“FOR TWENTY YEARS, fed by the myth of the end of history, convinced that they no longer have enemies, European elites have shown a puzzling naivety and culpable flippancy.”
These were the words of one MEP as a report on foreign interference in the EU was put to a vote last month. French centre-left member Raphaël Glucksmann was pulling no punches after chairing the European Parliament committee that produced the findings.
The vote followed an 18-month inquiry into how malicious foreign actors work to manipulate public debate and meddle in democratic institutions. Some 130 experts addressed the special committee on foreign interference and disinformation, which concluded that European governments are “overwhelmingly unaware” of threats from states such as Russia and China.
The report features a raft of recommendations, including new rules for social media platforms, funding for independent factcheckers and journalists, and the introduction of media and digital literacy in member state curricula. It was endorsed by a large majority of lawmakers, passing by 552 votes to 81.
So could this prove to be a watershed in the fight against disinformation? German Green MEP Viola von Cramon, who was on the committee, argues that the report is much more comprehensive than what’s been proposed in the past.
“The hearings were held almost weekly for a year and a half,” she tells The Journal. “We consulted not only with governmental organisations and social media companies, but also with experts on detecting disinformation and protecting the public financing of election campaigns.”
The report significantly also stresses the need for changes within EU institutions. “Our current approach is insufficient,” says von Cramon. “We have a taskforce… that does a good job, but it has not been a priority for the European Commission. We would like to see an enlarged taskforce being led by the Commissioner for Values and Transparency, with more countries and languages represented.”
The challenges
There has already been some progress on addressing the concerns raised by the committee. The forthcoming Digital Services Act, for example, aims to reduce the spread of disinformation on social media by bringing in mandatory risk assessments as well as independent audits.
However, von Cramon is concerned that some member states will be reluctant to endorse stricter regulation. “What we want is a regulatory body rather than self-regulatory measures. It is necessary, together with the Digital Services Act, to have something in place to control the business model of social platforms.
“This needs to be negotiated with the European Council, but of course there are or might be some countries not so much in favour of a stronger regulatory framework. There are diverging opinions on how to handle these platforms.”
The proposed introduction of sanctions for disinformation has raised eyebrows as well. Joe Galvin, an investigative journalist who writes Union Weekly, a newsletter on EU politics, points to concerns about the potential impact on free speech.
“Any type of regulation requires the weighing of consequences, and that’s particularly true when it comes to the regulation of online speech,” he tells The Journal. “What will be the consequences of giving an agency the power to define disinformation? I don’t think you’ll ever have a situation where the right decision is made all the time.”
Galvin believes that sanctions are too blunt an instrument to tackle the problem. “We do need regulation, but I think the first thing we should be looking at is transparency. One of the simpler things to do would be to force the platforms to be more transparent about how their algorithms work, so users have a stronger idea of why they’re seeing what they’re seeing.
“The challenge with disinformation is that it allows bad actors to infect users’ feeds without those users having any idea of how that information got there.”
He also highlights the risk that public interest stories will be dismissed as “disinformation” for political reasons. “State regulation could very well have a good impact in preventing certain types of disinformation, but it comes down to issues around free speech and discussion. How dearly do we hold those values across the EU? How important is it for us to protect them?”
“Putin’s propaganda machinery did not start on 24 February”
Dublin MEP Clare Daly has been particularly critical of the report, arguing that the special committee – of which she was a member – was unwilling to look at the problem of corporate interference in member states. In a diverging opinion added to the text on behalf of the Left group, Daly accused the committee of selectively focusing on “a narrative of European victimhood” at the hands of geopolitical adversaries.
“The inquiry was used to inflate threats of Russian and Chinese interference, to ignore material causes for the crisis of political legitimacy in Europe, to stigmatise dissent from official EU foreign policy, and to establish securitarian grounds for limitations on the freedom of expression and other fundamental rights,” reads the minority opinion.
Daly also took issue with the representation of security and defence interests at hearings. In her view, many of the think-tanks consulted by the committee owe their existence to these very policy discussions.
“The result of their ‘expertise’ becoming policy is that more funding streams open up for them and their role as sources of ‘expertise’ becomes cemented in EU institutions,” she told The Journal. “None of it can be treated as neutral or objective expertise, because it is being funded and produced by and for the very people who stand to benefit from it.”
But for other MEPs, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shown that action cannot be delayed. The report’s author, former Latvian foreign minister Sandra Kalniete, opened the debate on its recommendations last month with a stark reminder of recent history.
“Putin’s propaganda machinery was not ‘turned on’ only on 24 February,” she said. “It has been working in Europe for decades already, attempting to poison and divide our societies.”
This work is co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work are the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.
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