A Chain is Only as Strong as its Weakest Link

The new European Commission and Parliament will have to focus even more on countering foreign malign influence (FMI) in the upcoming years. GLOBSEC’s most recent policy recommendations package on the topic highlights the need to set up counter-FMI baselines for all EU Member States to enhance joint EU security.

As EU institutions gear up for the election of a new Commission, the threat of foreign malign interference remains ever-present in the context of the war in Ukraine and the crisis in the Middle East.

In February 2024, VIGINUM revealed a structured and coordinated pro-Russian propaganda network operating in France and Ukraine, among others, to present Russia’s role in Ukraine in a positive light and denigrate Ukrainians. In April 2024, Germany arrested the parliamentary aid of Maximilian Krah, a top AfD MEP at the time, for collaborating with Chinese secret services. Another suspected Chinese spy was arrested in Germany as recently as October 2024. While the recent electoral gains of Russia- and China-friendly political forces come largely on the back of anti-migration policies, they are also campaigning for cutting military support to Ukraine to cater to the views of their own electorate. Amidst all these issues, the crisis in the Middle East encouraged Iran further to try turning public opinion in the EU (and the US) against Israel. The severity of internal and external threats to European democracies is also made perfectly clear by Ursula von der Leyen’s Political Guidelines for the new Commission.

In view of these significant threats, the new Commission and Parliament will have to do more on foreign malign influence (FMI), a topic addressed by GLOBSEC’s recent policy recommendations package for the next EU election cycle. One of the EU’s key FMI challenges identified in this package is the lack of unity among the Union’s Member States, both in terms of their political assessment of FMI and the set of measures they have implemented to counter it.  

This creates two issues. First, it can hinder EU-level decision-making that often requires unanimity. This problem is already being tackled by EU institutions, which are finding ways to circumvent vetoes by some states. Relying on actions by “coalitions of the willing” of a smaller group of EU Member States using enhanced cooperation or simply finding ways around vetoes needs to become more common, especially with new governments with far-right and nationalist-populist backing having a seat at the table. With enhanced cooperation, states that are still willing to do more on FMI policies can cooperate more on the topic without reluctant Member States being able to block their progress.

The second problem is that due to the free flow of goods, capital, people and services within the Union, the “weakest link” in terms of countering FIMI can create problems for all others. Case in point: Hungary eased Schengen restrictions for Russian workers to enter the country, which caused concern among its peers for allowing easy access to Russian spies to the Union, although the Hungarian cabinet rejected these concerns.

Commissioner-designate Michael McGrath highlighted the need to bolster the Union’s collective ability to detect, analyze and counter hybrid threats in his written answers to questions by the European Parliament’s relevant committees. To achieve this objective and ensure a basic level of protection against FMI in the entirety of the EU, GLOBSEC recommends the introduction of a new EU reporting cycle similar to the European Semester, aiming to introduce common baselines for all Member States on this topic. In the cycle, the Member States themselves, European Institutions, and relevant third parties (e.g., the Civil Society Platform mentioned in the mission letter of Commissioner-designate Michael McGrath, individual experts, etc.) would jointly set up the first baselines. Then, EU institutions and third parties would assess the progress EU countries made over a year, and recommendations would be made for the further implementation of the baselines. Then, new baselines could be defined by the three groups (states, EU and third parties) if deemed necessary.

This process should, however, start with broad discussions on what the baselines should be. The baselines could consist of guidelines on states’ identification of national security threats, strategic communication activities, education and, particularly, media literacy policies, as well as binding recommendations on compliance with EU or Schengen acquis where relevant.

This way, debates about Hungarian visa laws could be settled in an open, public manner with trackable progress rather than open calls for suspending Hungary’s Schengen membership. Similarly, guidelines could be laid down for welcoming and expelling diplomats from authoritarian states, which would unify EU countries’ reaction to blatant influence operations on their territory by authoritarian powers, which was not the case in 2018 when Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned in the UK (then still an EU member) by Russian agents.

The baselines established with the proposed reporting cycle would not solve all the Union’s FMI-related problems immediately, especially since most of them would be non-binding. However, they would help joint thinking in the EU on counter-FMI policies and encourage some Member States to improve on this topic. And if that happens, the baselines could contribute to enhancing the EU’s “weakest links” and thus improve joint security in the bloc.

But this would still not be enough. The new European Commission and Parliament will have to tackle several other FMI-related challenges. Counter-FMI activities need to be institutionalized further, the budget of institutions working on the problem must be increased substantially, and the EU’s lobbying rules need to be improved as well.

There is certainly a lot to do in the next five years: Europe needs to continue adapting to changing geopolitical circumstances and the ever-evolving hybrid threat landscape. The future of the European Union depends on getting this right.