Last year, in the run-up to the European Parliament elections, Ursula von der Leyen as President of the European Commission has portayed herself as EU’s new patron saint. Imagine Archangel Michael’s female version, Saint Ursula, with a sword and a shield in her hands: a sword to protect EU economy and a shield to defend European democracy.
The need to protect the European economies from cheap imports from non-EU countries, in particular from China, is no surprise. Since Chinese dumping has become a real concern for the EU as a whole in recent years, let us accept Ursula von der Leyen’s intention to step up against it as a sign of genuine commitment.
When it comes to defending democracy, the other issue von der Leyen flagged in her campaign in 2024, the situation is quite different. The answer to the question of against whom she wants to defend democracy is not a black and white issue, as there is a huge gap between what she had said last year and what she is actually doing one year later, after that she succeeded in securing a second term as Commission President.
In her speech at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit in May 2024, she promised to set up the so-called European Democracy Shield (EUDS), if reelected for a second term, to fight back against foreign meddling because she considered Europe was not sufficiently protected and organized to face foreign interference in democratic processes, including disinformation campaigns, deepfakes, various espionage activities and cyber attacks. As mentioned aboved, this project has become one of her key campaign issues.
At this point, it is impossible to escape asking what was von der Leyen’s motivation to undertake such a new challenge for the Commission, adding that a similar counterintelligence unit operates in the European External Action Service (EEAS). Since the truth of the saying ’there is nothing new under the sun’ is really timeless, in this case also, the answer lies in UVD’s personal involvement, namely the hacking of her campaign website ursula2024.eu. She herself had a campaign problem, so she decided to change the whole system. So much for objectivity and an unconditional commitment to defending the EU.
In her statement at the European Parliament Plenary on 27 July 2024 as candidate for Commission President for a second mandate von der Leyen clarified against whom she would use the shield of democracy. ’Throughout the EU and within our institutions, our services and journalists (…) have been uncovering cases of spying, cyber-attacks, corruption and disinformation by foreign actors, in particular the Russians and Chinese.’, she said. ’If you lend me your confidence today, the Commission will propose a European Democracy Shield. The EU needs its own dedicated structure for countering foreign information manipulation and interference.’-, she concluded.
UVD could not be more straightforward: a shield of democracy against Russia and China. There are few in the EU who would disagree. But let us look at how this idea has evolved into something completely different.
Once von der Leyen avoided moving from her presidential office in Berlaymont in 2024, she was able to pursue the Democracy Shield project: the initiative and its objectives have been included in the European Commission’s political guidelines for 2024-2029. At the end of last year, a special committee to work on the European Democracy Shield initiative was set up, following the approval of the European Parliament. The inaugural meeting of a new special committee of the EP designed to protect democratic processes took place on 4 February.
This is the very part of the European Democracy Shield’s story where a real turning point has come, as on 4 February the system has unmasked itself: Brussels is ready to activate the Democracy Shield not only against the undesirable Chinese and Russian activities, but against all those political groups within the EU that it has labelled as extremists and has sanctioned with a cordon sanitaire in EU decision-making bodies.
The election of a liberal MEP (Nathalie Loiseau, France / Renew) as chair, along with her vice-chairs from the two largest political factions of the centre-left and the right: the Socialists & Democrats (S&D) and the European People’s Party (EPP), to the new EUDS committee sparked criticism from right-wing and independent lawmakers, who have been excluded from the process of appointments as a result of the unofficial cordon sanitaire.
The larger pro-European parties distributed the roles among themselves, critical voices say. One of the biggest losers in this game is the group of Patriots for Europe, the third largest political force in Parliament with 86 MEPs which has also been subject to cordon sanitaire since last year, which means that its members are not allowed to hold positions as committee chairs and vice-chairs. The Patriots not only condemned the allocation of chair positions in the newly formed special committee, but also expressed their disappointment due to ’backroom deals’, saying that ’this is not how democracy should work’.
Indeed, this is not how democracy should work! Free speech is a universal right that should be guaranteed to everyone, but the ’old mainstream’ in Europe led by the EPP has made the decision to strip its political opponents of this fundamental right.
It should be noted that, in addition to sanctioning groups labelled as extremists, the Commission under the leadership of von der Leyen has endorsed a censorship-by-proxy campaign in which social media companies are required to take actions against disinformation and to give priority treatment to censorship requests from government-backed third parties.
It should be mentioned here that this unprecedented practice has already raised the attention of the U.S. Congress and even the congressmen’s concern.
Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives Jim Jordan contacted Vice-President of the European Commission for Tech Sovereignty, Security, and Democracy Henna Virkkunen, the Commissioner responsible for enforcing the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) on 31 January through a letter, to express his concerns regarding censorship of free speech. (For your information: under the leadership of von der Leyen, the European Commission started enforcing its content moderation law, the Digital Services Act (DSA) in 2023.)
According to the letter, U.S. congressmen believe that the European Commission attempts to weaponize the DSA against US companies by attacking free speech, in addition, with reference to the Democracy Shield initiative, they also criticise the decision to set up a new EU agency to detect, track and delete allegedly deceitful online content.
’Attempts to censor so-called ”disinformation,” as you seem intent to do, miss the fundamental point about free speech’, the Americans point out in this letter. ’In liberal nations like the United States and those in the EU, we must respect the right and ability of citizens to consume content and to make decisions about what speech is persuasive, what is truthful, and what is accurate.’, Committee Chairman Jordan says.
If you think about it, the U.S. letter reveals nothing but a democratic deficit in the European Union. This is real shame, however, this is legitimate criticism, considering that no one, in fact, should defend democracy by excluding those who disagree from the dialogue or from a working group. This practice is completely absurd and unacceptable, particularly when it comes to a special committee designed to defend democracy!
Strangely enough, all this has not really reached the stimulus threshold of the current Polish EU Presidency, adding that the general ambitions of the Poles regarding the Defence of Democracy package are also quite modest. For instance, they do not intend to deal with the issue of NGOs at all, despite the fact that when it comes to defending national and European elections from manipulation, it is not only the Chinese and Russian special services that should be considered as potential threats, but also these entities. (The Defence of Democracy package which was adopted in December 2023 builds on previous Commission initiatives to safeguard European democracy, including the European Action Plan.)
As for alleged Russian meddling during elections, Poland does not consider it important enough to activate the EU’s integrated crisis mechanism even after the cancelled Romanian presidential elections due to Russian interference.
In light of all this, it is now time to start wondering what is going to happen with the upcoming German elections? Will the procedure be the same both on the part of Russian and Chinese and, the EU? Will the Commission be tolerant of possible foreign interference or will it be ready to cancel the results of the elections if they does not please Brussels and the liberal European mainstream? Or, is this an election important enough for von der Leyen to raise her democracy shield as the EU’s patron saint and strike at those who try to influence its democratic processes?
This we shall see very soon, but the current culture of restricting free speech does not bode well, in fact it raises questions such as how seriously should the defence of democracy be taken when it excludes diversity of opinion, the right of free choice and free speech, not to mention the fact that all this seems to remain below the level of concern of the current EU Presidency..?
