Athens, 9 November 2021

Meeting of European Parliament Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the EU

A meeting of the Special Committee of the European Parliament on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation was held today in Brussels, with the participation of representatives from National Parliaments. The Hellenic Parliament was represented via remote participation by Athanassios Lioutas and Andreas Nikolakopoulos, members of the National Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee. The issue on the agenda was “Responding to Foreign Interference in Cooperation with Like-Minded Democracies”.

Mr Nikolakopoulos first referred to the values that form an integral part of the European way of life and which the member states share, and which have to do with human dignity, liberty, equality, solidarity, respect for human rights and, of course, democracy and the rule of law. He noted, however, that there have been several cases of foreign intervention in various processes, interventions that are trying to violate these values, either for small-scale profit, e.g. in trade or the economy, or for internal reasons, taking advantage of political developments in the EU or in some cases helping political allies get elected. The Greek MP went on to say that addressing this problem requires a common strategy and stronger tools to fight against any external intervention and added that it is necessary to develop an early warning system in every country, in order to immediately detect foreign interventions, and to develop an appropriate legal framework that will lay down the rules of conduct, especially for news websites.

 

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