—

having regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’), and in particular Articles 7, 8, 11, 12, 39, 40, 47 and 52 thereof,

—

having regard to the Charter of the United Nations, in particular Articles 1 and 2 thereof,

—

having regard to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2131 (XX) of 21 December 1965 entitled ‘Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of their Independence and Sovereignty’,

—

having regard to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and in particular Articles 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 and 17 thereof, and to the Protocol thereto, and in particular Article 3 thereof,

—

having regard to its resolution of 23 November 2016 on EU strategic communication to counteract propaganda against it by third parties (1) and to its recommendation of 13 March 2019 concerning taking stock of the follow-up taken by the EEAS two years after the EP report on EU strategic communication to counteract propaganda against it by third parties (2),

—

having regard to its resolution of 13 June 2018 on cyber defence (3),

—

having regard to the joint communications from the Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign and Security Policy of 5 December 2018 entitled ‘Action Plan against Disinformation’ (JOIN(2018)0036) and of 14 June 2019 entitled ‘Report on the implementation of the Action Plan Against Disinformation’ (JOIN(2019)0012),

—

having regard to the joint staff working document of 23 June 2021 on the Fifth Progress Report on the implementation of the 2016 Joint Framework on countering hybrid threats and the 2018 Joint Communication on increasing resilience and bolstering capabilities to address hybrid threats (SWD(2021)0729),

—

having regard to the European democracy action plan (COM(2020)0790),

—

having regard to the Commission communication of 3 December 2020 entitled ‘Europe’s Media in the Digital Decade: An Action Plan to Support Recovery and Transformation’ (COM(2020)0784),

—

having regard to the Digital Services Act package,

—

having regard to its resolution of 20 October 2021 entitled ‘Europe’s Media in the Digital Decade: an Action Plan to Support Recovery and Transformation’ (4),

—

having regard to the 2018 Code of Practice on Disinformation and the 2021 Guidance on Strengthening the Code of Practice on Disinformation (COM(2021)0262), and to the Recommendations for the New Code of Practice on Disinformation issued by the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services in October 2021,

—

having regard to the European Court of Auditors’ Special Report 09/2021 entitled ‘Disinformation affecting the EU: tackled but not tamed’,

—

having regard to the Commission proposal of 16 December 2020 for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the resilience of critical entities (COM(2020)0829) and to the proposed annex to the directive,

—

having regard to Regulation (EU) 2019/452 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 March 2019 establishing a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union (5) (FDI Screening Regulation) and the March 2020 Guidance on the FDI Screening Regulation (C(2020)1981),

—

having regard to the joint communication from the Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign and Security Policy of 16 December 2020 on the EU’s cybersecurity strategy for the digital decade (JOIN(2020)0018),

—

having regard to the International Law Commission’s Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts,

—

having regard to the Commission proposal of 16 December 2020 for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on measures for a high common level of cybersecurity across the Union, repealing Directive (EU) 2016/1148 (COM(2020)0823),

—

having regard to the March 2021 EU toolbox of risk mitigating measures on the cybersecurity of 5G networks,

—

having regard to Regulation (EU) 2019/881 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on ENISA (the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity) and on information and communications technology cybersecurity certification and repealing Regulation (EU) No 526/2013 (6),

—

having regard to the studies, briefings and in-depth analysis requested by the Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation (INGE),

—

having regard to the Frances Haugen hearing of 8 November 2021 organised by its Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee, in association with other committees,

—

having regard to its resolution of 7 October 2021 on the state of EU cyber defence capabilities (7),

—

having regard to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and in particular to SDG 16 which aims to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development,

—

having regard to the State of the Union 2021 address and letter of intent,

—

having regard to the UN Secretary-General’s report of 10 September 2021 entitled ‘Our Common Agenda’,

—

having regard to the joint communication from the Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign and Security Policy of 10 June 2020 entitled ‘Tackling COVID-19 disinformation — Getting the facts right’ (JOIN(2020)0008),

—

having regard to the Council’s decision of 15 November 2021 to amend its sanction regime on Belarus to broaden the designation criteria to target individuals and entities organising or contributing to hybrid attacks and the instrumentalisation of human beings carried out by the Belarus regime,

—

having regard to its decision of 18 June 2020 on setting up a special committee on foreign interference in all democratic processes in the European Union, including disinformation, and defining its responsibilities, numerical strength and term of office (8), adopted under Rule 207 of its Rules of Procedure,

—

having regard to Rule 54 of its Rules of Procedure,

—

having regard to the report of the Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation (A9-0022/2022),

A.

whereas foreign interference constitutes a serious violation of the universal values and principles on which the Union is founded, such as human dignity, freedom, equality, solidarity, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule of law;

B.

whereas foreign interference, information manipulation and disinformation are an abuse of the fundamental freedoms of expression and information as laid down in Article 11 of the Charter and threaten these freedoms, as well as undermining democratic processes in the EU and its Member States, such as the holding of free and fair elections; whereas the objective of foreign interference is to distort or falsely represent facts, artificially inflate one-sided arguments, discredit information to degrade political discourse and ultimately undermine confidence in the electoral system and therefore in the democratic process itself;

C.

whereas Russia has been engaging in disinformation of an unparalleled malice and magnitude across both traditional media outlets and social media platforms, in order to deceive its citizens at home and the international community on the eve of and during its war of aggression against Ukraine, which Russia started on 24 February 2022, proving that even information can be weaponised;

D.

whereas any action against foreign interference and information manipulation must itself respect the fundamental freedoms of expression and information; whereas the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) plays a key role in evaluating respect for fundamental rights, including Article 11 of the Charter, in order to avoid disproportionate actions; whereas actors carrying out foreign interference and information manipulation misuse those freedoms to their advantage and it is therefore vital to step up the precautionary fight against foreign interference and information manipulation because democracy depends on people making informed decisions;

E.

whereas evidence shows that malicious and authoritarian foreign state and non-state actors, such as Russia, China and others, use information manipulation and other interference tactics to interfere in democratic processes in the EU; whereas these attacks, which are part of a hybrid warfare strategy and constitute a violation of international law, mislead and deceive citizens and affect their voting behaviour, amplify divisive debates, divide, polarise and exploit the vulnerabilities of societies, promote hate speech, worsen the situation of vulnerable groups which are more likely to become victims of disinformation, distort the integrity of democratic elections and referendums, sow distrust in national governments, public authorities and the liberal democratic order and have the goal of destabilising European democracy, and therefore constitute a serious threat to EU security and sovereignty;

F.

whereas foreign interference is a pattern of behaviour that threatens or negatively impacts values, democratic procedures, political processes, the security of states and citizens, and the capacity to cope with exceptional situations; whereas such interference is manipulative in character, and conducted and financed in an intentional and coordinated manner; whereas those responsible for such interference, including their proxies within and outside their own territory, can be state or non-state actors, and are frequently assisted in their foreign interference by political accomplices in the Member States who derive political and economic advantages from favouring foreign strategies; whereas foreign actors’ use of domestic proxies and cooperation with domestic allies blurs the line between foreign and domestic interference;

G.

whereas foreign interference tactics take many forms, including disinformation, the suppression of information, the manipulation of social media platforms and their algorithms, terms and conditions, and advertising systems, cyberattacks, hack-and-leak operations to gain access to voter information and interfere with the legitimacy of the electoral process, threats against and the harassment of journalists, researchers, politicians and members of civil society organisations, covert donations and loans to political parties, campaigns favouring specific candidates, organisations and media outlets, fake or proxy media outlets and organisations, elite capture and co-optation, ‘dirty’ money, fake personas and identities, pressure to self-censor, the abusive exploitation of historical, religious and cultural narratives, pressure on educational and cultural institutions, taking control of critical infrastructure, pressuring foreign nationals living in the EU, the instrumentalisation of migrants and espionage; whereas these tactics are often combined for greater effect;

H.

whereas information manipulation and the spread of disinformation can serve the economic interests of state and non-state actors and their proxies, and create economic dependencies that can be exploited for political aims; whereas in a world of non-kinetic international competition, foreign interference can be a prime tool for destabilising and weakening targeted counterparts, or boosting one’s own competitive advantage through the establishment of channels of influence, supply chain dependencies, blackmail or coercion; whereas disinformation is causing direct and indirect economic damage that has not been systematically assessed;

I.

whereas misinformation is verifiably false information which is not intended to cause harm, while disinformation is verifiably false or misleading information that is intentionally created, presented or disseminated with a view to causing harm or producing a potentially disruptive effect on society by deceiving the public or for intentional economic gain;

J.

whereas there is a need to agree within the EU on common and granular definitions and methodologies to improve the shared understanding of the threats and develop appropriate EU standards for improved attribution and response; whereas the European External Action Service (EEAS) has done a considerable amount of work in this area; whereas these definitions must guarantee imperviousness to external interference and respect for human rights; whereas cooperation with like-minded partners, in relevant international forums, on common definitions of foreign interference in order to establish international norms and standards is of the utmost importance; whereas the EU should take the lead in establishing clear international rules for the attribution of foreign interference;

K.

whereas foreign interference attempts across the world are increasing and becoming more systemic and sophisticated, relying on widespread use of artificial intelligence (AI) and eroding attributability;

L.

whereas it is the duty of the EU and its Member States to defend all citizens and infrastructure, as well as their democratic systems, from foreign interference attempts; whereas, however, the EU and its Member States appear to lack the appropriate and sufficient means to be able to better prevent, detect, attribute, counter and sanction these threats;

M.

whereas there is a general lack of awareness among many policy-makers, and citizens in general, of the reality of these issues, which may unintentionally contribute to opening up further vulnerabilities; whereas the issue of disinformation campaigns has not been at the top of the agenda of European policy-makers; whereas the hearings and work of the INGE Special Committee have contributed to public recognition and the contextualisation of these issues and have successfully framed the European debate on foreign interference; whereas long-lasting foreign disinformation efforts have already contributed to the emergence of home-grown disinformation;

N.

whereas the transparent monitoring of the state of foreign interference in real time by institutional bodies and independent analysts and fact-checkers, the effective coordination of their actions and the exchange of information are crucial so that appropriate action is taken not only to provide information about ongoing malicious attacks but also to counter them; whereas similar attention must be paid to mapping society, identifying the areas most vulnerable and susceptive to foreign manipulation and disinformation, and tackling the causes of those vulnerabilities;

O.

whereas the first priority of EU defence, i.e. the resilience and preparedness of EU citizens vis-à-vis foreign interference and information manipulation, requires a long-term and whole-of-society approach, beginning with education and raising awareness of the problems at an early stage;

P.

whereas it is necessary to cooperate and coordinate across administrative levels and sectors among the Member States, at EU level and with like-minded countries, as well as with civil society and the private sector, in order to identify vulnerabilities, detect attacks and neutralise them; whereas there is an urgent need to synchronise the perception of threats with national security;

Q.

whereas situational awareness, robust democratic systems, strong rule of law, a vibrant civil society, early warnings and threat assessment are the first steps towards countering information manipulation and interference; whereas in spite of all the progress made in raising awareness about foreign interference, many people, including policy-makers and civil servants working in the areas potentially targeted, are still unaware of the potential risks linked to foreign interference and how to address them;

R.

whereas high-quality, sustainably and transparently financed, and independent news media and professional journalism are essential for media freedom and pluralism and the rule of law, and are therefore a pillar of democracy and the best antidote to disinformation; whereas some foreign actors take advantage of Western media freedom to spread disinformation; whereas professional media and traditional journalism, as a quality information source, are facing challenging times in the digital era; whereas quality journalism education and training within and outside the EU are necessary in order to ensure valuable journalistic analyses and high editorial standards; whereas the EU needs to continue supporting journalism in the digital environment; whereas science-based communication should play an important role;

S.

whereas editorially independent public service media are essential and irreplaceable in providing high-quality and impartial information services to the general public and must be protected from malign capture and strengthened as a fundamental pillar of the fight against disinformation;

T.

whereas different stakeholders and institutions use different methodologies and definitions to analyse foreign interference — all with different degrees of comprehensibility, and whereas these differences can inhibit comparable monitoring, analysis and assessment of the threat level, which makes joint action more difficult; whereas there is a need for an EU definition and methodology to improve the common threat analysis;

U.

whereas there is a need to complement terminology that focuses on content, such as fake, false or misleading news, misinformation and disinformation, with terminology that centres on behaviour, in order to adequately address the problem; whereas this terminology should be harmonised and carefully adhered to;

V.

whereas training in media and digital literacy and awareness-raising, for both children and adults, are important tools to make citizens more resilient against interference attempts in the information space and avoid manipulation and polarisation; whereas in general, societies with a high level of media literacy are more resilient to foreign interference; whereas journalistic working methods such as constructive journalism could help to strengthen trust in journalism among citizens;

W.

whereas information manipulation can take many forms, such as spreading disinformation and completely false news, distorting facts, narratives and representations of opinion, suppression of certain information or opinions, taking information out of context, manipulating people’s feelings, promoting hate speech, promoting some opinions at the expense of others, and harassing people to silence and oppress them; whereas one aim of information manipulation is to create chaos in order to encourage a loss of citizens’ trust in the old and new ‘gatekeepers’ of information; whereas there is a fine line between freedom of expression and the promotion of hate speech and disinformation which should not be abused;

X.

whereas Azerbaijan, China, Turkey and Russia, among others, have all targeted journalists and opponents in the European Union, such as in the case of Azerbaijani blogger and opposition figure Mahammad Mirzali in Nantes and that of Turkish journalist Erk Acarer in Berlin;

Y.

whereas there is concrete evidence that the EU’s democratic processes are being targeted and interfered with by disinformation campaigns that challenge democratic ideals and fundamental rights; whereas disinformation related to topics including, but not limited to, gender, LGBTIQ+, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and minorities is a form of disinformation that threatens human rights, undermines digital and political rights, as well as the safety and security of its targets, and sows fraction and disunity among Member States; whereas during election campaigns female political candidates tend to be disproportionately targeted by sexist narratives, leading to the discouragement of women from taking part in democratic processes; whereas the perpetrators of these disinformation campaigns, under the guise of promoting ‘traditional’ or ‘conservative’ values, form strategic alliances with local partners to gain access to local intelligence and have been reported to receive millions of euros in foreign funding;

Z.

whereas next to state institutions, journalists, opinion leaders and the private sector, each section of society and each individual have important roles to play in identifying and putting a stop to the spread of disinformation and in warning people in their environment who are at risk; whereas civil society, academia and journalists have already contributed strongly to raising public awareness and increasing societal resilience, including in cooperation with counterparts in partner countries;

AA.

whereas civil society organisations representing minority voices and human rights organisations across Europe remain underfunded, despite playing a crucial role in raising awareness and countering disinformation; whereas civil society organisations should be adequately resourced in order to play their part in limiting the impact of foreign interference;

AB.

whereas it is important to have easy and timely access to fact-based information from reliable sources when disinformation starts to spread;

AC.

whereas it is necessary to rapidly detect foreign interference attacks and attempts to manipulate the information sphere in order to counter them; whereas EU intelligence analysis and situational awareness are dependent on the willingness of Member States to share information; whereas the Commission President has proposed that the establishment of an EU Joint Situational Awareness Centre be considered; whereas prevention and proactive measures including pre-bunking and a healthy information ecosystem are far more effective than subsequent fact-checking and debunking efforts, which show lower reach than the original disinformation; whereas the EU and its Member States currently lack sufficient capabilities to take such measures; whereas new AI-based analytical tools, such as the Lithuanian Debunk.eu, could help to detect attacks, share knowledge and inform the public;

AD.

whereas disinformation thrives in an environment of weak or fragmented national or EU-level narratives, and on polarised and emotional debates, exploiting weak points and biases among society and individuals, and whereas disinformation distorts the public debate around elections and other democratic processes and can make it difficult for citizens to make informed choices;

AE.

whereas online platforms can be easily accessible and affordable tools for those engaging in information manipulation and other interference, such as hate and harassment, damaging the health and safety of our online communities, silencing opponents, espionage or spreading disinformation; whereas their functioning has been proven to encourage polarised and extreme opinions at the expense of fact-based information; whereas platforms have their own interests and may not be neutral in processing information; whereas some online platforms greatly benefit from the system that amplifies division, extremism and polarisation; whereas online space has become just as important for our democracy as physical space and therefore needs corresponding rules;

AF.

whereas platforms have accelerated and exacerbated the spread of mis- and disinformation in an unprecedented and challenging way; whereas online platforms control the flow of information and advertising online, whereas platforms design and use algorithms to control these flows, and whereas platforms are not transparent, lack appropriate procedures to verify identity, use unclear and vague terminology and share very little or no information about the design, use and impacts of these algorithms; whereas the addictive component of online platform algorithms has created a serious public health problem that needs to be addressed; whereas online platforms should be responsible for the harmful effects of their services, as some platforms were aware of the flaws in their algorithms — in particular their role in spreading divisive content — but failed to address them in order to maximise profit, as was revealed by whistle-blowers;

AG.

whereas in response to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the Prime Ministers of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland sent a letter to the CEOs of the Big Tech social media platforms (Twitter, Alphabet, YouTube and Meta) on 27 February 2022, calling for, inter alia, the suspension of accounts engaging in and glorifying war crimes and crimes against humanity, reinforced content moderation in the Russian and Ukrainian languages, the full and immediate demonetisation of all accounts disseminating disinformation perpetrated by the Russian and Belarusian Governments, and assistance for users trying to find trustworthy information on the war in Ukraine;

AH.

whereas there are interference and information manipulation campaigns directed at all measures against the spread of COVID-19, including vaccination across the EU, and online platforms have failed to coordinate their efforts to contain them and may even have contributed to their spread; whereas such disinformation can be life-threatening when deterring people from being vaccinated or promoting false treatments; whereas the pandemic has exacerbated the systemic struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, prompting authoritarian state and non-state actors, such as China and Russia, to deploy a broad range of overt and covert instruments in their bid to destabilise their democratic counterparts; whereas the Facebook Papers have revealed the platform’s failure to tackle vaccine-related disinformation, including in the English language; whereas the situation is even worse for non-English vaccine-related disinformation; whereas this issue concerns all platforms;

AI.

whereas numerous vendors registered in the EU sell inauthentic likes, followers, comments and shares to any actor wishing to artificially boost their visibility online; whereas it is impossible to identify legitimate uses of such services, while harmful uses include manipulating elections and other democratic processes, promoting scams, posting negative reviews of competitors’ products, defrauding advertisers and the creation of a fake public that is used to shape the conversation, for personal attacks and to artificially inflate certain viewpoints that would otherwise receive no attention; whereas foreign regimes, such as Russia and China, are using these online tools on a massive scale to influence the public debate in European countries; whereas disinformation can destabilise European democracy;

AJ.

whereas social platforms, digital devices and applications collect and store immense amounts of very detailed personal and often sensitive data about each user; whereas such data can be used to predict behavioural tendencies, reinforce cognitive bias and orient decision-making; whereas such data is exploited for commercial purposes; whereas data leaks happen repeatedly, to the detriment of the security of victims of such leaks, and data can be sold on the black market; whereas such databases could be goldmines for malicious actors wanting to target groups or individuals;

AK.

whereas, in general, platforms are designed to ensure that opting not to share data is nonintuitive, cumbersome and time-consuming in comparison with opting to share data;

AL.

whereas online platforms are integrated into most parts of our lives and the spread of information on platforms can have a huge impact on our thinking and behaviour, for instance when it comes to voting preferences, economic and social choices, and the choice of information sources, and whereas these decisive choices of public importance are today in fact conditioned by the commercial interests of private companies;

AM.

whereas algorithm curation mechanisms and other features of social media platforms are engineered to maximise engagement; whereas these features are repeatedly reported to promote polarising, radicalising and discriminatory content and keep users in like-minded circles; whereas this leads to the gradual radicalisation of platform users, as well as the conditioning and polluting of collective discussion processes, rather than the protection of democratic processes and individuals; whereas uncoordinated actions by platforms have led to discrepancies in their actions and allowed disinformation to spread from platform to platform; whereas the business model of making money through the spread of polarising information and the designing of algorithms make platforms an easy target for manipulation by foreign hostile actors; whereas social media platforms could be designed differently so as to foster a healthier online public sphere;

AN.

whereas the creation of deepfake audio and audiovisual materials is becoming increasingly easier with the advent of affordable and easy-to-use technologies, and the spread of such materials is an exponentially increasing problem; whereas currently, however, 90 % of research goes into the development of deepfakes and only 10 % into their detection;

AO.

whereas self-regulation systems such as the 2018 Code of Practice on Disinformation have led to improvements; whereas, however, relying on the goodwill of platforms is neither working nor effective and has produced little meaningful data on their overall impact; whereas, in addition, platforms have taken individual measures varying in degree and effect, leading to backdoors through which content can continue to spread elsewhere despite being taken down; whereas there needs to be a clear set of rules and sanctions in order for the Code of Practice to have sufficient effect on the online environment;

AP.

whereas the European Democracy Action Plan aims to strengthen the 2018 Code of Practice and together with the Digital Services Act constitutes a step away from the self-regulation approach and aims to introduce more guarantees and protections for users, by increasing autonomy and overcoming passivity with respect to the services offered, introducing measures to require greater transparency and accountability from companies, and introducing more obligations for platforms;

AQ.

whereas the current actions against disinformation campaigns on online platforms are not effective or deterrent and allow platforms to continue promoting discriminatory and malicious content;

AR.

whereas platforms dedicate significantly lower resources to content management in lesser-spoken languages, and even widely spoken non-English languages, compared to English content;

AS.

whereas platforms’ complaint and appeal procedures are generally inadequate;

AT.

whereas in recent months, several major players have obeyed censorship rules, for example during the Russian parliamentary elections in September 2021, when Google and Apple removed Smart Voting apps from their stores in Russia;

AU.

whereas the lack of transparency with regard to the algorithmic choices of platforms makes it impossible to validate claims by platforms about what they do and the effect of their actions to counter information manipulation and interference; whereas there are discrepancies between the stated effect of their efforts in their annual self-assessments and their actual effectiveness, as shown in the recent Facebook Papers;

AV.

whereas the non-transparent nature of targeted advertising leads to massive amounts of online advertising by reputable brands, sometimes even by public institutions, ending up on websites encouraging terrorism, hosting hate speech and disinformation, and financing the growth of such websites, without the awareness or consent of the advertisers;

AW.

whereas the online advertising market is controlled by a small number of big Ad Tech companies which share the market among themselves, with Google and Facebook as the largest players; whereas this high market concentration on a few companies is associated with a strong power imbalance; whereas the use of clickbait techniques and the power of these few actors to determine which content is monetised and which is not, even though the algorithms they use cannot tell the difference between disinformation and normal news content, constitutes a threat to diversified media; whereas the targeted advertising market is profoundly non-transparent; whereas Ad Tech companies force brands to take the hit for their negligence in monitoring where ads are placed;

AX.

whereas the management of threats to critical infrastructure, especially when part of a synchronised, malicious hybrid strategy, requires coordinated, joint efforts across sectors, at different levels — EU, national, regional and local — and at various times;

AY.

whereas the Commission has proposed a new directive to enhance the resilience of critical entities providing essential services in the EU, which includes a proposed list of new types of critical infrastructure; whereas the list of services will be set out in the annex to the directive;

AZ.

whereas the growing globalisation of the division of labour and of production chains has led to manufacturing and skills gaps in key sectors across the Union; whereas this has resulted in the EU’s high import dependence on many essential products and primary assets, which may have built-in vulnerabilities, coming from abroad; whereas supply chain resilience ought to be among the priorities of EU decision-makers;

BA.

whereas foreign direct investments (FDIs) — investments by third countries and foreign companies — in strategic sectors in the EU, but also in neighbourhood areas, such as the Western Balkans, in particular China’s acquisition of critical structures, have been a growing cause for concern in recent years, considering the increasing importance of the trade-security nexus; whereas these investments pose a risk of creating economic dependencies and leading to a loss of knowledge in key production and industrial sectors;

BB.

whereas the open strategic autonomy of the EU requires control of European strategic infrastructure; whereas the Commission and the Member States have expressed growing concern about the security and control of technologies and infrastructure in Europe;

BC.

whereas malicious actors who seek to interfere in electoral processes take advantage of the openness and pluralism of our societies as a strategic vulnerability to attack democratic processes and the resilience of the EU and its Member States; whereas it is in the context of electoral processes that foreign interference becomes more dangerous as citizens reengage and are more involved in conventional political participation;

BD.

whereas the distinctive nature of foreign interference in electoral processes, and the use of new technologies in this regard, as well as their potential effects, represent especially dangerous threats to democracy; whereas foreign interference in electoral processes goes well beyond social media ‘information warfare’, favouring specific candidates to hack and target databases and gain access to the information of registered voters and directly interfering with the normal functioning, competitiveness and legitimacy of the electoral process; whereas foreign interference aims to introduce doubt, uncertainty and mistrust, and not just to alter the result of elections but to delegitimise the entire electoral process;

BE.

whereas a solid body of evidence shows that foreign actors have been actively interfering in the democratic functioning of the EU and its Member States, particularly during election and referendum periods, through covert funding operations;

BF.

whereas, for instance, Russia, China and other authoritarian regimes have funnelled more than USD 300 million into 33 countries to interfere in democratic processes, and other actors such as Iran and Venezuela, from the Middle-East and on the US far right have also been involved in covert funding; whereas this trend is clearly accelerating; whereas half these cases concern Russia’s actions in Europe; whereas corruption and illicit money laundering are a source of political financing from authoritarian third countries;

BG.

whereas media tools created by foreign donors in a non-transparent way have become highly effective in garnering large numbers of followers and generating engagement;

BH.

whereas these operations finance extremist, populist, anti-European parties and certain other parties and individuals or movements seeking to deepen societal fragmentation and undermine the legitimacy of European and national public authorities; whereas this has helped to increase the reach of these parties and movements;

BI.

whereas Russia seeks out contacts to parties, figures and movements in order to use players within the EU institutions to legitimise Russian positions and proxy governments, to lobby for sanctions relief and to mitigate the consequences of international isolation; whereas parties such as the Austrian Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, the French Rassemblement National and the Italian Lega Nord have signed cooperation agreements with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party and now face media allegations of being willing to accept political funding from Russia; whereas other European parties such as the German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the Hungarian Fidesz and Jobbik, and the Brexit Party in the UK also reportedly have close contact with the Kremlin, and the AfD and Jobbik have also worked as so-called ‘election observers’ in Kremlin-controlled elections, for example in Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine, to monitor and legitimise Russian-sponsored elections; whereas findings about the close and regular contacts between Russian officials and representatives of a group of Catalan secessionists in Spain, as well as between Russian officials and the largest private donor for the Brexit Vote Leave campaign, require an in-depth investigation, and are part of Russia’s wider strategy to use each and every opportunity to manipulate discourse in order to promote destabilisation;

BJ.

whereas the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) of the Council of Europe and the Venice Commission have already made wide-ranging recommendations to decrease the scope for the possible interference of foreign actors via political financing;

BK.

whereas electoral laws, in particular provisions on the financing of political activities, are not sufficiently well coordinated at EU level, and therefore allow for opaque financing methods by foreign actors; whereas the legal definition of political donations is too narrow, allowing for foreign in-kind contributions in the European Union;

BL.

whereas, in some Member States, online political advertising is not subject to the rules for offline political advertising; whereas there is a serious lack of transparency in online political advertising, which makes it impossible for regulators to enforce spending limits and prevent illegal sources of funding, with potentially disastrous consequences for the integrity of our electoral systems;

BM.

whereas lack of financing transparency creates an environment for corruption, which often accompanies foreign funding and investments;

BN.

whereas Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1141/2014 of 22 October 2014 on the statute and funding of European political parties and European political foundations (9) is being revised with a view to achieving a greater level of transparency in terms of the financing of political activities;

BO.

whereas the role of political foundations has grown in recent years, in most cases playing a positive role in politics and in strengthening democracy, but in some cases becoming a more unpredictable vehicle for malicious forms of finance and indirect interference;

BP.

whereas modern technologies and digital assets, such as cryptocurrency, are used to disguise illegal financial transactions to political actors and political parties;

BQ.

whereas the incidence of cyberattacks and cyber-enabled incidents led by hostile state and non-state actors has been increasing in recent years; whereas several cyberattacks, such as the global spear-phishing email campaigns targeting strategic vaccine storage structures and the cyberattacks against the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the European Banking Authority, the Norwegian Parliament and countless others, have been traced back to state-backed hacker groups, predominantly affiliated to the Russian and Chinese Governments;

BR.

whereas the European Union is committed to the application of existing international law in cyberspace, in particular the UN Charter; whereas malign foreign actors are exploiting the absence of a strong legal international framework in the cyber domain;

BS.

whereas the Member States have increased their cooperation in the domain of cyber defence within the framework of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), including by setting up Cyber Rapid Response Teams; whereas the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP) has included intelligence, secured communication and cyber defence in its work programmes; whereas the current capacity to face cyber threats is limited owing to the scarcity of human and financial resources, for example in critical structures such as hospitals; whereas the EU has committed to investing EUR 1,6 billion, under the Digital Europe programme (10), in the response capacity and deployment of cybersecurity tools for public administrations, businesses and individuals, as well as developing public-private cooperation;

BT.

whereas gaps in and the fragmentation of the EU’s capabilities and strategies in the cyber field is becoming an increasing problem, as pointed out by the European Court of Auditors (11); whereas the EU Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox, set up in May 2019, has shown the added value of a joint EU diplomatic response to malicious cyber activities; whereas the Council decided for the first time on 30 July 2020 to impose restrictive measures on individuals, entities and bodies responsible for or involved in various cyberattacks;

BU.

whereas massive-scale and illicit use of surveillance programs, such as Pegasus, have been used by foreign state actors to target journalists, human rights activists, academics, government officials and politicians, including European heads of state; whereas Member States have also made use of the surveillance spyware;

BV.

whereas the decentralised and multinational character of EU institutions, including their missions and operations, is an ever-increasing target and is exploited by malicious foreign actors wanting to sow division in the EU; whereas there is an overall lack of a security culture in the EU institutions despite the fact that they are clear targets; whereas Parliament as the democratically elected EU institution faces specific challenges; whereas several cases have revealed that EU institutions appear vulnerable to foreign infiltration; whereas the safety of EU staff should be ensured;

BW.

whereas it is necessary to put in place strong and coherent crisis management procedures as a matter of priority; whereas additional training should be offered in order to enhance the preparedness of staff;

BX.

whereas cyberattacks have recently targeted several EU institutions, which underlines the need for strong interinstitutional cooperation in terms of detecting, monitoring and sharing information during cyberattacks and/or with a view to preventing them, including during EU common security and defence policy (CSDP) missions and operations; whereas the EU and its Member States should organise regular, joint exercises to identify weak spots and take the necessary measures;

BY.

whereas a number of politicians, including former high-level European politicians and civil servants are hired or co-opted by foreign authoritarian state-controlled national or private companies in exchange for their knowledge and at the expense of the interests of the citizens of the EU and its Member States;

BZ.

whereas some countries are particularly active in the field of elite capture and co-optation, in particular Russia and China, but also Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, with, for instance, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and former Prime Minister of Finland Paavo Lipponen having both joined Gazprom to speed up the application process for Nord Stream 1 and 2, former Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs Karin Kneissl appointed board member of Rosneft, former Prime Minister of France François Fillon appointed board member of Zaroubejneft, former Prime Minister of France Jean-Pierre Raffarin actively engaged in promoting Chinese interests in France, former Czech Commissioner Štefan Füle having worked for CEFC China Energy, former Prime Minister of Finland Esko Aho now on the board of the Kremlin’s Sberbank, former French Minister for Relations with Parliament Jean-Marie Le Guen now a member of the Board of Directors of Huawei France, former Prime Minister of Belgium Yves Leterme appointed Co-Chairman of the Chinese investment fund ToJoy, and many other high-level politicians and officials taking on similar roles;

CA.

whereas economic lobbying strategies can be combined with foreign interference goals; whereas according to the OECD’s report on lobbying in the 21st century (12) only the US, Australia and Canada have rules in place that cover foreign influence; whereas there is a serious lack of legally binding rules and enforcement of the EU’s lobbying register, which makes it practically impossible to track lobbying coming from outside the EU; whereas there is currently no way of monitoring lobbying efforts in Member States that influence legislation and foreign policy through the European Council; whereas rules on lobbying in the EU focus mainly on face-to-face contact and do not take into account the whole ecosystem of different types of lobbying that exists in Brussels; whereas countries such as China and Russia, but also Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, have invested heavily in lobbying efforts in Brussels;

CB.

whereas trying to instrumentalise vulnerable groups, including the national minorities and diaspora living on EU soil, represents an important element of foreign interference strategies;

CC.

whereas different state actors, such as the Russian, Chinese and, to a lesser degree, Turkish Governments, have been attempting to increase their influence by setting up and using cultural, educational (e.g. through grants and scholarships) and religious institutes across Member States, in a strategic effort to destabilise European democracy and expand control over Eastern and Central Europe; whereas the alleged difficult situation of its national minority has been used in the past by Russia as an excuse for direct intervention in third countries;

CD.

whereas there is evidence of Russian interference and online information manipulation in many liberal democracies around the world, including but not limited to the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential elections in France and the US, and practical support of extremist, populist, anti-European parties and certain other parties and individuals across Europe, including but not limited to France, Germany, Italy and Austria; whereas more support for research and education is needed to be able to understand the exact influence of foreign interference on specific events, such as Brexit and the election of President Trump in 2016;

CE.

whereas Russian state-controlled Sputnik and RT networks that are based in the West, combined with Western media and fully or partially owned by Russian and Chinese legal and individual entities actively engage in disinformation activities against liberal democracies; whereas Russia is resorting to historical revisionism, seeking to rewrite the history of Soviet crimes and promoting Soviet nostalgia among the susceptible population in Central and Eastern Europe; whereas for national broadcasters in Central and Eastern Europe it is difficult to compete with Russian-language TV content funded by the Russian Government; whereas there is a risk of unbalanced cooperation between Chinese and foreign media, taking into account that Chinese media are the voice of the Chinese Communist Party at home and abroad;

CF.

whereas more than 500 Confucius centres have been opened around the world, including around 200 in Europe, and Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms are used by China as a tool of interference within the EU; whereas academic freedom is severely restricted in Confucius Institutes; whereas universities and educational programmes are the target of massive foreign funding, notably from China or Qatar, such as the Fudan University campus in Budapest;

CG.

whereas the EU is currently lacking the necessary toolbox to address elite capture and counter the establishment of channels of influence, including within EU institutions; whereas situational awareness capabilities and counter-intelligence instruments remain scarce at EU level, with a high degree of reliance on national actors’ willingness to share information;

CH.

whereas the EU and its Member States do not currently have a specific regime of sanctions related to foreign interference and disinformation campaigns orchestrated by foreign state actors, meaning that these actors can safely assume that their destabilisation campaigns against the EU will meet with no consequences;

CI.

whereas ensuring clear attribution of disinformation and propaganda attacks, including publicly naming the perpetrators, their sponsors and the goals they seek to achieve, as well as measuring the effects of these attacks on the targeted audience, are the first steps towards effectively defending against such actions;

CJ.

whereas the EU should strengthen its deterrence tools and tools for attributing such attacks and categorising their nature as violating or not violating international law, with a view to establishing an effective sanctions regime so that malicious foreign actors have to pay the costs of their decisions and bear the consequences; whereas targeting individuals might not be sufficient; whereas other tools, such as trade measures, could be used to protect European democratic processes against state-sponsored hybrid attacks; whereas deterrence measures must be applied transparently with all due guarantees; whereas hybrid attacks are calibrated so that they deliberately fall below the threshold of Article 42(7) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty;

CK.

whereas malicious actions orchestrated by foreign state and non-state actors are affecting many democratic partner countries around the world; whereas democratic allies depend on their ability to join forces to deliver a collective response;

CL.

whereas the EU accession countries in the Western Balkans are being hit particularly hard by attacks in the form of foreign interference and disinformation campaigns stemming from Russia, China and Turkey, such as Russia’s interference campaigns during the ratification process of the Prespa Agreement in North Macedonia; whereas the COVID-19 pandemic has been further exploited in the Western Balkans by China and Russia to destabilise these countries and discredit the EU; whereas candidate and potential candidate countries are expected to join the EU’s initiatives to fight foreign interference;

CM.

whereas there is still a lack of common understanding and common definitions among like-minded partners and allies with regard to the nature of the threats at stake; whereas the UN Secretary-General is calling for a global code of conduct to promote the integrity of public information; whereas the Conference on the Future of Europe is an important platform for discussions related to the topic;

CN.

whereas there is a need for global, multilateral cooperation and support among like-minded partners in dealing with foreign malicious interference; whereas other democracies have developed advanced skills and strategies, such as Australia and Taiwan; whereas Taiwan stands at the forefront of the fight against information manipulation, mainly from China; whereas the success of the Taiwanese system is founded on cooperation among all branches of government, but also with independent NGOs specialised in fact-checking and media literacy and with social media platforms, such as Facebook, as well as on the promotion of media literacy for all generations, the debunking of disinformation, and the curbing of the spread of manipulative messages; whereas the INGE Special Committee went on a three-day official mission to Taiwan to discuss disinformation and foreign electoral intervention;

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