Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 14 November 2018 - Strasbourg

Increasing EU resilience against the influence of foreign actors on the upcoming EP election campaign (topical debate)

  Gunnar Hökmark (PPE). – Mr President, we need to ensure that those who are elected to the European Parliament and to all the national parliaments are elected in order to do their best for their nation and to do their best for Europe and not for those who want to divide and destabilise us.

We need to ensure that neither Russia nor anyone else can influence the elections but there let’s also be aware, this is not anything that is going on just during elections, it is going on now and there is a link between money-laundering by Estonia, Novichok in Salisbury, rumours in Germany, cyberattacks in France and cyberattacks in all of our countries. Let’s not be naive, this is not a threat, it is something that is going on right now and it is implemented in order to undermine democracy and the rule of law. And those foreign actors, they have the help and the support of those forces inside here, who would like to undermine the rule of law and democracy.

This is a fight for democracy and freedom. Let’s be clear that we shall disclose those who do it, we shall have transparency, we shall sanction, and we shall do with criminal actions what is required to do with the criminal actions. We shall ensure that they are punished and they are revealed and disclosed and that we can safeguard our European Union.