Debate: Stocktaking of European elections
Date: TUESDAY, 24 NOVEMBER 2020
Speaker: Věra Jourová
Language: EN

Well, we are speaking here today about reflections on the 2019 elections. Let me say what I didn’t say at the beginning and maybe also the reflections from the Commission’s side – how we were preparing for the elections. After the lessons we learned from the 2016 American elections, from the Brexit campaign and from some other elections, we knew that to organise the elections, to be fair and free, and free from manipulation, and free from different new kinds of threat, it wouldn’t be business as usual. We focused in the preparation on three new emerging threats. The first was abuse of private data in political campaigns. After the Cambridge Analytica case it was clear that we had to react. So we mobilised the data protection authorities in the Member States to pay special attention to the possible cases of abuse of private data and micro-targeting in political campaigning. The second threat was disinformation. We mobilised colleagues dealing with disinformation on a national level. We created the rapid alert system to address or to stop a coordinated strong attack from outside Europe – and just to mention that we did not trigger the rapid alert system, but we were prepared for that. And the third threat was the possible endangering of the elections by cyber-attacks. So we again asked the Member States to strengthen their infrastructure to be able to protect the elections against that. To manage all these new threats and to be well prepared, we established the national elections system and network. We had all the Member States, represented by the people who organised the elections, it proved to be very useful. The network is still working and it will work further in the future, because all the measures we took for the European elections proved to be extremely useful for organising national elections. So we are working together with the Member States. Well, the reflections on the elections with regard to the results, are, as far as I see it, quite positive. We saw that especially young people showed us that they are interested in the future of Europe – that Europe matters. This is very good news. And I think that in everything we are doing we should continue to support this trend. We have to invite young people to the elections. I cannot help it, we have to do something which I sometimes call ‘to digitalise democracy’, because young people are not interested in using the old-fashioned methods. So maybe we should consider the possibility to introduce more digital innovations in the methods and in the way we elect in Europe. And we have to start discussions as soon as possible under the Conference on the Future of Europe, which was mentioned here many times – Katarina Barley said that it should be mainly an exercise that involves listening. We should listen to what people see as good solutions for the future of Europe. Now we know that the people care and that we have to open a very wide discussion with the citizens, not only remain in the bubble where we are normally used to discussing these things. So, the conference should start as soon as possible when COVID enables us to move. We can do a lot of things through digital instruments but not everything is possible. Last comment: if we want to change something in the electoral system for 2024, needless to say here that the initiative is on the European Parliament, not the Commission. I have counted the days and months before the elections and well, if we want to introduce changes, we will have to see the initiatives on the table next year. So I can only repeat from this place that I am ready to cooperate, the Commission is going to play the role of the honest broker in this process, and I’m very much looking forward to the next debates on this and also the real steps we are going to take.