This page documents my notes on the EU’s attempts to renew and reinforce its democracy. it should be read in conjunction with my Digital Regulation in the EU page, and Subsidiarity and proportionality , which deals with the laws and treaties. The page, EU Reform, on this wiki talks about the initiatives in the winter of 23/24 which ran out of time i.e. AFCO vs the Council. I also made this, a page based on some ERS criticisms of the EU, not all of which I agree with, and in fact, have moved away from some points with which I agreed at the time.

  • Democracy without limits: no more undemocratic thresholds in Europe, a polemic against thresholds in STV elections, theoretically designed to exclude time wasters, and arguably a threshold set too low in Israel, but can be used to exclude regional (and other minorities). Their problem is that PR is designed to leave a quota unrepresented. There will always be rounding errors when you try and elect 700 people from 400m. Even more so when you look to elect one person. They have some curious examples from Slovakia and Romania and present the Netherlands as beacon of good practice.
  • The EU’s Democracy Action Plan, they say, the European Democracy Action Plan is designed to empower citizens and build more resilient democracies across the EU by, promoting free and fair elections, strengthening media freedom, and countering disinformation.
  • Protecting democracy, a Commission page, covers the Defence of Democracy package, put forward on 12 December 2023, aimed at protecting Free and Fair elections, Media Pluralism, countering disinformation and foreign information manipulation and interference, and inclusive civic engagement and participation for European democratic resilience. This page has useful x-refs.

Arguably on of the most important campaigns is No to Veto, which is aimed at reducing/removing the right of Veto in the Council.

Euronews comments, that it’s not just foreign actors that subvert democracy, the loss of hope undermines it more.

The Digital Services/Market Acts

One regulatory domain that may help is the Digital Services Act, although Twitter is designated a VLOP (DSA), because it has 67m EU based users, which I make more than 10% of the EU’s citizenship.

The DSA requires VLOPs and VLOSEs to identify, analyse, and mitigate with effective measures risks related to the electoral processes and civic discourse, while ensuring protection of freedom of expression.

It is not designated a gate keeper under the DMA. This is despite the fact it offers third party authentication services. It’s also despite the fact that the Commission considered Twitter/X to be in breach of the DSA. (What happened to this? Probably lost in the post-election politics and new commission formation. Yet to go to the Court, it’s unlikely that Musk/X will conform to the Commission’s findings, given his behaviour in Brazil.)

In all this a duty for truth seems to be lost, the CoFoE had quite a bit to say on the need for truth.

Summer 2024

The French arrested the CEO of Telegram, Pavel Durov, sparking conversations about freedom of speech. The Brazilians also blocked Twitter/X. The EU has been considering a response for a while, and in the UK the new government is considering the powers embedded in the Online Safety bill, which was designed to stop cyberbullying [of politicians] and they think needs to be rethought in the light of the riots.

  1. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/online-disinformation
  2. https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/new-push-european-democracy/protecting-democracy_en
  3. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/27/what-does-the-telegram-founders-arrest-mean-for-the-regulation-of-social-media-companies-pavel-durov
  4. https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-charges-musks-x-for-letting-disinfo-run-wild/
  5. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/04/elon-musk-x-twitter-eu-hate-speech-disinformation-vera-jourova
  6. The last few days I’ve listened to any number of podcasts regarding the Durov affair, but if I’d listened to only one I’d have wanted it to be The 9pm Edict by @Stilgherrian and So, Alec, what do *you* believe is happening with Pavel Durov and Telegram Messenger and the French Government? by Alec Muffet. Alec excoriates Durov and Telegram. In his writing, he wonders what and how web blocking will work in the world of VPN’s.

Autumn 2024

These links were found by me, not necessarilty published in Autumn 2024

  1. https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/05/14/von-der-leyen-pitches-plan-to-shield-eu-from-foreign-interference-if-re-elected
  2. https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/new-push-european-democracy/protecting-democracy/european-media-freedom-act_en
  3. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/166/promoting-democracy-and-observing-elections

Dec 2024

  1. https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-discussion-german-far-right-leader-alice-weidel-x/, Musk tweets and writes in support of the AfD. FFS!
  2. Transparency Int’l on foreign money and elections.

2 Replies

  1. I have inserted some comments and links on the Digital Services Act, and the Elon Musk and the Democracy Package and foreign interference.

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