On February 5-6, Facebook accounts in Georgian (1, 2) and Russian (1, 2, 3, 4.) disseminated information claiming that a new supranational body, the European Democracy Shield, had been established within the European Union, enabling the EU to annul elections in its member states if it disapproved of their results. The authors of the posts referenced the case of Romania, where in December 2024, the Romanian Constitutional Court annulled the results of the first round of the presidential election. Based on this example, the posts accuse the EU of interference.
The claim that the European Democracy Shield has the authority to annul election results in EU member states is false. Additionally, the assertion that this body would enable the EU to invalidate elections is manipulative. In reality, this entity is a special committee established by the European Parliament with a mandate primarily focused on combating foreign interference in domestic affairs, and its defined competencies do not include altering election results in member states. The power to annul elections rests solely with the courts of the respective member states.
In 2024, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated in the EU Commission’s 2024-2029 political guidelines that she aimed to establish the European Democracy Shield, which aimed to counter foreign information manipulation and online interference through media literacy enhancement, the creation of a European network of fact-checkers and make it available in all languages and the enforcement of the Digital Services Act and the Artificial Intelligence Act. This initiative laid the foundation for the establishment of a committee in the European Parliament, named a special committee on the European Democracy Shield (EUDS). On February 3, French MEP Nathalie Loiseau was elected as its chair.
A document published by the European Parliament on December 18, 2024, announcing the creation of the EUDS committee, outlines its composition and responsibilities in detail (see below for more information). The document specifies that the primary role of the committee is to assess existing and proposed legislation, identify shortcomings in it, and suggest ways to address these shortcomings in matters relating to internal and external actors’ interference in the affairs of EU member states with the aim to influence political, economic, or defense sectors and public opinion of these states. Nowhere in the document is it stated that the committee has the authority to annul election results or that its assessments could be used by the EU to invalidate specific elections.
On February 2, French media published an interview with Nathalie Loiseau, in which she discussed the EUDS committee. She stated that their first objective would be to document instances of attacks on democracy in Europe, identify aggressors, and analyze their methods. Secondly, the committee will evaluate the effectiveness of the EU’s existing response mechanisms. She also expressed concern that decisions by major social media platforms to halt or reduce fact-checking programs and promote so-called libertarian ideology could ultimately lead to authoritarianism.
The circulated posts cite Romania as an example. It should be noted that the decision to annul the results of the first round of Romania’s presidential election was made by the Romanian Constitutional Court, and the European Union was not involved in this process. The court’s decision was based on intelligence service reports confirming foreign actors’ interference in the electoral process and their influence on public opinion through social media.
The Court of Justice of the European Union does not have the authority to annul elections in member states. Such decisions are made at the national level.
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Who is spreading claims that the creation of the Special Committee on the European Democracy Shield threatens the sovereignty of member states?
Some of the sharers of the information on Facebook cite the X (formerly Twitter) account Daily Romania as their source, which in turn relies on a post by French politician Florian Philippot. Philippot is the president of the French nationalist party “The Patriots” and a vocal critic of France’s current president, Emmanuel Macron. In his post on X, Philippot emphasized that Nathalie Loiseau is a “Macronist” and, therefore, he does not trust her. However, Philippot did not provide any specific evidence but merely claimed that this supranational body would be able to annul any election results, which it disapproves of, under the pretext of foreign interference.
A post by All Nuances features an article titled “The European Democracy Shield: A Threat to National Sovereignty?” The edit history of the post reveals that the original version relied entirely on this article, which the Facebook account attributes to the Romanian outlet Simonmercieca.
Myth Detector traced the mentioned article, which specifically argues that the Special Committee on the European Democracy Shield threatens sovereignty. The author cites Romania’s case as a precedent and, without providing any evidence, concludes that the EUDS is an election-controlling body. Notably, contrary to this claim, Simonmercieca is neither a Romanian nor an official media outlet. According to the website’s description, it belongs to an individual who initially created a blog and later turned it into a website where he publishes personal opinion articles daily in Maltese and English languages.
What are the responsibilities of the Special Committee on the European Democracy Shield?
According to the text published by the European Parliament, the committee consists of 33 MEPs and has a one-year term, which may be extended. The document states that the committee’s key responsibilities are:
1. To assess relevant existing and planned legislation and policies to further detect possible loopholes, gaps, and overlaps that could be exploited for malicious interference in democratic processes, including as regards the following matters:
- policies, legislative proposals, and structures to be established under the European Democracy Shield, and already established under the European Democracy Action Plan, as well as relevant instruments under the Strategic Compass such as the EU Hybrid Toolbox;
- opportunities for cooperation among EU agencies and national authorities in the area of justice and home affairs, including for the purposes of information sharing, intelligence, and advance detection mechanisms;
- policies and recommendations outlined in the report of 30 October 2024 entitled “Safer Together – Strengthening Europe’s Civilian and Military Preparedness and Readiness”;
- policies contributing to Union democratic processes, democratic resilience through situational awareness, media and information literacy, media pluralism, and independent journalism;
- democratic resilience against home-grown hybrid threats and attacks and malign interference;
- interference using online platforms, in particular by evaluating, in-depth, the responsibility and effects that very large online platforms have on democracy and democratic processes in the EU;
- impact of interference on critical infrastructure and strategic sectors, including foreign investment and ownership of property located in the EU;
- hybrid threats and attacks, including but not limited to: cyberattacks including on military and non-military targets, human-made text and audiovisual content, as well as AI-generated content and ‘deepfakes’ used for the purpose of foreign interference and disinformation, interference in political institutions;
- policies ensuring a high common level of cybersecurity across the EU and resilience against cyberattacks, where related to democratic processes;
- the role of malicious state and non-state actors, their modus operandi and financing, as well as physical sabotage perpetrated by them;
- the impact of interference on the rights of minorities and other discriminated groups;
- deterrence, attribution, and collective countermeasures, including sanctions;
- neighborhood and global cooperation, and multilateralism;
- interference by EU-based actors both within the EU and in third countries;
- policies and measures to preserve the fairness and integrity of elections, and to strengthen democratic checks and balances.
2. To develop, in close cooperation with the competent standing committees, suggestions and proposals on how to further remedy these gaps in order to foster the EU’s resilience towards hybrid threats and attacks, including foreign information manipulation and interference, and on how to improve the EU’s legal and institutional framework;
3. To assess the activities of the Commission and the European External Action Service regarding the fight against foreign information manipulation and interference and hybrid threats and attacks;
4. To counter information campaigns and strategic communication of malign third countries, including those through domestic EU actors and organisations, that harm the goals of the EU and that are created to influence EU public opinion;
5. To follow up, where relevant, on the implementation of the reports of the INGE 1 and INGE 2 special committees;
6. To contribute to overall institutional resilience against foreign interference, hybrid threats, attacks, and disinformation;
7. To maintain relations with other Union institutions and bodies, Member States authorities, other international organisations and interparliamentary assemblies, civil society as well as state and non-state partners in relevant third countries for matters falling under its responsibility, in order to reinforce EU action against hybrid threats and attacks and internal and foreign information manipulation and interference; to engage particularly with state and non-state partners in Ukraine and Moldova and the pro-European partners in Georgia as well as the countries from the Western Balkans; to counter manipulated narratives coming from Russia, given the critical and continuous danger Russia poses to the stability and security in the whole of the Union.
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