this is not enough. Our citizens are asking us to do more. We heard this also in the conference on the future of Europe.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, As announced by President von der Leyen. The Commission is working on the Defence of Democracy package with special focus on covert foreign interference, through interests representation services.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, The package will include a communication, a directive on transparency of interests, representation and recommendation on elections in the EU, and a recommendation of promoting the engagement and effective participation of citizens and civil society organisations in public policymaking processes.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, Because while we must protect ourselves from outside interference, we must also build democratic resilience from within by supporting Member States in engaging with citizens and civil society and their policymaking processes. The idea is for the EU to be equipped with a new generation of transparency tools to shed light on foreign influence while staying committed to freedom of expression and association.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, In particular, the proposed Directive on transparency of interest representation on behalf of third countries would aim to ensure that companies, organisations or persons carrying out activities for third country governments that seek to influence public decision making in the EU do so in a transparent manner.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, This law will help us to understand better the financial flows to the EU from third countries that may want to undermine or destabilise our political processes, and it will help citizens to understand who is behind, what they read or listen to, and in also what is behind the policy making environment.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, It would not ban or criminalise any such activities. The EU remains open and democratic, but we cannot be naive and actors that receive this type of funding irrespective what they are, should be transparent about it. Let me also reassure you that the proposal will be very different from national foreign agents laws proposed elsewhere, such as the withdrawn NGO law in Georgia or the Russian foreign agent legislation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, The approach is very different in terms of aim, scope, supervision and sanctions. Together with the President, we decided to take more time to consult broadly and gather more information in order to address also the concerns we heard in this House. We will reinforce the analysis underlying the proposal and upgraded into a full impact assessment.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, This is important legislation and I want to make sure it will be balanced, meaningful and effective. Now, turning back to the next elections, to your parliament, we would like to explain how we will continue our close cooperation with Member States in its communication activities ahead of the European elections.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, The Commission will inform citizens about the EU and its policy actions, so that they can make informed decisions and engage in the European democratic debate. We will also support Member States cooperation on election related matters in the framework of the European Cooperation Network on Elections and the European External Action Service managed a rapid alert system on disinformation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, Honourable Members, since the start of last year, the Commission has been working with Member States on a joint mechanism on election resilience to support the exchange of expertise in areas such as disinformation and cybersecurity.

SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, In October, we will organise a high level event on elections with Member States. Our objective is to exchange best practices on how to promote the exercise of electoral rights in 2024 elections to the European Parliament. Thank you for your attention and I am sorry for being so long, but I had too much to say. Thank you very much.