Verbatim report of proceedings

Thursday, 10 October 2019 - Brussels

Foreign electoral interference and disinformation in national and European democratic processes (B9-0108/2019, B9-0111/2019)

  Claude Moraes (S&D). – Madam President, I want to make the specific point that we mustn’t be complacent about the question of foreign interference and the integrity of our elections. We specifically asked for a special committee of inquiry and this was narrowly defeated today. I very much regret this because colleagues have talked about hard evidence on this issue and that is exactly what we were attempting to do, to ensure that what we do is based on facts and that we protect our elections and the democratic will of our people, both in our Member States and indeed in cross-border elections.

So this is an extremely important issue, given the increasing influence of disinformation, electoral fraud and reports of foreign interference in many of our Member States. Despite the fact that we don’t have the special committee, let us ensure that this House, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) and our Commission –our Security Commissioner who has begun work on this issue – continue to do so and that we do not fall into complacency on protecting our elections.