The European Commission is investigating whether “new risks”, notably the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and cyberattacks, influenced this month’s European Parliament (EP) elections, with Russia regarded as the main suspect.

“We are in the epicentre of the information war,” Vera Jourova, vice president of the European Commission for Values and Transparency, told a breakout session of the Prague European Summit last week. “Russia is the global champion of spreading propaganda and using these new tools,” she said.

Jourova said Moscow had first targeted Slovakia, Bulgaria and Serbia with these new disinformation tools, and had now moved on to France, Poland and Germany before the EP elections. The European Digital Media Observatory identified the three countries as particular targets of Russian disinformation.

In Poland Russian disinformation spread on social networks before the election promoted the narrative that Ukrainian refugees had become a burden on society. In May the Polish news agency PAP also published a fake news report about the government’s plans for "partial mobilisation to send troops to Ukraine”, which was caused by a cyberattack. 

In March Czech intelligence uncovered a Prague-registered website funded by Moscow, Voice of Europe, which promoted far-right European politicians on social media such as X and Facebook. The website subsequently moved to Kazakhstan, and the scandal damaged Germany’s extreme right AfD in the elections.

Before the Slovak parliamentary elections in September 2023, the liberal party Progressive Slovakia was hit by a deepfake video on social media that made it look like it was planning to increase beer prices. 

This all heightened fears that Russia would launch a massive campaign using such tools to disrupt the EP elections. Two thirds of Central Europeans were concerned about Russian interference in their country’s media or public opinion, according to a poll conducted by MEDIAN on behalf of the Prague-based Committee for Editorial Independence in April.

Jourova said her first impressions were that Russian disinformation had not been a “disaster” in the elections, but more would be known when the Commission report was ready in September.

Social media bubbles

The Czech European Commissioner, who is stepping down this summer after two terms, said that social media had a particular responsibility to help counter disinformation. 

In Central and Eastern Europe, surveys show that social media and messaging apps are often seen as more free and trustworthy than mainstream media. This can lead to citizens living in information bubbles and just relying on distorted and biased reports.

Populist leaders such as Slovakia’s Robert Fico and Czechia’s Andrej Babis often use such channels as an alternative to mainstream media, which can then help to legitimise conspiracy theories and Russian disinformation.

The outgoing European Commission has passed several pieces of legislation to force social media to better police their output, notably the Digital Services Act.

She rebutted the arguments of social media barons such as Elon Musk that the EU was restricting freedom of speech. “My mantra is trust the people but protect them from manipulation,” she said.

Social media such as Facebook and Instagram (owned by Meta), YouTube (Alphabet) and TikTok were especially worrying, as they were often the only media watched by young people, who some surveys show are increasingly turning right. Jourova said the Commission had had many complaints about YouTube. 

“The combination of entertainment and messaging is very dangerous,” she said, adding that young people’s media diet should be the next priority for her successor. “I think we neglected something,” she admitted.

She recounted that she had told TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew at a meeting last November: “you are devastating a whole generation of young people”.

The Commission has been investigating TikTok since February, Jourova said, to check if it was making a “proactive effort to create addiction”. The report should be ready after the summer, she said, and it might show the EU needed to tighten its curbs on the Chinese-owned social media.

Under Elon Musk, X has taken a confrontational stance towards the Commission, which culminated in the social platform resigning from the EU’s voluntary code of practice in May. 

The Commission is particularly worried by X’s downgrading of content moderation and fact checking since Musk bought the platform in October 2022.

Jourova said that X argues that its users will themselves “purify the space” by using its “community notes” moderation system, but she was unconvinced and had launched a procedure against the social media in December.

Previously Jourova has complained that X had the largest ratio of fake news posts of the larger platforms, and had refused to remove deep fakes.

The Commission is also investigating social media platform Telegram, which is particularly big among Russia speakers. Jourova said the platform currently falls below the Commission’s purview as it claims to have only 42mn users, but she finds this “unlikely” so it is being checked.

'Foreign agent' laws

Turning to the threat to media freedom from populist governments, Jourova said the European Media Freedom Act, which will come into force in August 2025, “will give us a better chance to face the issues in Slovakia, in Hungary”.

“At the moment I can only send letters as the Media Freedom Act is not yet in force,” she said.

In Slovakia those concerned with media freedom have risen from 62% in 2023 to 65%, while in Hungary such worries have risen from 56% to 62%, according to the MEDIAN poll.

Nevertheless, the European Commission is using existing tools to combat the growing trend for authoritarian governments to pass “foreign agent” laws. These are purportedly designed to improve transparency but in reality are used to stifle NGOs and independent media that rely on foreign funding. 

In Hungary, the Commission has the country’s new Sovereignty Office in its sights. The office scrutinises the activities of organisations that could use foreign funding to influence the outcome of elections.

The EU has already begun an infringement procedure against Budapest, with the European Court of Justice ruling that the legislation violates existing EU rules. “It is for Hungary to correct things, or it will be sanctioned,” said Jourova.

Slovakia is also likely to face sanctions if it goes ahead with a similar type of “foreign agent law” targeting NGOs with foreign funding.

“[If it is passed] we will immediately launch proceedings as we already have a judgement,” Jourova said.

The Czech commissioner also said that the government’s planned restructuring of the Slovak public broadcaster to tighten government control would also land it in trouble. Both pieces of legislation have now been put back until the autumn.

Georgia, an EU candidate country, has also passed a “foreign agents law”, albeit one much more similar to Russian legislation attacking free media and NGOs. The law has sparked huge protests and the EU is currently readying sanctions against Tbilisi.

Jourova said she had warned the Georgian government against the bill. “I warned the Georgian government this will be very problematic in the accession talks. This law does not belong in the EU,” she said.

“85% of Georgians want to join the EU. The government is working in a different direction.”