This Friday will (once again) see a showdown in Brussels: The deputy ambassadors of the member states will vote for the third time on the Supply Chain Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and are also expected to approve the Packaging Ordinance. The two projects have little to do with each other in terms of content, but a great deal politically.
It remains to be seen whether the highly controversial supply chain directive will receive the required qualified majority this time. The votes of France and Italy are likely to be decisive. The Belgian Council Presidency is reportedly trying to change Rome’s mind in particular – by making concessions on the Packaging Ordinance, which is causing the country great concern. Such a package deal could possibly pave the way for both legislative projects.
In addition, the Belgian Council Presidency distributed a new proposal on Wednesday, which is available to Table.Briefings and weakens the text once again in important points. For example, companies with more than 1,000 employees and a net turnover of more than €450 million are to fall within the scope of application; previously, the threshold was €300 million. The obligation for companies above a certain threshold to draw up climate transition plans and underpin these with financial incentives for management has been removed.
The German Government will once again abstain, as Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) has made clear. Yesterday, the FDP also opposed the Packaging Ordinance. In the evening, the traffic light coalition worked hard to prevent another “German Vote”. You can read more about this in today’s News.
We wish you a wonderful day!
In the case of the resigned Green MEP Malte Gallée, 14 female EPP MEPs have now written a letter to the Green Group leadership. “Because it is our duty to protect our employees”, they ask for “immediate answers” to seven questions. Among them:
The Green parliamentary group leadership had not responded to the Christian Democrats’ letter by today’s editorial deadline. The parliamentary group leadership also did not answer questions from journalists on the matter. Terry Reintke responded with sentences such as: “Unfortunately, out of consideration for those who may be affected, I cannot answer this question.”
At the beginning of March, the German magazine “Stern” published a detailed article about Gallée. In it, several people have their say about Gallée’s inappropriate behavior, unwanted intimate touching and a psychologically stressful working environment. “As several women describe it, female victims in particular have therefore been avoiding events where they suspected Gallée for some time”, it says, for example. Gallée himself denies the allegations.
The rules that the Green parliamentary group adopted in 2019 for dealing with psychological or sexual harassment in the workplace are likely to be one of the reasons why the parliamentary group leadership’s actions in the case are often regarded as unfortunate. The text states, for example: “The information transmitted to the Group’s internal confidential counselors is to be regarded as confidential. Such information may only be disclosed in the context of proceedings relating to harassment and with the express consent of the person concerned.”
A member of the European Greens analyzes in an interview with Table.Briefings: People who wanted to report harassment were promised complete confidentiality at the time. The well-intentioned protection for potential victims was exaggerated. According to the rules that applied between 2019 and 2023, ombudspersons were not even allowed to say whether there had been one, two or twelve complaints.
The obligation to maintain complete confidentiality was so extensive that a substantial investigation of a case was impossible. As a result, any attempts to pursue and clarify actual or alleged harassment came to a dead end. Conclusion: The Green Group may have overestimated itself when it wanted to do better than the European Parliament in 2021 and set its own rules.
According to his own statement, Malte Gallée called the internal ombudsmen in the summer of 2022. Allegedly because rumors were circulating in parliamentary party circles about his transgressive behavior and he wanted clarification. The fact is that the proceedings lasted more than a year and produced no tangible results. Neither did any of those affected receive justice, nor was Malte Gallée exonerated.
Gallée says that he is not aware of any guilt. Possible victims have not reported their allegations to the judiciary in Belgium, France or Germany, or to the relevant bodies in the European Parliament. It is still unclear whether employees have complained about the MEP and how many complaints there have been. It is also unknown what the substance of any complaints was.
It was not until shortly before the Greens’ national delegates’ conference in Karlsruhe at the end of November that things started to move again. Gallée’s Bavarian state association urged the MEP to withdraw his candidacy for a secure place on the list at the European party conference at short notice. Previously, Gallée had surprisingly been nominated ahead of the second MEP from Bavaria, Henrike Hahn. Shortly before the European Party Conference, Gallée then withdrew his candidacy for a secure place on the list “for personal reasons”.
Anna Peters was elected in 13th place in Karlsruhe, making her the only candidate from Bavaria with a chance of entering the European Parliament. The fight for the safe list places was particularly fierce this time. The Greens are asking themselves: Did someone deliberately spread the accusations against Gallée before the national party conference?
Co-leader of the parliamentary group Terry Reintke is in a difficult position. In 2017, she was the face of the Greens in the #MeToo debate in the European Parliament. “I have been a victim of sexual violence”, she said in plenary. She denounced a culture of silence in the European Parliament, blamed the existing anti-harassment rules for this and called for better protection for victims and stricter punishments for crimes. Now, in an article in “Stern”, an anonymous source has accused the parliamentary group leadership of failing to consistently follow up on reports of border crossings in the Gallée case.
There is also great unrest within the party because the accusations threaten to damage Reintke’s top candidacy. Reintke became co-leader of the parliamentary group in September 2022. She can claim to have initiated the revision of the Greens’ internal rules on psychological or sexual harassment, which have now been found to be inadequate. The new rules came into force in November 2023.
There is a second source of dissatisfaction in the parliamentary group. Assistants and advisors as well as parliamentary group staff are complaining about the behavior of several MEPs. The accusations are as follows: These MEPs would always speak up and would harshly criticize staff in large groups. There are also complaints about extreme working hours. The dissatisfaction is probably also due to the fact that some assistants and advisors do not agree with the line taken by German Green MEPs in particular in the conflict in the Middle East, according to the parliamentary group. Personal frustration is mixed with a lack of understanding for the pro-Israel stance.
At its meeting in Strasbourg on Wednesday evening, the parliamentary group decided on a roadmap for immediate measures. These include:
The EU institutions want to develop common ethical standards to avoid conflicts of interest, revolving door effects and corruption. Around 15 months after “Qatargate”, the biggest corruption scandal to date and one that has still not been solved, the Parliament’s negotiators announced an agreement on Thursday. However, they are no longer talking about an ethics authority, but only an ethics committee. And two important institutions are not on board for the time being.
The negotiations had stalled on the home straight. The European Council and the Council of Ministers had withdrawn, the European People’s Party (EPP) announced a no vote. However, the project, which goes back to a promise made by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the beginning of her term of office, is now set to start in time for the European elections. Seven EU institutions are making the start, the Council of Ministers could join later.
The contracting parties are now (1) the European Parliament, (2) the European Commission, (3) the Court of Justice of the European Union (as an observer without participating in decisions), (4) the European Central Bank, (5) the Court of Auditors, (6) the Economic and Social Committee and (7) the Committee of the Regions. No new authority will be created, only a secretariat, which will be based at the Commission. The leadership is to change annually, starting with the Parliament.
The procedure is still quite vague. According to a paper published by the two German MEPs Daniel Freund (Greens) and Katarina Barley (SPD), the representatives of the institutions are to set common standards. “One representative per institution or advisory committee (of the body) will negotiate and adopt common minimum standards on declarations of interests, secondary activities, gifts, jobs (revolving doors), lobby meetings and the enforcement of rules in the institutions”, the paper states.
The participating institutions must adapt their existing rules to the new ethical standards. The body will then review this and publish the results. Independent experts are to examine controversial individual cases. Specifically, they are to deal with declarations of interest or “other written standardized declarations”. In Parliament, this should also include lobby meetings, invitations from third parties and so on.
This is apparently a consequence of Qatargate, in which certain MEPs traveled to Qatar and took part in dubious lobbying meetings, where money is also said to have flowed. In the event of possible violations, the experts are to send their assessments and recommendations to the institution concerned, which will then decide on possible sanctions. A central authority for sanctions is not planned. The institutions therefore retain a certain degree of autonomy.
Nevertheless, the EPP believes that the agreement goes far too far. “This is a frontal attack on Parliament”, explained the EPP Group’s constitutional policy spokesperson, Sven Simon (CDU). It is grotesque that the “center of power” (the secretariat) is to be located at the Commission. This would create a body with powers of intervention against MEPs and massively impair the freedom of the mandate.
The two lead negotiators, Barley and Freund, take a completely different view. “The ethics body is a big step forward for transparency and openness in Europe. We are putting the interests of citizens first and ensuring that the EU institutions adhere to the highest ethical standards”, explained Barley.
“For the first time, we are now creating a body that monitors the integrity of both EU Commissioners and MEPs”, emphasizes Freund. “Without the tireless efforts of the European Parliament for more transparency, we would not have come this far. The fact that the new body can also deal specifically with individual cases is an enormous negotiating success.”
However, this breakthrough is not only put into perspective by the absence of the Council. A few hours earlier, a new power struggle had broken out between Parliament and the Commission: Parliament is suing Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her authority over the controversial release of EU funding for Hungary. The lawsuit was based on doubts about the impartiality of the Brussels authority, and there is even talk of “blackmail”.
Von der Leyen and the responsible EU Commissioner Věra Jourová took almost four years to present a proposal for the ethics body. When it was presented in June 2023, MEPs expressed their dissatisfaction. Von der Leyen had not done her homework, they said.
However, shortly before the European elections in June, the parliamentarians still wanted to achieve a success. The EP plenary is to vote on the agreement at the end of April – as one of the last votes of this legislature. It could then come into force in June.
The fear is great: Could Russia’s ruler Vladimir Putin try to influence the European Parliament elections? If so, how? More and more citizens are becoming less trusting of democracy in opinion polls, said EU Commission Vice-President Věra Jourová in the European Parliament this week. This should not be the case and the integrity of elections must be ensured. Responsible for this are first and foremost the member states. But EU institutions are also trying to do something.
Even if the voting process continues to take place primarily with pen and paper, network and information security is playing an increasingly important role, according to a compendium on securing elections recently updated by the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA). In the European elections, the integrity of the voting process depends on each individual member state.
ENISA lists a large number of possible technical attack variants in the comprehensive work:
The responsible election authorities would have to prepare for this and take precautions. ENISA lists a wide range of measures to prepare for the eventuality of chaos.
However, ENISA also sees hybrid threats beyond the election process itself – above all through “FIMI“, which stands for foreign information manipulation and interference, which could be combined with classic cyber attacks.
Social media in particular is seen as a place where attempts can be made to exert influence. ENISA mentions the targeted dissemination of false information and, above all, amplification. Content that is not necessarily untrue is fueled by the mechanisms of the media society. This means, for example, a stronger, algorithmically driven distribution of content through high interaction rates – which can and is already being fueled by fake accounts.
This is one reason why much hope lies in the Digital Services Act (DSA). It obliges the largest platforms to take action against so-called systemic risks that are inherent to their business models and platform mechanisms. This also includes the manipulation of the public through foreign influence. The largest social media platforms have also committed to combating disinformation as part of a Code of Practice. The exception is, once again, Elon Musk’s X.
The EU Commission wants to require platforms to prepare for problems in the best possible way. From the authority’s point of view, it is still not sufficiently clear to what extent platforms intervene when AI-generated or AI-supported content is distributed on them. It therefore sent requests for information to Microsoft’s Bing, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Google Search, TikTok, YouTube and X on Thursday.
They now have until April 5 to answer questions about their risk assessment and how they deal with AI-related problems in connection with elections. The findings will then be incorporated into formal recommendations, which the Commission intends to make available to operators in time for the European elections in June.
But there are problems even without AI. Lutz Güllner, Head of Strategic Communication at the European External Action Service, has to deal with attempts to exert influence every day. He cites the farmers’ protests as an example of amplification activities: Nobody doubts that there are genuine concerns among farmers, he says. “Nevertheless, we have also seen in this case that disinformation actors – and I am referring here in particular to external actors – keep jumping on this topic”, says Güllner. They opportunistically jump on “conflict materials, on these fault lines in society, use them, reinforce them”.
These campaigns do not always have to be big, says Güllner. As far as the European elections are concerned, he does not believe it is inevitable that Russia, for example, will attempt to exert direct influence or even be successful in doing so. But: “There is a risk. We have to prepare for this risk, for this vulnerability.” However, defeatism that the elections would be delegitimized in any case would be wrong, he says: “They are safe, they are important, an important expression of our democracy – and that is why we must also protect them.”
Experts do not expect the Digital Services Act to be fully effective for the largest providers by the time of the European elections. The time is too short for this and the mechanisms are not yet well established. This makes it all the more important that the institutions are also well-positioned in other respects. In Germany, an interministerial working group is dealing with fake news and other problems, such as AI fakes. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution monitors foreign influence campaigns. France has set up Viginum, a formal office within the Foreign Service, to search for disinformation campaigns.
In February, for example, Viginum published a technical report on “Portal Kombat”, a so-called disinformation campaign in which news websites were created and filled with pro-Russian content – including “pravda-de.com”. However, the disinformation harassers also use replicas of established Western news websites – German news portals are also regularly affected. The most important means, say both EU representatives and ENISA, is therefore not only to raise awareness among those responsible, but above all among the general public – a massive task for the media and politicians.
This Friday will (once again) see a showdown in Brussels: The deputy ambassadors of the member states will vote for the third time on the Supply Chain Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and are also expected to approve the Packaging Ordinance. The two projects have little to do with each other in terms of content, but a great deal politically.
It remains to be seen whether the highly controversial supply chain directive will receive the required qualified majority this time. The votes of France and Italy are likely to be decisive. The Belgian Council Presidency is reportedly trying to change Rome’s mind in particular – by making concessions on the Packaging Ordinance, which is causing the country great concern. Such a package deal could possibly pave the way for both legislative projects.
In addition, the Belgian Council Presidency distributed a new proposal on Wednesday, which is available to Table.Briefings and weakens the text once again in important points. For example, companies with more than 1,000 employees and a net turnover of more than €450 million are to fall within the scope of application; previously, the threshold was €300 million. The obligation for companies above a certain threshold to draw up climate transition plans and underpin these with financial incentives for management has been removed.
The German Government will once again abstain, as Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) has made clear. Yesterday, the FDP also opposed the Packaging Ordinance. In the evening, the traffic light coalition worked hard to prevent another “German Vote”. You can read more about this in today’s News.
We wish you a wonderful day!
In the case of the resigned Green MEP Malte Gallée, 14 female EPP MEPs have now written a letter to the Green Group leadership. “Because it is our duty to protect our employees”, they ask for “immediate answers” to seven questions. Among them:
The Green parliamentary group leadership had not responded to the Christian Democrats’ letter by today’s editorial deadline. The parliamentary group leadership also did not answer questions from journalists on the matter. Terry Reintke responded with sentences such as: “Unfortunately, out of consideration for those who may be affected, I cannot answer this question.”
At the beginning of March, the German magazine “Stern” published a detailed article about Gallée. In it, several people have their say about Gallée’s inappropriate behavior, unwanted intimate touching and a psychologically stressful working environment. “As several women describe it, female victims in particular have therefore been avoiding events where they suspected Gallée for some time”, it says, for example. Gallée himself denies the allegations.
The rules that the Green parliamentary group adopted in 2019 for dealing with psychological or sexual harassment in the workplace are likely to be one of the reasons why the parliamentary group leadership’s actions in the case are often regarded as unfortunate. The text states, for example: “The information transmitted to the Group’s internal confidential counselors is to be regarded as confidential. Such information may only be disclosed in the context of proceedings relating to harassment and with the express consent of the person concerned.”
A member of the European Greens analyzes in an interview with Table.Briefings: People who wanted to report harassment were promised complete confidentiality at the time. The well-intentioned protection for potential victims was exaggerated. According to the rules that applied between 2019 and 2023, ombudspersons were not even allowed to say whether there had been one, two or twelve complaints.
The obligation to maintain complete confidentiality was so extensive that a substantial investigation of a case was impossible. As a result, any attempts to pursue and clarify actual or alleged harassment came to a dead end. Conclusion: The Green Group may have overestimated itself when it wanted to do better than the European Parliament in 2021 and set its own rules.
According to his own statement, Malte Gallée called the internal ombudsmen in the summer of 2022. Allegedly because rumors were circulating in parliamentary party circles about his transgressive behavior and he wanted clarification. The fact is that the proceedings lasted more than a year and produced no tangible results. Neither did any of those affected receive justice, nor was Malte Gallée exonerated.
Gallée says that he is not aware of any guilt. Possible victims have not reported their allegations to the judiciary in Belgium, France or Germany, or to the relevant bodies in the European Parliament. It is still unclear whether employees have complained about the MEP and how many complaints there have been. It is also unknown what the substance of any complaints was.
It was not until shortly before the Greens’ national delegates’ conference in Karlsruhe at the end of November that things started to move again. Gallée’s Bavarian state association urged the MEP to withdraw his candidacy for a secure place on the list at the European party conference at short notice. Previously, Gallée had surprisingly been nominated ahead of the second MEP from Bavaria, Henrike Hahn. Shortly before the European Party Conference, Gallée then withdrew his candidacy for a secure place on the list “for personal reasons”.
Anna Peters was elected in 13th place in Karlsruhe, making her the only candidate from Bavaria with a chance of entering the European Parliament. The fight for the safe list places was particularly fierce this time. The Greens are asking themselves: Did someone deliberately spread the accusations against Gallée before the national party conference?
Co-leader of the parliamentary group Terry Reintke is in a difficult position. In 2017, she was the face of the Greens in the #MeToo debate in the European Parliament. “I have been a victim of sexual violence”, she said in plenary. She denounced a culture of silence in the European Parliament, blamed the existing anti-harassment rules for this and called for better protection for victims and stricter punishments for crimes. Now, in an article in “Stern”, an anonymous source has accused the parliamentary group leadership of failing to consistently follow up on reports of border crossings in the Gallée case.
There is also great unrest within the party because the accusations threaten to damage Reintke’s top candidacy. Reintke became co-leader of the parliamentary group in September 2022. She can claim to have initiated the revision of the Greens’ internal rules on psychological or sexual harassment, which have now been found to be inadequate. The new rules came into force in November 2023.
There is a second source of dissatisfaction in the parliamentary group. Assistants and advisors as well as parliamentary group staff are complaining about the behavior of several MEPs. The accusations are as follows: These MEPs would always speak up and would harshly criticize staff in large groups. There are also complaints about extreme working hours. The dissatisfaction is probably also due to the fact that some assistants and advisors do not agree with the line taken by German Green MEPs in particular in the conflict in the Middle East, according to the parliamentary group. Personal frustration is mixed with a lack of understanding for the pro-Israel stance.
At its meeting in Strasbourg on Wednesday evening, the parliamentary group decided on a roadmap for immediate measures. These include:
The EU institutions want to develop common ethical standards to avoid conflicts of interest, revolving door effects and corruption. Around 15 months after “Qatargate”, the biggest corruption scandal to date and one that has still not been solved, the Parliament’s negotiators announced an agreement on Thursday. However, they are no longer talking about an ethics authority, but only an ethics committee. And two important institutions are not on board for the time being.
The negotiations had stalled on the home straight. The European Council and the Council of Ministers had withdrawn, the European People’s Party (EPP) announced a no vote. However, the project, which goes back to a promise made by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the beginning of her term of office, is now set to start in time for the European elections. Seven EU institutions are making the start, the Council of Ministers could join later.
The contracting parties are now (1) the European Parliament, (2) the European Commission, (3) the Court of Justice of the European Union (as an observer without participating in decisions), (4) the European Central Bank, (5) the Court of Auditors, (6) the Economic and Social Committee and (7) the Committee of the Regions. No new authority will be created, only a secretariat, which will be based at the Commission. The leadership is to change annually, starting with the Parliament.
The procedure is still quite vague. According to a paper published by the two German MEPs Daniel Freund (Greens) and Katarina Barley (SPD), the representatives of the institutions are to set common standards. “One representative per institution or advisory committee (of the body) will negotiate and adopt common minimum standards on declarations of interests, secondary activities, gifts, jobs (revolving doors), lobby meetings and the enforcement of rules in the institutions”, the paper states.
The participating institutions must adapt their existing rules to the new ethical standards. The body will then review this and publish the results. Independent experts are to examine controversial individual cases. Specifically, they are to deal with declarations of interest or “other written standardized declarations”. In Parliament, this should also include lobby meetings, invitations from third parties and so on.
This is apparently a consequence of Qatargate, in which certain MEPs traveled to Qatar and took part in dubious lobbying meetings, where money is also said to have flowed. In the event of possible violations, the experts are to send their assessments and recommendations to the institution concerned, which will then decide on possible sanctions. A central authority for sanctions is not planned. The institutions therefore retain a certain degree of autonomy.
Nevertheless, the EPP believes that the agreement goes far too far. “This is a frontal attack on Parliament”, explained the EPP Group’s constitutional policy spokesperson, Sven Simon (CDU). It is grotesque that the “center of power” (the secretariat) is to be located at the Commission. This would create a body with powers of intervention against MEPs and massively impair the freedom of the mandate.
The two lead negotiators, Barley and Freund, take a completely different view. “The ethics body is a big step forward for transparency and openness in Europe. We are putting the interests of citizens first and ensuring that the EU institutions adhere to the highest ethical standards”, explained Barley.
“For the first time, we are now creating a body that monitors the integrity of both EU Commissioners and MEPs”, emphasizes Freund. “Without the tireless efforts of the European Parliament for more transparency, we would not have come this far. The fact that the new body can also deal specifically with individual cases is an enormous negotiating success.”
However, this breakthrough is not only put into perspective by the absence of the Council. A few hours earlier, a new power struggle had broken out between Parliament and the Commission: Parliament is suing Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her authority over the controversial release of EU funding for Hungary. The lawsuit was based on doubts about the impartiality of the Brussels authority, and there is even talk of “blackmail”.
Von der Leyen and the responsible EU Commissioner Věra Jourová took almost four years to present a proposal for the ethics body. When it was presented in June 2023, MEPs expressed their dissatisfaction. Von der Leyen had not done her homework, they said.
However, shortly before the European elections in June, the parliamentarians still wanted to achieve a success. The EP plenary is to vote on the agreement at the end of April – as one of the last votes of this legislature. It could then come into force in June.
The fear is great: Could Russia’s ruler Vladimir Putin try to influence the European Parliament elections? If so, how? More and more citizens are becoming less trusting of democracy in opinion polls, said EU Commission Vice-President Věra Jourová in the European Parliament this week. This should not be the case and the integrity of elections must be ensured. Responsible for this are first and foremost the member states. But EU institutions are also trying to do something.
Even if the voting process continues to take place primarily with pen and paper, network and information security is playing an increasingly important role, according to a compendium on securing elections recently updated by the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA). In the European elections, the integrity of the voting process depends on each individual member state.
ENISA lists a large number of possible technical attack variants in the comprehensive work:
The responsible election authorities would have to prepare for this and take precautions. ENISA lists a wide range of measures to prepare for the eventuality of chaos.
However, ENISA also sees hybrid threats beyond the election process itself – above all through “FIMI“, which stands for foreign information manipulation and interference, which could be combined with classic cyber attacks.
Social media in particular is seen as a place where attempts can be made to exert influence. ENISA mentions the targeted dissemination of false information and, above all, amplification. Content that is not necessarily untrue is fueled by the mechanisms of the media society. This means, for example, a stronger, algorithmically driven distribution of content through high interaction rates – which can and is already being fueled by fake accounts.
This is one reason why much hope lies in the Digital Services Act (DSA). It obliges the largest platforms to take action against so-called systemic risks that are inherent to their business models and platform mechanisms. This also includes the manipulation of the public through foreign influence. The largest social media platforms have also committed to combating disinformation as part of a Code of Practice. The exception is, once again, Elon Musk’s X.
The EU Commission wants to require platforms to prepare for problems in the best possible way. From the authority’s point of view, it is still not sufficiently clear to what extent platforms intervene when AI-generated or AI-supported content is distributed on them. It therefore sent requests for information to Microsoft’s Bing, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Google Search, TikTok, YouTube and X on Thursday.
They now have until April 5 to answer questions about their risk assessment and how they deal with AI-related problems in connection with elections. The findings will then be incorporated into formal recommendations, which the Commission intends to make available to operators in time for the European elections in June.
But there are problems even without AI. Lutz Güllner, Head of Strategic Communication at the European External Action Service, has to deal with attempts to exert influence every day. He cites the farmers’ protests as an example of amplification activities: Nobody doubts that there are genuine concerns among farmers, he says. “Nevertheless, we have also seen in this case that disinformation actors – and I am referring here in particular to external actors – keep jumping on this topic”, says Güllner. They opportunistically jump on “conflict materials, on these fault lines in society, use them, reinforce them”.
These campaigns do not always have to be big, says Güllner. As far as the European elections are concerned, he does not believe it is inevitable that Russia, for example, will attempt to exert direct influence or even be successful in doing so. But: “There is a risk. We have to prepare for this risk, for this vulnerability.” However, defeatism that the elections would be delegitimized in any case would be wrong, he says: “They are safe, they are important, an important expression of our democracy – and that is why we must also protect them.”
Experts do not expect the Digital Services Act to be fully effective for the largest providers by the time of the European elections. The time is too short for this and the mechanisms are not yet well established. This makes it all the more important that the institutions are also well-positioned in other respects. In Germany, an interministerial working group is dealing with fake news and other problems, such as AI fakes. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution monitors foreign influence campaigns. France has set up Viginum, a formal office within the Foreign Service, to search for disinformation campaigns.
In February, for example, Viginum published a technical report on “Portal Kombat”, a so-called disinformation campaign in which news websites were created and filled with pro-Russian content – including “pravda-de.com”. However, the disinformation harassers also use replicas of established Western news websites – German news portals are also regularly affected. The most important means, say both EU representatives and ENISA, is therefore not only to raise awareness among those responsible, but above all among the general public – a massive task for the media and politicians.
