6th topic of the Eurovision Debate 2024 between the lead candidates for the Commission presidency: Nicolas SCHMIT, Party European Socialists, Sandro GOZI, Renew Europe Now, Terry REINTKE, European Greens, Ursula von der LEYEN, European People's Party and Walter BAIER, European Left. Important themes that will be put on the table are Artificial Intelligence, digital challenges, but also disinformation that the EU has to face. This transcription is a result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

Brussels

SCHMIT, Nicolas (LU, EC)

debate

REINTKE, Terry (Greens/EFA, DE)

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

use of robotics and artificial intelligence (T)

GOZI, Sandro (Renew, FR)

Eurovision debate between candidates for the Presidency of the European Commission (T)

VON DER LEYEN, Ursula (DE, EC)

digital Europe programme 2021-2027 (T)

2024 European elections (T)

BAIER, Walter (AT)

Eurovision Debate 2024 (Clean feed) - Topic 6: Innovation and Technology

SOUNDBITE (Original), Annelies BECK, Eurovision debate 2024 moderator, Time is flying by. I don't know if you have that feeling. We've come to our last topic. Now, you may have noticed, Martin and I are real human journalists, but who's to say that these kinds of debates won't be helped by avatars come the next round of elections? All the more reason to discuss innovation and technology.

Video Presentation Social media and the internet. And now artificial intelligence are revolutionising our world. But it is a revolution where American software and Chinese hardware are so far proving dominant. The EU has been at the forefront of attempts to regulate with its Digital Services Act and other legislation, but with disinformation from Russia and others on the rise, the risk for Europe is that it continues to play digital catch up while the real control, profits and power remain elsewhere.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Annelies BECK, Eurovision debate 2024 moderator, And here we are again. The idea behind this debate is to bring in as many concerns and questions as possible from across Europe and across EU countries. Our public broadcaster colleagues have helped us make that possible. And there they are. For this section, let's turn to Romania and hear what they would like the candidates to address. Hello, Bucharest. The floor is yours.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Romona from Romania, Hello, Europe. Hello from Bucharest. I am Ramona Ramirescu. We are watching the debate here in our studio at the Romanian Television with this young and very Euro enthusiast. The crowd with me is, Teodoro, his, young, special computer specialist. And, he has a question for the candidates there, please.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Teodoro from Romania, Hello. This is my question. The EU is a front runner in regulating the sector. Do you think that further regulation will help or become a burden for the European companies?

SOUNDBITE (Original), Annelies BECK, Eurovision debate 2024 moderator, Thank you very much for that. Very clear question, Mr. Schmit. It's all yours.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Nicolas SCHMIT, lead candidate of the Party of European Socialists, Yes. First, technology is about growth. Technology is about progress, about economic, but also social progress. And I think we are in a situation where Europe is lagging behind in many areas. And the only solution is to invest more. So it's not austerity policy, which helps us is really investment policy. It's not pauses in green technologies. It's investing in green technologies. It's about talent. We have a lot of talent. We have to attract talent from all over the world, but also also we have to encourage creators, innovators, Start-Ups, because when we have good Start-Ups, what happens? And he says it. It's not about regulation. It's about not getting the finance. And that's why we need the right finance. We need this capital market union. I do not quote bankers very often, but there is a bank. Having said, if you want the Green Deal, you will not get it without the capital market union. If you want technological progress, you will not get it without. So this is the way Europe has to go.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Annelies BECK, Eurovision debate 2024 moderator, Thank you very much. I remind you that you still have one card left. Miss Von der Leyen, the same question for you. It's really about, the pros and cons of regulation in terms of innovation and European companies that want to go down that road.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, lead candidate of the European People's Party, Yes. We have been very careful in our AI actions in the Data Act, for example, that, we enhance growth and all these fantastic ideas and opportunity that, for example, artificial intelligence brings. But it of course also has its risks. And therefore we were the first continent, the first region in the world to regulate this and take the topic of TikTok, for example. We have been with our digital service markt act. We have been able to say to TikTok, listen, we're going to investigate in the way you, damage the mental health of young people. With TikTok Lite, for example. And the moment this announcement of investigation came, TikTok withdrew TikTok Lite, the app from the market because they knew what would come. So we have leverage through a legislation that helps people while opening the door to innovation.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Annelies BECK, Eurovision debate 2024 moderator, Thank you very much. Time's up

SOUNDBITE (Original), Martin ŘEZNÍČEK, Eurovision debate 2024 moderator, Thank you for bringing the issue of TikTok, which is really important innovation, technology, young voters. Let's go to Ninette from Belgium. She's 17. There you are. I can see you. Yes. She's our young youngest. First time with her, I should say. She's a student and a DJ from Antwerp. Ninette your question, please.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ninette from Belgium, We have seen the rising popularity of TikTok and the concerns about data security and its influence on youths. My question is, what action should the YouTube be taking to address the potential risks of TikTok while balancing innovation and freedom of expression?

SOUNDBITE (Original), Martin ŘEZNÍČEK, Eurovision debate 2024 moderator, Thank you Ninette. Thank you for this really important question, Mr. Baier. It goes to you.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Walter BAIER, lead candidate of the European Left, I think, the EU has taken reasonable measures. For example, the, the Digital Service Act, which provides, safeguards against harmful and impaired content at the same time. You're right. This is also about freedom. And that, must not be only banned. It must be publicly controlled. I like also, that the European Union takes measures against the big monopolistic companies who control the electronic, marketplaces. But please do not forget that these huge companies also have enormous profit through harvesting, our data. So I would prefer that, comment that, information and communication would become a common, which would be socially and democratically controlled by the society.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Martin ŘEZNÍČEK, Eurovision debate 2024 moderator, Thank you very much. And the same question from Ninette goes to you, Mr. Gozi.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Sandro GOZI, lead Candidate of Renew Europe Now, Well, I mean, I'm a I'm a father. I teach to young people. I'm very concerned with the protection of our children. I'm very concerned with the fight to ensure their mental protection online. And I think that, yeah, we agree. The European Commission, this European Commission did an excellent job. Now we got the instrument. You go there mean to ensure a protection. I think that we should introduce a majority online at 15 years old when you are 50 year old, because we need to accompany our children and our and our to, to to be better and more protected online and on TikTok, we got the means. If they don't comply, we must go against them. I'm not on TikTok, by the way. And on the influencer. I mean, with influencer, we must ask the same transparency that we ask to anybody else. I don't want to restrict the freedom of influencer, but they must be transparent, especially when they're paid by someone. We want to know whether they if they say something is because they are doing campaign for someone for transparency. This is what we did with the new law on political advertising online, by the way.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Martin ŘEZNÍČEK, Eurovision debate 2024 moderator, Thank you, Mr. Gozi.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Annelies BECK, Eurovision debate 2024 moderator, We've, come to the final question on this topic. We see examples almost every day at the moment about the dangers of deepfake technology. What would your commission do to make sure that Europe's citizens know when they are seeing and hearing a real person, and not a very lifelike fraud? And this last question goes to you, Miss Reintke.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Terry REINTKE, lead candidate of the European Greens, I absolutely think we need more transparency. And we also need to, have the platforms take responsibility for this and to take down, maybe, content if it goes into that direction, the enforcement of the Digital Services Act will be key here. Just having a law on paper is not enough. We need to enforce it. But let me end by saying something very personal, because I know that there are a lot of people in Europe right now who are afraid. I am myself in a relationship with a wonderful French woman. As a binational lesbian couple we see in queer communities, we see amongst black people, amongst migrant communities, amongst poor people, that they are afraid of the future and they don't know what is going to come with this election and whether they can still call Europe their home. And I want to be absolutely clear here. Europe is your home. Let us stand together with solidarity. Let us fight for equality and diversity. This continent has thrived on these values. We can win these elections with exactly these values.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Annelies BECK, Eurovision debate 2024 moderator, Thank you, miss Reintke. Most of you have played their cards. Mr. Schmit, you have one card left. It's yours to play if you want to.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Nicolas SCHMIT, lead candidate of the Party of European Socialists, Yeah, it's on technology. I wanted to say that the world of work is changing fundamentally due to the algorithms we launched. This commission launched, the platform directive, where there is an important part also on the control by by algorithms on workers. And this is a major, major challenge. I fully agree with all the issues about fake news and tick tock and so on, but we have really to have an idea about how the world of work would go in the future. I'm not against artificial intelligence, but it has to be human centred.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Annelies BECK, Eurovision debate 2024 moderator, Thank you very much, Mr. Schmit. And with that, we conclude this debate.