MEPs discuss Russian attempts to interfere in the EU’s democratic processes following allegations that an MEP colluded with Russian security services. Opening statements by Hadja LAHBIB, Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Affairs and Foreign Trade, and the Federal Cultural Institutions and Margaritis SCHINAS, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of promoting our European Way of Life. This transcription is a result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

Strasbourg

debate

plenary session

EU - Russia (T)

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

SCHINAS, Margaritis (EPP-DE, EL, EC)

LAHBIB, Hadja (BE)

Russiagate - allegations of Russian interference in the democratic processes of the European Union: opening statements by Hadja LAHBIB, Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Affairs and Foreign Trade, and the Federal Cultural Institutions an

SOUNDBITE (French), Hadja LAHBIB, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. President. Dear Commissioner. Honourable Members of the European Parliament. This is a crucial time for democracy. 2024 is going to be a big election year with elections in 80 countries. About half of all citizens of voting age in the world will be able to vote. As you know, the defence of democratic principles and the promotion of free and fair elections are among the priorities of the Belgian presidency.

SOUNDBITE (French), Hadja LAHBIB, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Democracies will be strengthened if we resist disinformation, propaganda, and foreign interference. That is why we took the initiative to prepare the Council conclusions on election resilience and protecting democratic processes from foreign interference. These conclusions are currently being discussed, and I hope will be adopted in the coming weeks.

SOUNDBITE (English), Hadja LAHBIB, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, It changed has significantly in recent years. First and foremost, with Russia's war aggression against Ukraine and this hostile stance towards the European Union and partners, that translates into hostile rhetoric, hybrid actions that aim to manipulate and interfere. We must do everything we can to build resilience to foreign interference and make swift use of the mechanism, networks and tools at our disposal.

SOUNDBITE (English), Hadja LAHBIB, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Many EU programs and initiatives aim to preserve a democratic debate against foreign interference, such as the hybrid toolbox and the FIMI toolkits that were developed as part of the EU Strategic Compass. These tools can lead to very concrete decisions, such as the restrictive measures that the Council adopted last July against seven Russian individuals and five entities responsible for an online manipulation campaign.

SOUNDBITE (French), Hadja LAHBIB, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, In cooperation with this Parliament, the Council has also set out to strengthen European legislation. We have reached an agreement on a solid system of labelling for political advertising. We're just beginning to examine a new proposal from the Commission seeking to guarantee that interest representation of third countries be registered in a transparent way.

SOUNDBITE (French), Hadja LAHBIB, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, All the union's entities must use the available synergies in order to use the mechanisms available to deal with any form of foreign interference. Member States and European institutions regularly exchange and evaluate intelligence on hybrid threats. The European Parliament has played an important role, not least thanks to its Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation. Rest assured, therefore, that the Presidency will do all in its power to ensure that this subjects remain at the heart of our work in the months ahead. Thank you.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Margaritis SCHINAS, Vice-President of the European Commission, Thank you, President. Madame Minister. Honourable Members. I appreciate that you will focus more on what I have to say, rather on the state of my voice. But I will try to get through. Our democracy is strong and resilient, but needs to constantly evolve and adapt. We are all aware of the many threats, such as foreign interference coming from Russia or other authoritarian forces, but also floods of disinformation, fake news, cyber attacks, just to mention a few. We have collectively to remain vigilant and address these risks decisively.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Margaritis SCHINAS, Vice-President of the European Commission, Let me start first with a diagnostics. What are we really facing these days? Only two weeks ago, a report by the German Federal Foreign Office found that Russia had used more than 50,000 fake accounts on ICS, sending more than 1 million tweets in order to manipulate public opinion. Only in Germany.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Margaritis SCHINAS, Vice-President of the European Commission, During the pandemic, systematic disinformation campaigns sought to foster doubts about the successful vaccination companies, programs of the EU. This showed that disinformation can really kill because that was the worst moment when the death tolls were surging. And I'm sure you would remember as I do. The alleged Russian military vehicles going up and down the Italian highways to support the Italian COVID victims.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Margaritis SCHINAS, Vice-President of the European Commission, 'We are also witnessing since February 22, a wave of disinformation used as a weapon by Russia in their aggressive war against Ukraine. Distorting facts, publishing false de-nazification narratives and trying to take advantage of war fatigue to shift priorities and attention.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Margaritis SCHINAS, Vice-President of the European Commission, 'And finally, we also now know of the multiple attempts to interfere with democratic processes and systems in the European Union, across Europe, that have also been made systematically by Russia and recognised and documented in the report of the European Parliament's Special Committee. Let me recall the findings of multiple studies of Russian-based social media accounts and Russian paid online advertising, massively engaging in the days before the Brexit referendum in favour of leave. We now know.Or the reports on close and regular contacts, including organised visits between Russian officials and representatives of a group of Catalan secessionists in Spain between 2017 and 2020.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Margaritis SCHINAS, Vice-President of the European Commission, Of course, it is deeply troubling, the recent allegations that a Member of this House could be working on behalf of the Russian Federal Security Services. But I believe it's a duty of this House to investigate who else did what. Under what conditions to play the game of Moscow.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Margaritis SCHINAS, Vice-President of the European Commission, 'Kremlin's war of ideas is a multi-million euro weapon of massmanipulation, as we have already recognised in the Commission, our Security Union strategy. It is used to mislead and deceive our citizens, divide, polarise and exploit the vulnerabilities of our societies, ultimately to destabilise the European democracy. Let me now quickly, President, come to the actions that we have been developing in the Von der Leyen Commission to counter this unprecedented wave of Russian interference.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Margaritis SCHINAS, Vice-President of the European Commission, Step one: We have developed six concrete initiatives. I will take them one by one. Step one. In December last year we proposed the Defence of Democracy package. Then, the idea is to focus on transparency and democratic accountability while addressing the issue of foreign interference. The key element of this package is a proposal for a directive laying down common transparency and accountability standards for interest representation on behalf of third countries.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Margaritis SCHINAS, Vice-President of the European Commission, Step number two: The recently agreed European Media Freedom Act will strengthen regulatory coordination in order to protect the internal media market from foreign outlets, those that engage in systematic international campaigns of manipulation and interference. With this law, we have also reached a political agreement on the regulation of transparency of political advertising.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Margaritis SCHINAS, Vice-President of the European Commission, Step number three: Three years ago, together with Parliament and Council, we reached the agreement on the mandatory transparency register. We believe that the EU institutions must meet the highest standards of transparency and integrity.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Margaritis SCHINAS, Vice-President of the European Commission, 'Step number four: Ethics and accountability. We have adopted a proposal for the creation of an inter-institutional ethics body. And with this proposal, there will be, for the first time, common standards for ethical conduct of members of all institutions. We are proud in the Commission to have been following these rules to the letter. We really hope that the European institutions can work together to find an agreement on the creation of a body that would harmonise the conditions across the institutional landscape.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Margaritis SCHINAS, Vice-President of the European Commission, Step number five: In May, we presented a legislative proposal to update the criminal law approach to corruption. Our proposal would close the gaps between different definitions of corruption so that all kinds of corruption phenomena are criminalised, including trading in influence, abuse of power and obstruction of justice. And of course, all EU politicians, all members of the institutions will be covered by this proposal.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Margaritis SCHINAS, Vice-President of the European Commission, Finally, step number six and probably the ultimate weapon: we now have in the European Union, a solid regulatory framework with the Digital Services Act that allows us to enable and deploy regulatory instruments against the platforms and those who refuse to cooperate in defending the citizens of Europe against these phenomena. Thank you all for your participation today. I look forward to the debate.