The European Parliament urges Belgium to review its fight against EU espionage
The kingdom, which is home to many European institutions in Brussels, is the only named country cited for this imperative in the final report of the special committee on foreign interference and disinformation, adopted on Wednesday by 552 votes for, 81 against and 60 abstentions. But the remark also applies to the other Member States which host EU institutions and agencies, as well as to the latter.
MEPs are calling for an in-depth investigation into reported cases of foreign infiltration among the staff of EU institutions, as well as a review of recruitment procedures or access controls to premises and confidential meetings.
This is only one aspect of the multiple recommendations of this commission set up in 2020, and which points the finger at European public opinion and government officials, guilty of a “flagrant lack of awareness”. the seriousness of the threat posed by foreign autocratic regimes, notably Russia and China.
This lack of defense has made it easier for malicious actors to take control of critical infrastructure, carry out cyberattacks, recruit former high-level politicians and contribute to the polarization of public debate, said the president of the Commission, French MEP Raphaël Glucksmann (S&D).
He recalls in particular that a daughter of Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov was able to train as an MEP (far right, in 2019) and have access to all the information from the “security and defense” committee of the European Parliament. “There is an absolutely staggering ease of penetration, and this is also true in the Commission and the Council and even in the European security services”.
In his view, this lack of security culture is due in particular to the fact that the European institutions, still young, developed in the 1970s and 1980s, “at a time when we were convinced that we had no no enemies”. “And so, what is called the ‘Brussels bubble’ has been bathed in the myth of the ‘end of history’, explains Mr. Glucksmann, interviewed by Belga. Of course, we cannot ask Belgium alone to “To ensure this security, it is above all the European institutions which must develop a culture of security within them.”
The report denounces the recruitment of former senior European officials by companies and authorities of authoritarian states, such as the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (Gazprom, Russian energy giant) or the former Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme (Tojoy, fund Chinese investment). The latter had reacted to the Flemish daily ‘De Standaard’ by qualifying this quote as “stupidity” motivated by a concern for balance between the political groups. He claims to have never been approached by the Chinese government and assures that the investment fund is private.
The report also cites examples of good practice, such as the decision of many universities to end their cooperation with Confucius Institutes due to the risks of Chinese espionage and interference, such as the universities of Düsseldorf in 2016, from Brussels (VUB and ULB) in 2019, from Hamburg in 2020, and from all universities in Sweden.
A new “interference and disinformation” commission will take over from the special commission. It will take on another dimension with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the EU banning Russian media RT and Sputnik. To those who regret an attack on the freedom of opinion and of the press, Mr. Glucksmann replies that these agents of a totalitarian regime “who attack our democracies cannot be qualified as independent media”. “It doesn’t matter if you think the Earth is flat, but if a foreign government tries to convince millions of my fellow citizens that the Earth is flat, then that becomes a problem.”
For MEPs, the EU should strengthen its capacities and create a system of sanctions against disinformation. The European Commission should come up with a multi-layered and cross-sector strategy aimed at equipping the EU and its member states with deterrent tools to deal with hybrid threats and attacks orchestrated by foreign countries, according to the Latvian MEP and former minister of Foreign Affairs Sandra Kalniete (EPP), author of the report.
“While two years ago disinformation and foreign interference were abstract terms, today we can see the direct effect of malicious and coordinated disinformation. People refuse to protect themselves with certified vaccines, resulting in excessive hospitalizations and countless preventable deaths,” she said.