Debate: Foreign interference in all democratic processes in the EU
Date: TUESDAY, 8 MARCH 2022
Speaker: Josep Borrell Fontelles
Language: EN

This poses a clear threat to our democracy, to our stability, to our security, and we need to address it. So I therefore much welcome your report and the work of the Special Committee on Foreign Interference. Information manipulation and interference is something that Russia’s propaganda machine is actively using. Accompanying their military campaign in Ukraine, Russia is spreading false information among their own population about why this invasion has taken place and which is the situation in Ukraine. Over weeks, much before the invasion started, the Kremlin outlets had been preparing the ground by reversing the cause and consequences of this aggression and portraying Russia and Russian people as a kind of a victim, saying ‘Ukraine is committing genocide’, ‘Zelenskyy is a criminal, is a puppet on the hands of the Western people’, and when they come to Kyiv, they will do a second Nuremberg in order to clean Ukraine of the Nazis who are committing genocide against the Russian people.  These are the kind of things that they are systematically spreading far and wide, undermining the legitimacy of the democratically elected Ukrainian Government, presenting them as a result of a coup d’état. It came to power, not through elections, but through a coup d’état. He’s a criminal, is a war criminal, is a Nazi, is a dictator and also distorting historical facts.  Well, history can be interpreted in very different ways. But to consider that Zelenskyy is a war criminal, a Nazi who is committing genocide against the Russian people, is not a matter of historical interpretation.  The Kremlin and its outlets are systematically lying about the situation, about the military situation and about the suffering of the Ukrainian population. They claim systematically that the Ukrainian authorities are bombing their own citizens or provoking nuclear incidents in order to blame Russia systematically. This kind of news is widespread.  Also, the alleged Russia-phobia that the state-affiliated media report is another thing that people in Russia listen to. Let me say once again, that measures are against the Russian leadership, not against the Russian people and the current situation is a result of President Putin’s actions. And, if he wants, he can solve it by just stopping the war.  The state media and the ecosystem around them are being used as an instrument to push this narrative, to manipulate and mislead, and they are an integral part of the aggression. It’s not just bombing the houses, the infrastructure, the bodies of the people. they are bombing their minds, they are bombing their spirits. And the Russian leadership is cracking down on independent media, on civil society, it has banned Twitter, it has banned Facebook and a number of foreign media from operating in Russia.  The Kremlin has introduced a law criminalising what they call ‘fake information’ about the war in Ukraine. It can cause you 15 years’ jail, targeting also international journalists, which are doing their vital work in Russia. As a consequence it has deprived of Russian citizens of any access to independent media, independent information about what’s happening in Ukraine and how the Russian armed forces are behaving. So Russia is moving towards complete isolation of its citizens from information coming from the outside world. They are putting them in a bubble, isolating in order not to allow them to know what’s happening.  The international community has come together in response to President Putin’s senseless war in a coordinated and active manner, and I am very proud to see that the European Union has been able to show its capacity to deliver on this file also, and we have been able to do that because we are not coming from scratch, it comes to 2015 when leaders of the European Union recognised the threat, offering information and misinformation streaming from Russia.  2015 is seven years ago. And then they specifically tasked the High Representative to address this challenge. And we created in the External Action Service teams of people, capacities and expertise that have been developed in the last seven years, allowing us to take today’s decisive steps to tackle this issue.  We have built a strong StratCom team, which is doing, I think, an excellent work – you will judge it – has been praised in your report, thank you for that. We have been strengthening our proactive public communication to provide actual information, not least through our European Union versus disinformation website, which exposes the Kremlin narrative.  Go to this website, use our EU versus disinformation website and you will find there registered hundreds of misinformation cases in countries, European, in Germany, in the UK, in France, in Italy and Spain, targeting a variety of issues like elections, vaccines, about Brexit or about the secessionist movement in some European Member States.  We have increased our cooperation with partners like NATO and the G7 to understand how the Kremlin destabilises and manipulates information, weakening Ukraine and our Western resolve. We have a rapid-alert system that has proven its importance, allowing to swiftly share with European Union institutions, with my colleagues from the Commission – with whom we are working closely and positively, thank you – with our Member States and also partners, finding analysis and debunking material.  I insist, please, widespread existence of this web where hundreds of cases can be found. We have intensified our work to help our partners in the region to tackle the issue of interference and information manipulation, especially in the Western Balkans, which are currently being targeted systematically by these campaigns.  And most importantly, we have imposed costs on the perpetrators, including through banning Russia Today and Sputnik from broadcasting in the European Union because they are not independent media. They are assets. They are weapons in the Kremlin’s manipulation ecosystem.  And I want to stop here because there has been criticism saying that we are attempting against the freedom of information. Let’s consider what is information and what these outlets are. Let me take a moment to underline the essence of this issue.  We are not trying to decide what is true and what is false. I am not the minister of the truth. We don’t have ministers of the truth. What we have to focus on is foreign actors who intentionally, in a coordinated manner, try to manipulate that information environment, to advance their own purposes and to harm us.  Allow me to say that in Spanish because it will be more direct to your mind.  La democracia es un sistema que funciona con base en la información. La información es el combustible de la democracia. Los ciudadanos actúan como ciudadanos basándose en la información que reciben. Basándose en lo que saben, interpretan la realidad, juzgan a sus gobernantes y deciden su voto.  La democracia es un sistema cuyo combustible es la información. Si la información es mala, la democracia es mala. Si la información está sistemáticamente sesgada y contaminada por la mentira, los ciudadanos no pueden tener cabal conocimiento de la realidad y su juicio político está sesgado.  Por eso tenemos que defender que la información sea un bien protegido.  Cuando usted va a comprar carne en un supermercado, tiene garantías sobre la calidad de ese producto para evitar que consumirlo le produzca una enfermedad. Tiene que haber, también, alguna clase de garantía para que la información no sea un elemento que contamine las mentes.  La democracia funciona con la información y por eso Rusia ha creado Sputnik. Sputnik no es un inocente medio que tiene una determinada visión de la realidad.  Sputnik is not a media that understands things, in a way. Sputnik was created by a Russian presidential decree with the aim to report on the state policy of Russia abroad. And according to its editor-in-chief, Russia Today is capable of conducting an information war against the whole Western world, and both channels facilitate and engage in cyber-facilitated influence operations, including those that have been attributed to the Russian military intelligence – the famous GRU. And to be able to respond equally with quick and decisive action in the future, I will propose a new mechanism that will allow us to sanction those malign disinformation actors. This will be part of a broader toolbox that we are currently working on to further enhance our capacity to act. This toolbox will be structured across four cross-cutting dimensions improving our situational awareness.  First, to build up our resilience and our partners by stepping up support to independent media and civil society in third countries, and bolstering the strategic communication capacities of our delegations. Being that a tool of foreign policy, I am always talking about third countries. It is my colleagues from the Commission who are working inside the European Union territories, but there is a lot of work to do in order to support our partners around the world.  Second, to ensure disruption of malign activities and regulatory responses to them. the code of practice and the Digital Services Act, on which Vice—President Jourová will say more, are crucial elements in this regard. I am not going to go deeper on this code of practice and digital services because Vice-President Jourová knows more than I about it.  And last but not least, a continuing diplomatic response and instruments within the common foreign and security policy. Within our foreign policy, we have to introduce the battle about information since the beginning of the pandemic. I coined the sentence ‘battle of narrative’, and this battle of narrative is every day more important. Look what’s happening in Africa, what do you think? People are influenced by what they have been told. And at the end, it goes up to the political scale, and finally it converts into votes on the international institutions.  This brings me to the report by the Special Committee for foreign interference in all democratic processes in the EU, including disinformation (INGE), which I welcome so much. This report shows appreciation of the work that my service has been doing and constantly expanding since we received this mandate from the Council in 2015. And I want to assure you that we take your recommendations very much into account, including your proposal for new structures to make our work even more efficient and sustainable. I thank you a lot for your support.  You have been very much supporting our strategic communication teams devoted to the Balkans, devoted to the eastern border, and now, unhappily, they are so much in the news. Thank you for your support. We work together. This is a critical battle for democracy.  Once again, allow me to say democracy is a system that works on the basis of the information that citizens have, that’s why we have to protect the freedom of information and to fight against disinformation.