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The European Democracy Shield – A Toolbox for Safeguarding Digital Democracy?

By Valentina Golunova

On 12 November 2025, the European Commission presented its long-awaited Communication ‘European Democracy Shield: Empowering Strong and Resilient Democracies’. It promises to ‘reinforce the core elements that allow citizens to live our shared democratic values every day’ (European Commission, 2025c). To that end, the European Democracy Shield (EUDS) puts forward a broad spectrum of measures to strengthen the security and integrity of the European Union’s (EU) information ecosystem, particularly in the face of foreign interference.

The EUDS fits squarely into the broader policy shift within the EU, in which EU institutions are venturing beyond the rule of law rhetoric that used to dominate the constitutional discourse and focusing their attention on democracy as another crucial EU value (Bonelli, 2025). In this respect, it builds on the Commission’s earlier efforts to bolster democracies across the EU, namely the 2020 European Democracy Action Plan and the 2023 Defence of Democracy package. Among all previous initiatives, the EUDS incorporates the most extensive digital component. It rests on the assumption that technological disruption exacerbates the vulnerabilities of European democracies. Therefore, it offers a strategic approach, rooted in the EU digital acquis, which aims to both counteract the acute challenges brought by new technologies and harness them for democratic purposes.

This contribution critically analyses the measures outlined in the EUDS that are specifically aimed at enhancing democratic resilience in the digital sphere. While it acknowledges the added value of these measures, it nevertheless argues that the text of the EUDS is not fully attuned to the dire state of democratic processes and fundamental rights, not only in specific Member States (MS) but also throughout the EU. To confront the sweeping rise of authoritarian populism, which is often facilitated rather than constrained by technological progress, EU institutions will need to devise more ambitious, out-of-the-box solutions for safeguarding digital democracy.

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Photo via Pexels.

Background

The EUDS was first announced by Ursula von der Leyen ahead of the 2024 European Parliament (EP) elections. Claiming that the growing influence of authoritarian governments threatens ‘the core tenets of our democracy’ (Jones, 2024), she emphasised the need to bolster the EU’s capacity to counteract it. The initiative was also prominently featured in her 2024-2029 political guidelines. The development of the EUDS commenced shortly after von der Leyen was confirmed as Commission President. However, the process was challenged by Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States (US) and the ensuing geopolitical tensions, as well as by the rise of right-wing politics in MS and increasingly at the EU level. Long before its publication, EUDS faced harsh criticism from across the political spectrum. The proponents of free speech slammed it for its possible negative impact on the exchange of legitimate information and ideas (The Future of Free Speech, 2025). Those advocating for more robust measures against foreign interference and disinformation were concerned about the non-binding nature of the initiative (Datta & Braun, 2025), which was revealed in the Commission work programme 2025. The Commission responded to these concerns by emphasising that the central ambition of the EUDS lies in the consolidation of existing mechanisms for protecting EU democracy as well as improved coordination between the competent authorities. In her State of the Union address to the EP on 10 September 2025, von der Leyen finally revealed the key component of the EUDS – the establishment of the European Centre for Democratic Resilience – which would ‘bring together all the expertise and capacity across Member States and neighbouring countries’ (European Commission, 2025b). Yet the exact scope of the new centre’s competences was left vague.

After the EUDS was published, it continued to elicit the same polarised responses. The document puts forward action points across three areas: 1) safeguarding the integrity of the information space; 2) strengthening democratic institutions, free and fair elections and free and independent media; and 3) boosting societal resilience and citizens’ engagement. Despite its comprehensive (or ‘whole-of-society’) approach (Feisel, 2025), the coherence and feasibility of certain measures remain questionable. These concerns stem not only from transatlantic instability but are also fueled by the Commission’s own earlier controversial initiatives, such as the proposed directive on transparency of interest representation carried out on behalf of third countries (Dolan, 2025). The European Centre for Democratic Resilience will eventually become primarily an information-sharing platform tasked with facilitating operational cooperation and capacity building, whereby MS’ participation will remain voluntary. In a particularly forceful attack, Green Member of the EP (MEP) Kim van Sparrentak has recently slammed it as ‘a European neighborhood watch group chat’. Given the substantial challenges faced by EU institutions when implementing earlier anti-disinformation initiatives, such as the Rapid Alert System (Apuzzo, 2019), the fear of creating yet another cumbersome and barely operational structure appears justified.

Another pressing question regarding the EUDS was whether the Commission would double down on the ongoing securitisation trend. Regardless of the seeming imminence of addressing external threats, this approach has generated criticism (Quaritsch, 2024; Vériter, 2025). Research shows that the spread of misinformation is a prominent strategy used by right-wing populists (Törnberg & Chueri, 2025). Indeed, as seen in recent years, political actors at both MS and EU levels resort to manipulative tactics – particularly in the digital domain – to discredit and erode democratic principles. Therefore, the Commission was called upon to approach the issue with sufficient nuance and put forward measures focused not only on addressing attacks from abroad but also alleviating the domestic challenges to European democracies (Bressanelli & Bernardi, 2025; Meyer-Resende & Godfrey, 2025).

The next sections review the proposed strategies that build on the EU’s digital rulebook and seek to strengthen existing measures against information threats, protect free and fair elections, and encourage bottom-up efforts to enhance democratic resilience. It argues that even though the EUDS does not employ a purely defensive language and presents a multidimensional vision of ensuring the integrity of democratic processes, it appears to overlook and downplay the internal dimension of the issues it aspires to address.

Counteracting foreign interference and disinformation

The core action points of the EUDS aim to further concretise and expand existing strategies for combating malicious influence operations within the European information space. Online platforms are widely considered to be the main vehicles of disinformation. More recently, Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools have also come to play a significant role in misleading citizens and undermining trust in democratic institutions (de León et al., 2025). Therefore, the Commission has undertaken steps to update and expand the strategy against foreign interference and disinformation that first began taking shape in 2015. Then, the intensification of Russia’s disinformation campaigns in the aftermath of its annexation of Crimea led to the establishment of an East StratCom Task Force, as part of the European External Action Service (EEAS), responsible for opposing foreign propaganda and promoting EU policies and values in the Eastern Partnership region. In the years that followed, other compelling threats to information integrity, such as those prompted by the Cambridge Analytica scandal or the COVID-19 pandemic, made the EU broaden the scope of its anti-disinformation measures. The adoption of the Code of Practice on Disinformation (now Code of Conduct on Disinformation) – a co-regulatory instrument adopted in 2018 and strengthened in 2022 – was emblematic of a more holistic approach to countering false or misleading information that can cause public harm. However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 shifted the focus back to threats originating from outside the EU’s borders. The EU began developing new strategies for tackling foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) – a term introduced by the EEAS to better conceptualise the diverse hybrid tactics employed by foreign adversaries going beyond the dissemination of false or misleading information.

The EUDS acknowledges both ‘internal and external pressures’ on EU democracies (p. 1). FIMI and disinformation are thus framed as two distinct phenomena, each posing a threat to democratic processes, and whose severity is continually increasing due to ‘a proliferation of new online manipulation techniques’, such as bot-driven campaigns and AI-generated content (p. 5). Although this supposedly indicates that the measures should apply equally to all types of information threats regardless of their origin, the content of the measures clearly indicates that FIMI is considered a significantly more pressing issue.

Concrete steps towards greater information integrity build on two legislative acts – the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the AI Act – although anti-disinformation provisions can also be found in several other acts adopted in recent years (Eskens, 2025). First, the Commission was/is committed to preparing a DSA incidents and crisis protocol pursuant to Article 48 DSA. Crisis protocols are intended to apply only in extraordinary circumstances affecting public security or public health, and the participation of very large online platforms and search engines (VLOPSEs) in the drawing up, testing and application of those protocols is voluntary. However, the measures outlined in crisis protocols can become binding by the Commission’s decision (upon recommendation of the European Board of Digital Services) in the context of a crisis response mechanism under Article 36 DSA. This mechanism was proposed by the Commission during the trilogue negotiations and has been the subject of criticism from academics and civil society in light of their potential misuse and possible negative impact on fundamental rights (EDRi, 2022; Buijs & Buri, 2023). It is, however, doubtful that a dedicated crisis protocol would strengthen their commitment to information integrity, particularly in situations where FIMI is attributable to the US government. US Vice President JD Vance and (now former) member of the US government Elon Musk have recently been accused of interfering in the 2025 German Bundestag elections by engaging with Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) leader Alice Weidel. Just several months later, the US Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, openly declared support for Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) candidate Karol Nawrocki, who later won the Polish presidential election. Given the current geopolitical climate, VLOPSEs will likely continue to either turn a blind eye or actively contribute to such influence operations.

The EUDS also envisions strengthening the measures outlined under the Code of Conduct on Disinformation, which has recently been officially integrated into the framework of the DSA. In addition to reinforcing existing commitments (for instance, to ensure that users understand the logic behind recommender systems and that malicious actors cannot profit from spreading disinformation), the Commission intends to explore new measures to improve the detection and labelling of AI-generated and manipulated content and voluntary user verification tools (p. 6). This will complement the transparency obligations imposed on providers and deployers of AI systems under Article 50 of the AI Act (which, however, will only become applicable as of 2 August 2026). Just a week before the publication of the EUDS, the Commission announced that it had begun developing a separate code of practice on the marking and labelling of AI-generated content. It is worth noting, however, that there is no established consensus on the effectiveness of labelling in countering FIMI and disinformation (Weikmann et al., 2025). Furthermore, despite the ongoing efforts to concretise the implementation, monitoring and assessment of the Code’s implementation (Nenadić et al., 2024), researchers have raised concerns about gaps in the signatories’ compliance (Mündges & Park, 2024). Even though de jure non-binding commitments under the Code are now closely intertwined with binding risk mitigation obligations for VLOPSEs (Article 35 DSA), further work will be required to effectively tackle AI-generated FIMI and disinformation.

Apart from the obstacles stemming from the clash between the EU and US-based tech giants, it seems that the Commission somewhat neglected other pressing issues jeopardising information integrity in Europe. One of these issues concerns the ineffective enforcement of restrictive measures on Russia’s state-controlled media outlets, which hinges on close cooperation among the MS. In 2024, nearly two years after the initial adoption of the ban, the websites of Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik remained accessible – ironically – from the Commission’s building (Tuhina, 2024). National governments that remain sympathetic towards the Kremlin are even less likely to enforce the restrictions diligently, with some of them going as far as to facilitate foreign influence operations. For instance, pro-Russian Slovakian media outlets were found to be receiving subsidies from Robert Fico’s government (The Insider, 2025). Regrettably, the EUDS does not articulate any strategies for addressing situations in which FIMI and disinformation are tolerated or amplified domestically.

Safeguarding electoral integrity

Another major pillar of the EUDS is devoted to safeguarding the freedom and fairness of electoral and other democratic processes. The recently held elections across several MS made it clear that disinformation campaigns can potentially interfere with the right to both passive and active suffrage. Given the urgency of the problem, the Commission has proposed a broad range of measures spanning political campaigning, the transparency and accountability of funding in politics, and cybersecurity (pp. 10–16). On the digital front, the EUDS envisions the adoption of a guidance on the fair, transparent, human-centred and responsible use of AI in electoral processes. This guidance will lay out voluntary commitments on the responsible use of new technologiesby European and national political parties and other relevant actors. The Commission also plans to update the DSA Elections Toolkit for Digital Services Coordinators (DSCs) – independent authorities in charge of enforcing and implementing the DSA – to take into account previously unaccounted challenges, with the exposure of EU citizens living abroad to FIMI and disinformation mentioned as an example.

Abstract art in blue and lilac.
Photo by Rose Pilkington via Pexels.

Both of these interventions are certainly timely. In the run-up to the 2025 Irish presidential elections, independent candidate Catherine Connolly suffered significant damage to her campaign from a deepfake video showing her alleged withdrawal. Just a few days later, two parliamentarians of the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) were found to run a Facebook page which disseminated deepfakes of Frans Timmermans, now former leader of the left-wing alliance GroenLinks–PvdA and their main opponent in the Dutch parliamentary elections in October 2025. However, the EUDS does not specify any details on the content of the proposed measures. It remains to be seen whether the Commission will move beyond reaffirming commitments to the transparency of the content’s origin, which could fall short of effectively ensuring electoral integrity, since particularly offensive deepfakes can still harm the politicians’ reputation and public image. Moreover, malicious actors operating both beyond and within Europe are unlikely to voluntarily commit to using AI responsibly, so the practical effect of the proposed measures might remain limited.

In outlining the policy directions towards enhancing electoral resilience, it also appears that the EUDS ignores the elephant in the room, namely the annulment of the first round of the Romanian presidential elections and the ensuing controversy around it. The fact that a Member State found itself severely exposed to large-scale influence operations on TikTok after a decade-long rollout of anti-disinformation policies at the EU level could not have been good news for the EU institutions. Although the Commission promptly opened formal proceedings against TikTok for a suspected violation of the DSA, it remains to be seen when these proceedings will be concluded and whether they will eventually result in a fine – an issue common for all ongoing proceedings against VLOPSEs (Jóźwiak, 2025). Although the text of the EUDS suggests that the Commission has finally learned its lesson and refers to the recent Moldovan presidential elections, where FIMI was counteracted much more effectively (pp. 14–15), it seems to downplay the damage done and falls short of providing a comprehensive set of measures which would render such extraordinary moves to defend democracy unnecessary in the future. The EUDS is also silent on domestic challenges to free and fair elections, such as the rise of unfounded claims of electoral fraud made by far-right political parties and public figures, which again underscores its limited introspection.

Empowering organisations and citizens

A significant portion of the EUDS is devoted to bottom-up initiatives for enhancing democratic resilience, most of which are concentrated in the third pillar but can also be found across the other pillars. This aligns with the Commission’s earlier announced plan to focus on the preventative measures for tackling information threats (‘pre-bunking’) by enabling organisations and citizens to better navigate the digital environment. One of the most prominent proposals refers to the creation of an independent European Network of Fact-Checkers as part of a Stakeholder Platform affiliated with the European Centre for Democratic Resilience (p. 7). As remarked by EU DisinfoLab (2025), the network already exists within the framework of the European Digital Media Observatory, so it is puzzling why the Commission did not focus instead on tackling the remaining disparities in fact-checking infrastructure across MS. Furthermore, the practical impact of the measure could be undercut by the ongoing dismantlement of fact-checking programs and their replacement with the so-called ‘Community Notes’ – a system whereby users, rather than independent experts, can add context to potentially false or misleading content (Papathanasopoulou, 2025). Another challenge arises from the growing targeting of civil society in MS (and, more recently, by right-wing political groups in the EP). For instance, Hungary’s bill on the transparency of public life (the consideration of which has been postponed following a public outcry, but the bill has not been formally withdrawn) can severely impact the funding of local organisations, including Hungary’s largest fact-checking platform Lakmusz. The EUDS also does not acknowledge the need to resist attempts of right-wing governments to misuse the fact-checking mechanism, such as when fact-checking operations are performed by captured public service media operators (Bleyer-Simon, 2023).

In a rather creative move, the Commission further intends to endorse the creation of a voluntary network of influencers who will raise awareness about relevant EU rules (p. 13). To this end, it will encourage the development of ethical standards and voluntary commitments, such as relating to information integrity and digital literacy. It is, however, uncertain what standards of transparency and accountability will apply to engagements between EU institutions and influencers. Scholars note that, unlike those engaging in commercial advertising, influencers promoting governmental policies often fall through the cracks of consumer protection legislation, and therefore advocate for a more holistic regulatory approach (Annabell et al., 2025). Unfortunately, the EUDS does not mention the increasing use of political influencers by conservative governments (Horváth et al., 2025) and does not reflect on the possible ways of addressing these ‘outsourced’ manipulative practices.

Although EUDS attributes many outstanding challenges to digital technologies, it also offers an optimistic view of their potential in fostering democratic resilience. The Commission has promised to stimulate the so-called ‘civic tech’, encompassing innovative solutions that enable democratic engagement, and to support the development of pan-European platforms. At the same time, as rightly noted by the Secretary-General and Coordinator of the European Digital Media Observatory, Paula Gori, funding for independent researchers and civil society remains key (Gori, 2025). Current austerity cuts on education and research in many MS severely endanger the initiative’s prospects (European Commission, 2025a).

Conclusion

The EUDS was unveiled at a particularly challenging moment in European history. The ongoing war against Ukraine, the crisis of the transatlantic partnership, combined with the surge of the far right in the EU itself, made the Commission’s work incredibly difficult. Although EUDS can be criticised for its insufficient ambition and innovation, it should ultimately be seen as a political compromise. In order to secure support for the initiative across the bloc and avoid further deterioration of the EU-US relationship, the Commission inevitably had to exercise caution when framing its plans. Nevertheless, it still seems that the EUDS shows a lack of sensitivity to the internal threats to democracy in Europe. Most importantly, many of the action points under EUDS could be curtailed not only by right-wing populist forces in the MS, but also by the EU’s own rollback of digital rights: the Digital Omnibus proposal tabled just a week after the publication of the EUDS, which envisions the revision of certain key provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation and the AI Act). While countering influence operations from abroad continues to be an important policy direction, it is equally essential to acknowledge troubling developments within the EU and craft bold and unconventional responses to them.


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About the Author

Valentina Golunova is an Assistant Professor of Digital Democracy and an alumna of re:constitution. She is also part of the multidisciplinary research group on Education, Citizenship and Democracy established by the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science of the Netherlands. Her research lies at the intersection of fundamental rights and digitalisation. Her PhD thesis (defended in 2024 at Maastricht University) addressed the interplay between algorithmic content moderation, the regulation of digital services in the EU, and freedom of expression online. In the context of her re:constitution project ‘The Rule of Law in the Post-Truth Era’, she examined the EU’s strategy for combatting disinformation in the multistakeholder environment. More information about Valentina’s profile is available on Maastricht University’s website.


Citation: Valentina Golunova, The European Democracy Shield – A Toolbox for Safeguarding Digital Democracy?, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 09.12.2025, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/63227

 

 


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Forum Transregionale Studien (December 9, 2025). The European Democracy Shield – A Toolbox for Safeguarding Digital Democracy? TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research. Retrieved January 22, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/15azv


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