The EU interfering directly with domestic politics of member states by for example banning political parties would, safe to say, not be well received.
Leyen is completely correct, and for sure the EU needs to work to build resistance in Europe against foreign propaganda, but it's not so straightforward for the EU to intervene in these things. It remains the responsibility of the individual member states, and one might reasonably argue it is better left that way.
That said, when the EU considers banning vectors of foreign surveillance, that is one thing that they can do and that they seem to consider. It's just a fine line between taking action and overstepping. European countries tend to cling to some degree of sovereignity, especially in questions of national security.
Antidemocratic bad actors can't take part in a democracy (if the current system could be even called that with its flaws). It's not about banning parties (or opinions as they like to frame it). There's an apparent lack of safety mechanisms to prevent abuse
But the way Europe works today, that's a national issue.
Hungary and Poland had weak constitutions and lacked democratic guarantees because their constitutions were designed to be subject to change; the idea was that democratically elected officials would draft new and better conditions after a transition period, rather than having the communist parties at the table when drafting them. Unfortunately, the social democrats never bothered to change the constitution, leaving them unchanged until far right parties came to power.
In Italy there's a long tradition of election reforms from far right parties, and their politics has always been a mess. Italy has always worked in spite of, not thanks to, its political leadership, so having a de facto MSI member back in power is not such a radical change.
And bad actors have always taken part in democracy, people just need to have access to education and information to make them not vote for the Le Pens, Farages, Berlisconis, Melonis, and Orbans out there. They should be kept from controlling the media (like Berlusconi), and we need to do better to prevent foreign interference, but we cannot prevent them from participating.
Ideally yes, education would be enough, but as these systems lack national and EU level safeties, education is being dismantled and information warfare has a greater efficiency. There's no time to rely that people will self correct just by improving their knowledge, people generally don't have a motive for being informed when they're trying to survive.
Yeah, and social media makes them good subjects to foreign propaganda as they get older and they get more vulnerable. Education can only achieve so much.
I think there is absolutely a need to better regulate both traditional and social media. The EU is better positioned it the latter in the short term, and I think they're doing a decent job lately.
And for sure, there are many other areas where the EU could hypothetically play an important role. It's just that it cannot just decide to give itself the authority to do so, and if it did that would constitute a democratic problem of comparable magnitude. So I think we need to go to the national level to find politicians to criticise for not doing enough in this regard.
The EU interfering directly with domestic politics of member states by for example banning political parties would, safe to say, not be well received.
There's so much you can do below the level of banning political parties though. For example, centralisation of control over media organisations could be combated, local governments could be prevented from interfering with the independence of the judiciary, anti-surveillance measures as you mentioned, etc.
There's definitely the possibility to overstep, but I don't think the line between that and taking literally any action at all is as thin as you mention.
For sure, but even then the EU needs to go through the democratic process it has in place. If you try to introduce a law guaranteeing press freedom it'll be vetoed by Hungary.
The question then becomes how much you can achieve with the laws on the books. Traditionally cases will be brought before the Court of Justice, which will then have to decide if it can or should interpret existing laws in an expansive manner in order to cover whatever issue is in front of them. Judicial independence in Poland is a good recent example.
While the Court of Justice could introduce democratic safeguards this way, there's also a certain irony to having democratic safeguards imposed by a supranational organ of 27 judges nobody knows with minimal democratic legitimacy. If the Court of Justice oversteps there's also no guarantee the affected member states will accept its authority, and enforcement mechanisms are limited.
The Court of Justice has generally been pretty successful of pushing an integrationist agenda, but it's only so much it can (and should) do. And if the political organs are deadlocked, the EU is basically a lame duck by design.
For sure, but even then the EU needs to go through the democratic process it has in place.
Oh absolutely, I don't think anyone's arguing for sending an army to Hungary or something.
The question is indeed how much can practically be done. However, it's not like Hungary can unilaterally veto everything without consequences - they (or Fidesz specifically, I suppose) still have their own list of things they want to get done, and thus there's room for negotiation.
Not at all. New laws would have to be passed, which would need to be approved by the Council and Parliament.
It would be pretty far-fetched considering the current scope of the Union, and it's a political mine field with a not too obvious pay-off. It might, however, be necessary if there are developments towards an European defence pact.
What would be within the scope of the EU is to make the standards for entrance stricter, but this wouldn't really affect the countries already in the Union or prevent backsliding.
Von der Leyen is seeking a second five-year term leading the commission, in the looming reshuffle of EU top jobs that follows the European elections.
At a debate in Maastricht on Monday with rivals from across the political spectrum, von der Leyen went on the attack against the far-right Identity and Democracy group in the European parliament, which unites France’s National Rally, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the Danish People’s party.
The ID group is expected to make significant gains in the pan-European vote on 6-9 June and could even become the third largest force, threatening key EU policies such as support for Ukraine, climate action and enlargement.
While eight candidates taking part in the debate have declared an interest in leading the European Commission, von der Leyen is the only one with a serious shot at the job.
In an attempt to wrest control over that appointment, the European parliament favours the so-called spitzenkandidaten system, where Europe’s political parties present their choices to lead the EU executive.
In 2019 at the behest of France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, EU leaders side-stepped the spitzenkandidaten process, passing over the EPP’s victorious lead candidate Manfred Weber, in favour of von der Leyen, who had not taken part in any of the pre-election debates or even declared herself interested in the job.
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