During the plenary session (5-8 July 2021) of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, MEPs debate on the foreign Interference in democratic processes: opening statements by the Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Author, and Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, Vice-President of the Commission/High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. This transcription is the result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

Oral question - Foreign Interference in democratic processes: opening statements by Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Author and by Josep BORRELL FONTELLES Vicepresident of the Commission/High Representative of the EU

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SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Author, Thank you, President. High Representative, what links financing of the Brexit campaign, the Anti Abortion Association cyber attacks, tanking European banks or health care structures. Mass disinformation on social network buying European strategic infrastructure. The proposed Port Gerhard Schroeder working for Gazprom.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Author, Look where even the term works and others. The link between all these legal and illegal activities are the fact that they involve hostile foreign powers that are looking to destabilise our democracies. This is part of a clear military strategic strategy. It's part of the hybrid war. This is a very strange state of affairs.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Author, It's difficult to define our enemy, the enemy is looking to divide us, to weaken us rather than engage in a frontal attack. We believe that we have no enemies left, and so the European Union has been naive for a long time. We need to put an end to that naivety. And that's why we've set up a special committee for nine months.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Author, I have had the honour of chairing that committee and we have spent the first part of our mandate looking at specific issues. We've had 30 meetings and 90 hearings, and our conclusions are clear and alarming. We are vulnerable to attack and interference. There's a real risk to the European Union. We need to respond to such attacks. This is essential.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Author, High Representative, during your hearing in March last year, you shared our analysis on the vulnerability of the European Union, the need to step up measures to counter interference. You talked about how powerless you were that you didn't have sufficient resources or sufficient budget to tackle disinformation from China.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Author, And I can quote you by saying that your means to counter such disinformation is very weak. We need to know what policy, what strategy, ambitious strategy can be crafted. So we have very specific request of you today and questions. How do you plan to plug the shortcomings, the loopholes that make the European Union so vulnerable to attack?

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Author, We have a silo mentality, and that means that such attacks are not detected. Can you look at horizontal structures? How can you coordinate across the different commissioners? Can you look at traditional structures, broaden the mandate of your services? There is a striking lack of resources. We need to see an increase in the budget line. Has a request been tabled?

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Author, We need effective sanctions mechanism. Those behind attacks must pay the price. Sanctions cannot just target the hackers themselves, but also the political masterminds behind those hackers, the countries involved. How do you plan to look at the sanctions regime at Council level? What about the impact of the unanimity regime?

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Author, How does that impact on the European Union's ability to respond forcefully to attacks? These are essential questions. Whether you're left wing, right wing, progressive or conservative, we have a shared responsibility to protect our democracies, our institutions and our citizens.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Author, Colleagues, what is the greatest threat currently facing democracies? Not the refugees dying in the Mediterranean, all the rainbows that have been chased from Poland and Hungary, the imaginary enemies cooked up by the far right, they're not threats.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Author, The real threats can be found within our own institutions, those that play along with the attempts to destabilise the European Union, pseudo patriots, friends of Vladimir Putin, those involved in destabilising the European Union. A further threat is corruption, in particular corruption amongst leaders, whether they're left or right wing leaders who were for sale to foreign powers such as Russia, China or Qatar.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Author, We're also seeing large European brands beholden to production chains in China, they believe that everything is up for sale, including sovereignty and human dignity. Colleagues, if we wish to preserve our democracy, we need to learn how to defend our democracies firmly, resolutely.

SOUNDBITE (French), Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Author, Let's pull together to do that. High Representative, we eagerly await your response. We will stand with you to make Europe safer and more powerful in this regard.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Dear president, madam president. I welcome the attention that this parliament is directing to disinformation, information, manipulation and interference in our democratic processes. Cyber attacks in our member states are no doubt campaigns to influence our information space.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, We've even seen manipulation of our elections and these have become permanent, props in our political landscape, even more so since the pandemic broke out, which pushed this battle, which I called one day, the battle of different narratives forward. We've also seen the spread of fake information.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, This is a well orchestrated campaign which threatens our democracy, our security. It is an attempt to manipulate consciences of our citizens. And to ultimately try to change our policies, this is a foreign policy matter, too, because it limits the sphere in which the European Union can be influential in the world.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Therefore, we need to work at the European level, but we also need to work on member state level and we need to work with our Like-Minded partners throughout the world. Since 2015, we have been working on this matter. That is when we started building structures that could systematically detect and denounce this type of information manoeuvring.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, And that is why the East StratCom task force was set up with the Council mandate, which at that time certainly focussed as the name will tell you, to the east. So east of Europe. And this mandate did not allow them to address new sources of disinformation, such as, for instance, is the case for China.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, I referred to this because the mandate that we have is for the East StratCom Task Force. So that was to address problems that had arisen in the east of Europe. We have improved our capacities. We have acted proactively and we have increased our capacity to deal with situations in the east, Ukraine, Georgia, the Balkans.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, We set up a rapid alert system, which is an early warning system, allowing us to exchange information with member states and in a swift manner. As the name tells you, we're doing everything we can to ensure that our societies are aware of this ongoing dynamic, of disnformation.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, We're working with the media and with social scientists. We're also working with organisations such as NATO, we have established partnerships with civil society, we have created a new policy framework. It is explicitly called the Action Plan Against Disinformation and the European Democracy Action Plan. These plans allow us to work internationally.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Certainly, honourable members, you are right and you have been right for a very long time when you've been saying that we need to do more. And you've been very right because we need to do a great deal more and it will take time. It is certainly the time to construct more detailed frameworks to deal with these problems.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, We're working on developing a European approach that will allow us to face down this threat on the European level. We're very focussed, certainly on disinformation coming out of Russia. We must pay more attention to other sources, too. For the time being, however, we believe that the fundamental target should be there.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, We're working on developing our capacity without wanting you to think that we're forgetting about new stakeholders', new tactics, new techniques for manipulating information. We are therefore requesting a review and an update from the Council to expand on our current mandate.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, We will also need to focus on new disinformation scenarios, some that would not immediately spring to mind, such as sub-Saharan Africa, the Central African Republic. That is a significant focus of disinformation. We have appealed to the government of the Central African Republic and told them that if things continue as they are, the EU can no longer support that government.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, It is incredible, really, how a society that is not as well-developed in terms of media as ours, still, this information has become a weapon of war there. So we must develop a more coordinated approach. It needs to be better resourced. We need better tools for civil and military missions.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Each of our delegations will be sent an expert on fighting disinformation and all the different missions around the world will be in contact with experts in this field. I don't want to use vague language. We have seen a modest increase in our resources that will allow us to equip our teams here better, as well as throughout our delegations and missions.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, It will allow us to create more efficient partnerships. Either within the Union or with other countries that share our concerns. For this to work, we will need the public opinion behind us, though, when we say we're fighting disinformation there, that also raises some fears that we are talking about limiting information, we're told.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Will you want to control information? Now, obviously, in order to fight disinformation, you have to see the information. You have to be certain of what you're saying to check whether what you were saying agrees with the parameters of reality. Sometimes there is a delicate red line in this fight against this information, and it could be used as an excuse to limit the capacity to inform.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Nothing could be further from our desire. On the contrary, democracy is a system that only works. on information that is the fuel that powers the motor of democracy. Citizens are only able to choose well when they are well informed.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, And that is why those of us who believe in democracy are making this effort to ensure that we're not given bad fuel on which the power of democracy, disinformation, where citizens are no longer able to to see who defends their interests and can make sound political choices.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, So I would like to encourage you and I'm grateful for your encouragement, members, I hope we can all make better use of what we already have. This will be a crucial battle for the future of democracy because the issues around information are everywhere.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Information travels at the speed of light. It propagates like any virus. And disinformation, which is not just imprecise, but actually consists of fabricated lies fabricated to be spread. Well, it touches on raw nerves with people. And if that is allowed to take over, our democratic system will become a mere formality.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Democracy is not just about votes. It is about having well-informed citizens that can make sound choices. And I'm engaged in this battle. I have suffered personally from the consequences of this battle against disinformation in my own country.

SOUNDBITE (French),  Josep BORRELL FONTELLES,  High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, I am fully aware of the threat that it poses to democracy. I am sensitive to your proposals. I am keen to hear your constructive criticism. And I count on the support of all of you.

Oral question - Foreign Interference in democratic processes: opening statements by Raphaël GLUCKSMANN (S&D, FR), Author and by Josep BORRELL FONTELLES Vicepresident of the Commission/High Representative of the EU

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