The European Parliament established the Special Committee on the European Democracy Shield on 4 February and elected French politician Natalie Loiseau (Renew) as its chair. The Special Committee faces a formidable task: contributing to the creation of the European Democracy Shield. Commission President von der Leyen envisages the European Democracy Shield as a means of protecting democratic processes in the EU and its Member States from foreign interference. In particular, it is intended to counter disinformation and information manipulation by actors from third countries (“foreign information manipulation and interference”). The European Democracy Shield will build on previous EU projects to protect democracy from foreign interference, such as the 2020 European Democracy Action Plan and the 2023 Defence of Democracy Package.
The European response to disinformation from third countries was also the focus of the ENSURE Discussion Series on 19 February. Participants discussed the article “European Union defensive democracy’s responses to disinformation” by Krisztina Juhász (Journal of Contemporary European Studies 32 (2024), 1075). The author divides the Union’s measures against disinformation into regulatory, political and societal measures. Juhász identifies the Digital Services Act, the EU Code of Conduct on Disinformation and the sanctions against Russia Today as key regulatory instruments. As political efforts, she highlights the creation of the East Stratcom Task Force and the Hybrid Fusion Cell. In the societal sphere, she points to the work of the Observatory of Social Media Analysis as an independent hub for fact-checkers. Conceptually, Juhász situates the measures within the theoretical framework of the EU as a defensive democracy. The sanctions against Russia Today should be seen as instruments of a militant democracy.
The debate in the Ensure Discussion Series showed that the EU’s fight against disinformation is riddled with legal and conceptual questions, and that the effectiveness of some of the measures remains unclear. This raises the question: do initiatives such as the Democracy Action Plan, the Defence of Democracy Package or the European Democracy Shield offer more than just catchy names? More fundamentally, where does the legitimate fight against foreign interference end, and where does the illegitimate restriction of protected freedoms begin?
These crucial questions will need to be explored further in the coming years. The Special Committee on the European Democracy Shield faces an extensive agenda.
Note: Dr. Carolyn Moser and Laurids Hempel shared additional reflections on the EU’s response to foreign interference in times of geopolitical challenges in a contribution to Verfassungsblog at the end of January.