unimelb-nlp/MultiEup-v2 huggingface dataset:
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Maria Grapini
Political group: S-D
Country: Portugal
Language: RO

Domnule președinte, doamnă comisar, sigur că dezbatem un subiect foarte important, mai ales că anul acesta avem atâtea alegeri. Considerați că este important să ne preocupăm de toate alegerile, nu numai de alegerile la nivelul Parlamentului European? Pentru că, până la urmă, alegerile la nivel local, la nivel național, parlamentele naționale, acelea vor influența după aceea rezultatul alegerilor de acolo, vor influența și alegerile pentru Parlamentul European. Așadar, dacă există o ingerință străină la nivelul alegerilor locale și naționale și deformează rezultatul alegerilor, evident că vor fi influențate și celelalte. Puteți să apreciați cam în ce procent considerați dumneavoastră că există acum, când vorbim, ingerințe străine la nivelul celor 27 de state? Ați spus câteva lucruri, dar cred că a le cere doar să nu folosească inteligența artificială cu filmulețe false nu este suficient. Nu credeți că ar trebui să avem la nivelul Uniunii Europene reglementări care să restricționeze? Asta nu înseamnă că nu avem libertatea de exprimare, dar să restricționeze și să sancționeze dur toate aceste informații false și manipulări.
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

We see in fact, three main risks: cyberattacks, foreign interference, which you mentioned, and digital manipulation or hidden manipulation, including disinformation. We addressed some of the risks already vis-à-vis Russia in the first sanctions package. So you may remember that it was a novelty in the EU, but we put on the sanctions list, so-called ‘Russian media’ – I say ‘so-called’ because they were nothing else than the Russian military arsenal. And there were some other so-called ‘media’ in the in the later packages. At the same time, you ask about the legislation. We have now the Digital Services Act in combination with the Code of Practice on Disinformation. It has the power, if fully implemented and enforced, to decrease the impact of disinformation, including disinformation produced abroad. You ask about the percentage of the impact. I cannot tell you. It differs state by state. And the average figure for Europe will not say anything. I have to say that our foreign adversaries, they have a special strategy for each Member State. Here, of course, Russia has to be mentioned at the first place. But also, we have Chinese and Iran and other activities which are influencing or trying to meddle into our electoral processes – nothing to be neglected or underestimated, because we can see that if the failure appears in one Member State, then it has impact on the whole EU. Last comment: the organisation of elections falls under the competence of the Member States. But we try to be very supportive.
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Nathalie Loiseau
Political group: Renew
Country: Poland
Language: FR

Monsieur le Président, s’il y a bien un domaine dans lequel l’Europe est une passoire, c’est face aux ingérences de ses adversaires – la Russie la première. Bizarrement, cette passoire-là, ni le RN ni l’AfD ne la dénoncent jamais. Il est vrai que, dans ce domaine, ils sont en tête des réseaux de passeurs. L’Europe doit mieux se défendre, et pour cela, elle doit s’en donner les moyens. Aux États-Unis, au Royaume—Uni et en Australie, on exige la transparence pour tous les représentants d’intérêts étrangers. Je salue le projet de directive présenté par la Commission, mais je déplore l’angle qui a été choisi, celui du marché intérieur. Cela n’a pas de sens. Ni notre Parlement ni le Conseil ne doivent traiter l’empoisonnement de nos démocraties comme un simple problème d’harmonisation du lobbying. La transparence doit s’imposer pour tous les relais d’influence, et nous devons apprendre à protéger nos citoyens autant que nous protégeons nos consommateurs. Où en sont les discussions au Conseil, et peut-on élargir le champ de la directive pour éviter de taper à côté de la cible?
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

I mentioned some of the pieces of legislation which are based on the single market, and I will mention another one which also has the legal basis in the article on the single market – Article 114 – and it’s the interest representation, and this is under the defence of democracy package, because we are convinced that if there are some contracts between third country governments and European entities or entities operating on the European market we should know about that. So our proposed directive seeks to achieve as big as possible transparency on these contracts and on the purpose of these contracts. This is mainly lobbying or organising events and influencing the political decision-making in our Member States. Transparency is key, and I think that we have to make progress here. You ask a concrete question about where we are in the Council. We had, I think, two debates. The last one was in the General Affairs Council, where this file belongs to. There were three kinds of reactions: most of the Member States said, ‘Yes, this is useful, let’s work on it’; part of the Member States said, ‘We already have the register, which shows the contracts and the purpose of such contracts, so Europe, don’t touch it, we have our own system and we don’t want this to be decreased’; and then the third group of Member States, where there was only one Member State, we heard that this is something we should not do. So that’s the dynamics in the Council. We have to continue because the Belgian Presidency has a very clear and ambitious plan to have the Council decision in June.
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Hannah Neumann
Political group: Verts/ALE
Country: Sweden
Language: DE

Herr Präsident, liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen! Wer wissen will, wie ausländische Informationsmanipulation und Desinformation aussehen, der schaue in die Datenbank EUvsDisinfo. Dort wurden mittlerweile 16 000 Narrative, vor allem von Putins Trollen gestreut, gesammelt, die nur ein Ziel haben: unsere Gesellschaft zu spalten und zu schwächen. Was man beim Scrollen durch diese Datenbank sehr leicht sieht, ist, einiges davon hört sich doch ziemlich genau so an wie die Parolen derer, die hier ganz rechts sitzen: Ukrainische Agrarimporte würden die polnische Landwirtschaft ruinieren. Manchmal werden sogar konservative Politiker zu trojanischen Pferden russischer Desinformation, so Friedrich Merz, wenn er vom Sozialtourismus ukrainischer Flüchtlinge schwadroniert. Meine Frage an Sie daher, Kommissarin: Welche Erkenntnisse haben Sie zur Rolle rechtsextremer und rechter Politiker bei der Verbreitung russischer Desinformation, und wie planen Sie, diese Form der Desinformation zu bekämpfen?
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

What we see is a very concrete effort of Russia to interfere into the elections and to influence the public opinion of European people to convince or push their politicians to stop support for Ukraine. There is a very concrete plan. It’s simple, and Putin is a master in creating different strategies and different narratives for different Member States. Your question was about whether there are some cooperating parties or individuals. Well, in fact, Mr Putin needs a mouthpiece that will speak domestic language. He is using the willing collaborators in each Member State. They are either individuals or some parties or movements which are out of the parliaments. In some Member States, we already see parliamentary parties, and unfortunately, we also see some parties which are in our Member States’ governments, which now do not hesitate to spread in their country, in their society, the pro-Kremlin narratives. And so this is happening through the intermediaries, and so it means that we cannot just blame Russia, but we also have to have a very strong discussion with those who obviously stand on the side of the aggressor.
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Hannah Neumann
Political group: Verts/ALE
Country: Sweden
Language: EN

Thank you for your answer, Commissioner. Would you mind to clearly name some of these domestic perpetrators, so that our citizens are very aware, when they hear them speak, what their message is, and who stands behind those messages?
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

So, you know very well in each Member State what are what are the parties which are spreading these narratives and I would like to call on the other parties, movements and individuals to have courage and counter this speech because without using especially the digital space for telling the people the facts – I avoided the word truth, truth has always some colour or according to many truth is very individual thing but we have some objective facts which have to be defended. And this is for all those who are standing on the right side of history to distribute the facts so that the people can make their free choice and well-informed choice.
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Joachim Stanisław Brudziński
Political group: ECR
Country: Germany
Language: PL

Panie Przewodniczący! Szanowna pani komisarz! Komisja Specjalna ds. Obcych Ingerencji we Wszystkie Procesy Demokratyczne w Unii Europejskiej, w tym Dezinformacji, szczegółowo ujawniła kierowane przez Rosję działania i operacje mające na celu infiltrację europejskich demokracji i instytucji unijnych. Aby osiągnąć swoje cele, Rosja stosuje szeroką gamę metod wojny hybrydowej: takie działania jak manipulowanie informacjami zarówno za pomocą mediów tradycyjnych, jak i platform społecznościowych, przeciąganie elit na swoją stronę, ataki hakerskie dla niewygodnych dla Rosji kandydatów, i w końcu coś niezwykle kompromitującego dla Izby, w której tutaj dyskutujemy, a mianowicie korumpowanie europosłów i kupowanie u nich rezolucji, wymierzonych chociażby w rządy obnażające imperialną politykę Putina. Tak jak miało to miejsce, kiedy za rosyjskie pieniądze powstawały rezolucje w tej Izbie, głównie po lewej stronie sali, wymierzone w rząd Prawa i Sprawiedliwości – rząd, który pierwszy pospieszył z pomocą dotkniętej wojną Ukrainie. Jako skandal odbieram słowa wypowiedziane tu przez moją przedmówczynię atakującą opinię publiczną w Polsce i polskich rolników, że sprzeciwiają się napływowi ukraińskiego zboża do Polski i ma to być dowód działań rosyjskich. Szanowna pani, tak samo protestują rolnicy belgijscy, niemieccy, holenderscy czy hiszpańscy. A pytanie do pani komisarz: jak dzisiaj instytucje unijne są przygotowane na te działania dezintegracyjne ze strony Rosji?
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

It is true that Poland was the strongest voice, especially at the beginning, after the invasion of Russia to Ukraine, in helping the rest of Europe to take very strong position on the invasion of Russia to Ukraine. At the same time, we see that now during the war, there is an issue for the farmers of the EU and especially in the countries like Poland and Romania, Slovakia. It is a heavy situation for the farmers because they have to face problems on the market and the problem with the prices. Here we speak about the disinformation and about the manipulation of the facts. I would really like everybody – or everybody who has influence on the public opinion – to be able to say the facts about this, so that, again, the people understand the situation. The protests against the Ukrainian crops and the transport of the Ukrainian wheat and eggs and so on, this is not the protest against the support of Ukraine; it’s in its fight against Russia. But the fact about this is that Ukraine lost markets because of the war. So we wanted to create a safe way for the crops, for the grain, to get to Africa and to some other places, which failed because there were some speculators who kept the crops on the territory of our Member States. This has to be solved. And it cannot be solved by saying something which will just manipulate the facts. The facts are this. And the fact is also that the farmers need help. The Polish farmers, the Slovak farmers, the Romanian farmers, the farmers in the Member States who are affected by that, need help. That’s why we agreed on the compensation. We agreed on some limit for the tariffs. We agreed on many, many different things to ease the situation. I would like us to understand the situation on the basis of the facts. It’s true that the protests of farmers were surrounded by many, many pieces of disinformation which should be debunked.
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Joachim Stanisław Brudziński
Political group: ECR
Country: Germany
Language: PL

Pani komisarz, bardzo dziękuję za te słowa, szczególnie w odniesieniu do Polski, mojego kraju. Mam nadzieję, że ta dezinformacja rosyjska, która być może leżała u podstaw tego ataku, zupełnie irracjonalnego, który został skierowany tutaj przez przedstawicielkę lewicy, została chociaż częściowo obnażona. Ale chciałbym dopytać, pani komisarz: na ile dzisiaj, w przededniu wyborów do Parlamentu Europejskiego, instytucje unijne są przygotowane na kolejne działania hybrydowe ze strony Rosji, kolejne fake newsy i kolejne ataki, szczególnie wymierzone w te rządy, które nie cieszą się poparciem lewicowego establishmentu, chociażby w tej Izbie?
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

We see politically motivated and produced campaigns full of disinformation. We already see artificial intelligence being used for that. We see many different attempts to deliver to citizens the false picture of what’s happening. So this is my job here, not to protect the left or right, but my job here is to, first of all, protect the freedom of speech, and second, to protect all the channels and all the actions which will result in delivery of the facts to the citizens. And I want to repeat one thing, maybe I already indicated that we work with the principle that opinions are subjective. They belong to each individual and they should be protected. Facts are objective. We should be able to verify them. And then the citizens, when they have the reach to the objective facts, they can make their choice, also in the elections. That is why, again in connection with the elections, we are supporting the fact checking online. Again, no ideology, no left or right, but looking at the facts. And we are also trying to support more the independent media and public service media because they are the ones who should be able to professionally work with the subjects and who should be able to deliver the facts to the people. I know I repeat again and again the word ‘facts’, but I think that if we stop recognising the importance of facts, we will have a destiny to live in lies. And this is what we should not want.
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Sandra Kalniete
Political group: PPE
Country: Finland
Language: LV

Godātais sēdes vadītāj! Pirms deviņiem mēnešiem, komisāres kundze, Eiropas Parlaments pārliecinoši nobalsoja par manu ziņojumu par ārvalstu iejaukšanos Eiropas Savienības demokrātiskajos procesos, aicinot paredzēt ilgtermiņa finansējumu Eiropas Savienības budžetā, lai cīnītos pret masīvajām Krievijas dezinformācijas kampaņām, ar kurām Krievija īsteno Eiropas Savienībā informācijas hibrīdkaru, gan cīnoties par eiropiešu prātiem, gan šķeļot sabiedrības saliedētību. Šis karš norisinās jau gadiem, un tajā Kremlis ir ieguldījis vairākus miljardus eiro. Šo hibrīduzbrukumu atvairīšana un investīcijas sabiedrības noturībā ir nacionālās un mūsu kontinenta drošības jautājums. Kāds ir bijis reālais Eiropas Savienības finansējuma apjoms, lai īstenotu šo stratēģisko mērķi, un, vai sākot plānot nākamo Eiropas Savienības daudzgadu budžetu, tam tiks paredzēts nepieciešamais finansējums?
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

In 2023 alone, this EUvsDisinfo system reached over 20 million people via its website and social media channels. And East StratCom Task Force alone, for example, directly engaged with well over 10 000 people last year via a number of trainings conducted by us, including to journalists, visitors, groups hosted, speeches given, and so on. I don’t want to fill in the time after admitting that I don’t have the money and the figure here. But I want to illustrate that over time, between 2015, when we already were under big Russian manipulation depicting Ukrainians as the fascists and  More than money and our own sources is maybe the fact that we managed by legislation to push the big digital players to take action against these well-coordinated and well-designed disinformation campaigns against our citizens or happening in our information space. The action which the digital platforms now have to take is invaluable, because it’s about hundreds of millions of euro, which they have to invest in taking care of the content in the sense of especially fact-checking. So, if you count all that – what we are doing, what we pushed the platforms to do, what the Member States are doing, what the civil society is doing, through the EDMO structures – I think that we speak about very big resources, which are increasing over time, because it has to correlate with the increased pressure from Russia, which we see every year.
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Juozas Olekas
Political group: S-D
Country: Spain
Language: LT

Gerbiamas pirmininke, gerbiama Komisijos nare. Europa nemažai padarė, kad užkardintų Rusijos kišimąsi į Europos šalių rinkimus ir į politinį gyvenimą. Tačiau jau treti metai Rusijos nauja agresijos banga Ukrainoje rodo, kad ji naudojasi galimybėmis Europoje. Aš noriu paliesti vieną klausimą, kuris nėra čia diskutuotas labai garsiai. Tai – besitęsianti prekyba ir išlikusios investicijos, europinės investicijos Rusijoje. Jos leidžia Rusijai gauti pajamas, jos leidžia uždirbti kai kuriems žmonėms čia, Europoje, ir finansuoti arba įtakoti tų žmonių pozicijas. Mes galime pamatyti, kad įvairios įmonės, kurios turi legalų ryšį su Rusija dabar, jos aiškiai žiūri palankiau į situaciją Rusijoje. Tai ar nemanote, kad šią legalią prekybą ir investicijas į Rusiją reikėtų dar stipriau užkardinti arba pareikalauti mokėti karo mokesčius už tai, kad jie prekiauja su agresore?
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

I want to say that with every new sanction package, we are addressing more and more sectors, which is compelling, which is pushing European businesses to stop the business they make in Russia. And the problem is not only that, maybe there might be more companies or more sectors affected, but the avoidance or evasion or trying to avoid the sanctions by different means, also through the export through third countries, not directly through Russia.  And this is exactly what we wanted to address by the legislation, which seeks to introduce sanctions for avoiding the sanctions. If I am not mistaken, the legislation is still in the legislative process. So this is in the making. But the story or the saga of sanctions has not finished. And we will have to react to new findings and new situations. You mentioned that this is legal business. Well, the legal business is still so until the moment when the democratic institutions declare it illegal. And so this is happening over time.  Also, our Member States are acting in this field, but we cannot just over overnight say that the legal business has to be stopped. My personal view is that every business which is helping Russia in the war or which is making money on the horrible war and misery and catastrophe which Russians are doing in Ukraine, every such business should be should be stopped.
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Jordi Cañas
Political group: Renew
Country: Portugal
Language: ES

Señor presidente, señora comisaria Jourová, ¿sabe cómo se está preparando el Gobierno de España, presidido por Pedro Sánchez, para combatir la injerencia rusa en Europa? Aprobando una amnistía a medida de los separatistas catalanes que pidieron ayuda a Putin para la independencia de Cataluña. Una amnistía que busca no solo borrar sus delitos, sino que, sobre todo, lo que busca es impedir investigaciones judiciales en curso que tienen sólidas pruebas y evidencias de esas relaciones entre el separatismo catalán y Rusia.  Y, entonces, si queremos saber la verdad, ¿la Comisión Europea va a permitir que haya un Estado miembro que amnistíe a presuntos delincuentes para evitar investigaciones judiciales que aporten la verdad sobre la injerencia rusa en un Estado miembro? Yo sinceramente espero y quiero escucharle decir qué va a hacer la Comisión para evitar que se impida investigar a unos jueces que quieren saber la verdad y descubrir las conexiones entre políticos y partidos europeos con Putin.
Debate: Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Date: TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2024
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

I said it several times already publicly – also after having discussions with the political representation of Spain, from, let’s say, both sides of the spectrum – that we are following the legislative process, which is now still ongoing in Spain. After the legislative process on amnesty law is finished, we will do the proper assessment. Then we will either react, if we see that the law is in breach of EU law, or we will not react, if this is not the case. You know very well the method. We cannot comment on laws or we cannot take action against laws which fully fall under the sovereign Member State’s competence or which are not in breach of EU law. So I cannot predict any result. But we are waiting for the final version.