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Tagged: EU

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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 Internet has fascinated me for as long as I can remember” – 5in10 with Valentina Golunova

Valentina Golunova is an Assistant Professor in Digital Democracy at Maastricht University. Her research lies at the intersection of platform regulation and fundamental rights. Valentina’s PhD thesis addressed the interplay between algorithmic content moderation, the regulation of digital services in the EU, and freedom of expression online. At the moment, Valentina is pursuing research projects on the legal approaches to countering disinformation and strategic litigation in the field of digital rights.

The Identity of the EU Legal Order as a “Shield” for Judicial Independence in the (Polish) Rule of Law Crisis

By Maciej Taborowski. This contribution takes a closer look at how the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has shaped the value of rule of law as the “very identity of the EU legal order”, and how it has used the rule of law to build a “shield” that serves as a defense for national judges against interference with their independence on the basis of the principle of effective judicial protection. Such a “shield” is particularly useful in those EU Member States where there is an ongoing rule of law crisis, such as Poland.