As elections hinge on online campaigns, the European Commission addresses online political advertising’s transparency through a separate regulation complementing the forthcoming Digital Services Act. Despite progress, VP Jourová’s proposal lacks mandates for ad libraries and certain data use bans.
Today, Vice President and Commissioner for Values and Transparency Jourova presented the European Commission’s proposal for a regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising. Online political advertising is a relatively new phenomenon that has not been thoroughly regulated – a regulatory gap which threatens electoral integrity through voter manipulation, intransparent campaigning and disinformation campaigns, as shown by the Cambridge Analytica scandal and recent whistle-blowers’ testimony. This regulation acts as lex specialis to the Digital Services Act to focus specifically on political advertising online, overcoming the failures of the self-regulatory Code of Practice 1.0. In the last years, we have been following this file closely, pushing for a regulation with a policy dialogue regarding online political ads, a statement on political ads and a lengthy input paper to the European Democracy Action Plan. Here we share our initial reaction to the proposed legislation.
The proposal by the European Commission is a stepping stone towards ensuring fair and transparency online campaigning. The whole-of-value-chain approach that translates on imposing obligations on the whole value chain of political advertising and not only on platforms will make the regulation more effective. Also, leaving most technical details in annexes subject to review in delegated acts makes it future-proof. However, minor additions to the proposal would lead to much greater positive impact in terms of electoral integrity, trust in democracy and protection of fundamental rights. Therefore, we propose to improve this regulation by including:
The success of the regulation will depend to a great extent on:
✅ In the absence of a common definition of political advertising or political advertisement, it is necessary to provide a common definition (Article 2.2) to ensure the effectiveness of this initiative. This will empower national electoral bodies to engage with platforms much more effectively, while still providing space for national variations in national electoral law. The mostly actor-based definition is greatly welcomed, as it covers both political parties and those paid by political parties (for instance influencers) to campaign.
❌ While the regulation is clear on ads by political actors or those advertising on their behalf, we enter murky waters when it comes to issue-ads by CSOs or corporations. The Commission proposes that ads are political if they are “liable to influence the outcome of an election or referendum, a legislative or regulatory process or voting behaviour”. While this detailed list of criteria is a helpful step forward, the definition stands and falls with the mechanisms for identifying an ad as political. If in practice this definition means that platforms may employ a list of ‘political issues’ linked to elections or legislative processes that are automatically marked as political ads, this could unnecessarily restrict fundraising or mobilisation activities of NGOs working on LGBTQ+, migration or climate issues – topics that have typically been controversial around elections. Moreover, the question remains whether such a definition will capture the disinformation and foreign interference campaigns the Commission is targeting.
➡️ Further clarification on the interpretation of when ads are liable to influence elections, referenda, legislative or regulatory processes or voting behaviour is needed to prevent arbitrariness in the enforcement and undue restrictions on public interest campaigners. Detail is lacking on the resources dedicated by platforms – particularly (VLOPs) – to classifying political and commercial ads. This will require human supervision and rapid response to flaggers.
✅ In the absence of a common definition of political advertising or political advertisement, it is necessary to provide a common definition (Article 2.2) to ensure the effectiveness of this initiative. This will empower national electoral bodies to engage with platforms much more effectively, while still providing space for national variations in national electoral law. The mostly actor-based definition is greatly welcomed, as it covers both political parties and those paid by political parties (for instance influencers) to campaign.
❌ While the regulation is clear on ads by political actors or those advertising on their behalf, we enter murky waters when it comes to issue-ads by CSOs or corporations. The Commission proposes that ads are political if they are “liable to influence the outcome of an election or referendum, a legislative or regulatory process or voting behaviour”. While this detailed list of criteria is a helpful step forward, the definition stands and falls with the mechanisms for identifying an ad as political. If in practice this definition means that platforms may employ a list of ‘political issues’ linked to elections or legislative processes that are automatically marked as political ads, this could unnecessarily restrict fundraising or mobilisation activities of NGOs working on LGBTQ+, migration or climate issues – topics that have typically been controversial around elections. Moreover, the question remains whether such a definition will capture the disinformation and foreign interference campaigns the Commission is targeting.
➡️ Further clarification on the interpretation of when ads are liable to influence elections, referenda, legislative or regulatory processes or voting behaviour is needed to prevent arbitrariness in the enforcement and undue restrictions on public interest campaigners. Detail is lacking on the resources dedicated by platforms – particularly (VLOPs) – to classifying political and commercial ads. This will require human supervision and rapid response to flaggers.
✅ The regulation builds upon the GDPR and strengthens its enforcement and compliance. This will be achieved by introducing requirements for targeting, essentially mandating greater transparency in the processing of personal data, and reiterating the ban of the use of special categories of personal data as defined in the GDPR (Art 9). Following the GDPR logic, this ban does not apply when the user data “has given explicit consent to the processing of those personal data for one or more specified purposes”.
❌ Enhanced transparency requirements work well for targeting techniques, but not so much for ‘amplification techniques’ (Article 2.8).
❌ Sufficiently informed and explicit consent to the processing of data – and inferred data in particular – is often missing due to the generalised use of dark patterns. Furthermore, there is evidence of the processing of inferred data aimed at exploiting the vulnerabilities of citizens.
➡️ To address this, we propose a ban on the use of inferred data for all political advertising, as called for by the European Data Protection Board. There is legal basis for prohibiting the use of data for this purpose. Given the particularly pernicious uses of inferred data by platforms to deliver political content – sponsored or not – to users as most recently revealed by Facebook whistle-blower France Haugen, a ban on the use of inferred data in political advertising must be adopted
❓The requirements of “explicit consent” for the processing of special category data for political advertising purposes could be open to interpretation by different political and economic actors. Further clarification on this issue would be needed to enhance legal certainty and protection of fundamental rights.
✅ We welcome the enforcement regime in the proposal. The enforcement regime of the GDPR already in place and the upcoming enforcement regime for online advertising transparency foreseen in the DSA are best suited to enforce the obligations included in this regulation. We also welcome the provision of clear guidelines to Member States on the establishment of sanctions. Since the failure of a single Member State to introduce dissuasive sanctions would emperil the success of the Regulation, these ambitious guidelines are a step in the right direction. Sufficient resources must be allocated to national and European organisations enforcing data protection and online advertising transparency, accounting for the increased workload that this regulation will imply. It must be noted that data protection bodies in particular are reported to be understaffed and underfunded.
❓The success of this legislation will depend on Member States adoption of sanctions in line with the guidelines provided in Article 16 (effective, proportionate and dissuasive in each individual case). As online advertising services are provided on a cross-border basis, it would only take a single Member State not to adopt adequate sanctions to jeopardise the success of the regulation.
Today, Vice President Jourova presented the EU Commission’s proposal for regulating transparency and targeting in online political advertising. This addresses concerns about voter manipulation, intransparent campaigns, and disinformation. The regulation fills the gap in online political advertising regulation, focusing on political ads online and overcoming the limitations of the self-regulatory Code of Practice 1.0. The proposal’s strengths lie in its whole-value-chain approach and future-proofing through annexes. To enhance it, a universal, real-time ad library mandate, a ban on inferred data use, and clearer definitions of influencing ads are proposed. The regulation’s success depends on platform commitment, effective sanctions, and ambitious co-legislation. A common definition of political advertising empowers electoral bodies, while transparency obligations improve accountability. However, real-time transparency and campaign-level oversight are needed. The GDPR-informed regulation enhances data protection, targeting transparency, and compliance.
✅ The proposal by the European Commission is a stepping stone towards ensuring fair and transparency online campaigning. The whole-of-value-chain approach that translates on imposing obligations on the whole value chain of political advertising and not only on platforms will make the regulation more effective. Also, leaving most technical details in annexes subject to review in delegated acts makes it future-proof.
❌ However, minor additions to the proposal would lead to much greater positive impact in terms of electoral integrity, trust in democracy and protection of fundamental
rights.
➡️ Therefore, we propose to improve this regulation by including: A mandate for universal, real-time, comprehensive ad libraries, a ban to the use of inferred data for political advertising; and further clarifying the definition of ads liable to influence a political process.
❓The success of the regulation will depend to a great extent on: The resources devoted to the implementation of the regulation by platforms and very large online platforms (VLOPs) in particular; the introduction of proportionate, dissuasive, and effective sanctions in all
Member States; and the willingness of the co-legislators to be more ambitious than the current proposal.
✅ In the absence of a common definition of political advertising or political advertisement, it is necessary to provide a common definition (Article 2.2) to ensure the effectiveness of this initiative. This will empower national electoral bodies to engage with platforms much more effectively, while still providing space for national variations in national electoral law. The mostly actor-based definition is greatly welcomed, as it covers both political parties and those paid by political parties (for instance influencers) to campaign.
❌ While the regulation is clear on ads by political actors or those advertising on their behalf, we enter murky waters when it comes to issue-ads by CSOs or corporations. The Commission proposes that ads are political if they are “liable to influence the outcome of an election or referendum, a legislative or regulatory process or voting behaviour”. While this detailed list of criteria is a helpful step forward, the definition stands and falls with the mechanisms for identifying an ad as political. If in practice this definition means that platforms may employ a list of ‘political issues’ linked to elections or legislative processes that are automatically marked as political ads, this could unnecessarily restrict fundraising or mobilisation activities of NGOs working on LGBTQ+, migration or climate issues – topics that have typically been controversial around elections. Moreover, the question remains whether such a definition will capture the disinformation and foreign interference campaigns the Commission is targeting.
➡️ Further clarification on the interpretation of when ads are liable to influence elections, referendum, legislative or regulatory processes or voting behaviour is needed to prevent arbitrariness in the enforcement and undue restrictions on public interest campaigners. Detail is lacking on the resources dedicated by platforms – particularly (VLOPs) – to classifying political and commercial ads. This will require human supervision and rapid response to flaggers.
✅ We welcome the introduction of viewer-level transparency obligations beyond the obligations foreseen in the DSA (Articles 13 and 30) under articles 6 and 7. Core information will be provided in the ads and additional information will be available over transparency notices in the ads We believe that this will greatly contribute towards solving a number of issues. Most importantly, citizens will be able to link the ads they see to the actor on whose behalf it is published and its political and sponsored nature, see how much they spent on an ad, why they are targeted with an ad and what data source was used for this targeting, with a link to add libraries for Very Large Online Platforms. The data types provided over transparency notices are subject to be expanded in a delegate act, which might be necessary to respond to fast technological developments.
❌ First, the proposal does not include an obligation for real-time transparency, which is essential in a fast-paced electoral environment. Secondly, the proposal misses a chance to provide meaningful transparency not on individual ads, but on advertising campaigns as a whole, accessible to watchdog CSOs and media. The most egregious violations of electoral rules and ethics in campaigning, as well as disinformation campaigns, involve multiple ads, not a single one. Journalists and CSOs have used existing ad libraries (despite their flaws) for investigations on political campaigning that have exposed harmful practices and malign influence operations. Public scrutiny is key to holding political parties to account at a critical time for democracies, which requires easy, real-time, public access to ad repositories. The lack of campaign-level transparency obligations comes despite the fact that the regulation acknowledges in recital (44) that aggregate data on expenditure in campaigns can contribute to political debate.
➡️ Therefore, as called for by ERGA and multiple consulted stakeholders, we call for a mandate for real-time, comprehensive ad libraries for political ads that would contain all the information listed in Article 7.1, Annex I and Annex II for each and all political ads. Data must be provided in detailed numbers avoiding the use of ranges. This would be much more cost effective than the complex system that results from the combination of Article 7.6, Article 8 and Article 11 for the provision of aggregated data. Technical solutions involving a small one-off cost could be developed to automatically transfer all information shared with the viewer as per Article 7.1, Annex I, Annex II to an ad library. Platforms which are not VLOPs and do not have an obligation to have an ad library as per the DSA, could host information on the ads they have published in libraries of their own, ad libraries of VLOPs or an ad library provided by the European Commission. This mandate would ensure that political actors are held accountable in real time if they exceed expenditure limits of if the contents of their ads is misleading or contradictory.
✅ The regulation builds upon the GDPR and strengthens its enforcement and compliance. This will be achieved by introducing requirements for targeting, essentially mandating greater transparency in the processing of personal data, and reiterating the ban of the use of special categories of personal data as defined in the GDPR (Art 9). Following the GDPR logic, this ban does not apply when the user data “has given explicit consent to the processing of those personal data for one or more specified purposes”.
❌ Enhanced transparency requirements work well for targeting techniques, but not so much for ‘amplification techniques’ (Article 2.8).
– Targeting (addressing a political advertisement only to a specific group of persons) can be made transparent in a meaningful way. The criteria used by publishers at the sponsor’s direct request to target viewers are specific, limited, traceable, and deliberately chosen, so, upon disclosure, individuals can understand these criteria.
– On the contrary, the functioning of amplification techniques, this is, the algorithms used by platforms to optimise the circulation, reach and/or visibility of ads, are inherently immune to meaningful transparency. Platforms’ ad delivery algorithms, which are more powerful and potential pernicious than targeting techniques to determine who sees which specific ad, involve profiling users processing thousands of apparently irrelevant parameters to deliver ads to them in an optimised, profit-driven manner. It cannot be
expected that viewers of an ad will meaningfully understand why and how the platforms’ algorithms delivered ads to them even if the algorithmic process would be made transparent.
❌ Sufficiently informed and explicit consent to the processing of data – and inferred data in particular – is often missing due to the generalised use of dark patterns. Furthermore, there is evidence of the processing of inferred data aimed at exploiting the vulnerabilities of citizens.
➡️ To address this, we propose a ban on the use of inferred data for all political advertising, as called for by the European Data Protection Board. There is legal basis for prohibiting the use of data for this purpose. Given the particularly pernicious uses of inferred data by platforms to deliver political content – sponsored or not – to users as most recently revealed by Facebook whistle-blower France Haugen, a ban on the use of inferred data in political advertising must be adopted.
❓The requirements of “explicit consent” for the processing of special category data for political advertising purposes could be open to interpretation by different political and economic actors. Further clarification on this issue would be needed to enhance legal certainty and protection of fundamental rights.
✅ We welcome the enforcement regime in the proposal. The enforcement regime of the GDPR already in place and the upcoming enforcement regime for online advertising transparency foreseen in the DSA are best suited to enforce the obligations included in this regulation. We also welcome the provision of clear guidelines to Member States on the establishment of sanctions. Since the failure of a single Member State to introduce dissuasive sanctions would emperil the success of the Regulation, these ambitious guidelines are a step in the right direction. Sufficient resources must be allocated to national and European organisations enforcing data protection and online advertising transparency, accounting for the increased workload that this regulation will imply. It must be noted that data protection bodies in particular are reported to be understaffed and underfunded.
❓The success of this legislation will depend on Member States adoption of sanctions in line with the guidelines provided in Article 16 (effective, proportionate and dissuasive in each individual case). As online advertising services are provided on a cross-border basis, it would only take a single Member State not to adopt adequate sanctions to jeopardise the success of the regulation.
With the “policy first” principle recently enshrined as a guiding rule for the programming of EU support under the unified NDICI (Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument), it is time to stop for a moment to consider how policy dialogue works in practice and in what ways it can strengthen EU Delegations in their role of development partners.
Although the term “policy dialogue” has become almost ubiquitous, scarce attention has been paid to its operational implications or to the subtle ways in which it is transforming international cooperation. Such a reflection seems especially timely given the current move towards “geographisation”, a devolution of responsibilities from headquarters to the country level that may increase both EU Delegations’ political clout towards partner governments and the pressure to deliver development outcomes alongside the new EU priorities for external action.
Despite the many challenges ahead, EU Delegations hold a unique position to broker the kind of multistakeholder partnerships needed not only to attain the SDGs, but also to ensure a just transition to greener and digital economies. Such a profound transformation can only be achieved by making policy dialogue more inclusive and participatory so as to base EU support upon domestically owned agendas for reform.
Since 2012, the European Partnership for Democracy has been at the forefront of civil society efforts to make EU policy dialogue more inclusive and participatory through the development of the INSPIRED approach. This paper is based on the experience of the EPD Programmes Team in supporting policy dialogue processes in 20 countries over the last decade.
It draws on lessons from working closely with national authorities and the EU as well as from strengthening the capacities of over 100 CSOs in the use of policy analysis, monitoring tools and dialogue techniques. Engaging meaningfully in policy dialogue requires a healthy dose of common sense and a knack for understanding the sensibilities of different actors. In other words, engaging in policy dialogue makes sense, but it will only yield lasting results if it’s done with sensibility.
Thousands of internal documents from Facebook released by whistleblower Frances Haugen have provided undeniable evidence that Facebook’s engagement-based ranking system is knowingly causing harm to our societies and to vulnerable groups such as children and young girls. Despite this knowledge, Facebook has not taken any action to remedy these harms, consistently prioritising profit at the expense of users’ safety.
In this Joint Statement, Access Now, ARTICLE 19, EPD, and Panoptykon Foundation call upon the Members of the European Parliament to take action and ensure that the Digital Services Act goes to the core of the problem of online platforms’ harmful impact on democratic values and individual wellbeing by democratising recommender systems and preventing further abuses of power.
Among the many factors driving an authoritarian resurgence around the world is a trend of increasing significance: the rise of regimes featuring dominant parties that engage in creeping autocratization. This trend covers a range of countries with different levels of overall democratic quality, from fragile democracies to more repressive regimes. The trend’s common thread is that one party ensconces itself in power and effectively nullifies opposition parties. These dominant-party regimes present especially high-profile and thorny dilemmas for international democracy support in that they can often co-opt programs that offer support to state organs, election commissions, technical bodies, facilitators of intraparty mediation, and members of civil society.
Under the auspices of the European Democracy Hub, Ken Godfrey and Richard Youngs and a group of country experts studied the contours of this trend and the concerns it has raised among democracy practitioners, foundations, and donors about democracy support. The above article draws on and synthesizes the findings of four case studies of different types of dominant-party regimes in Georgia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, and Zimbabwe. This research demonstrates that the dynamics specific to these types of regimes undermine the utility of many traditional forms of support for sound governance and democracy. The democracy support community has begun to respond to this challenge in some places, but the task is becoming more pressing and requires far more systematic policy attention than it has so far received.
This article was written by Ken Godfrey (Executive Director at the European Partnership for Democracy) and Richard Youngs (Senior Fellow Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at Carnegie Europe) for the European Democracy Hub)
Country case studies
With planning for the global summit for democracy well underway, numerous governments and democracy supporters around the world are reflecting on what they would like the summit to achieve. The Biden administration has clearly indicated that they expect concrete commitments to arise from the summit that they will host at the end of 2020, and it seems likely that invitations to the summit will be linked to a set of commitments by participants.
Nevertheless, at present, there is a startling lack of discussion on these potential commitments in the public domain. The impact and success of the summit depends on carefully considered commitments with serious thought about them taking place before, during and after the summit. From our discussions with various government officials and democracy practitioners in recent months, it appears as though many are asking the same questions: What commitments can be made? What commitments do governments want from their peers? How can commitments be followed up?
As a consequence, we have come together as a grouping of democracy support organisations to offer a series of ideas for commitments that would help to make the summit for democracy a success. These are by no means an exhaustive set of ideas, but they offer a menu for governments, civil society and the private sector. We believe all of these potential commitments would be beneficial for democracy around the world.
This “Menu of Commitments” provides guiding principles for establishing commitments for the summit and offers potential commitments for states over several thematic areas such as cooperation at the international level, national structures for supporting democracy, democratic practice, foreign policy and international development, democratic backsliding and autocratisation, digital policy, corruption, and monitoring and follow up. These 41 commitments are intended to spark a conversation and aid decision-makers in ensuring the success of the summit for democracy.
On September 8, Moroccan voters headed to the polls to choose a new parliament. This article explains why these elections were so important, what challenges the new government will have to face, and what we are doing to address some of these challenges.
The September election represented a major shift in Morocco’s political landscape. The moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD), the largest party in power since 2011, suffered a severe defeat, losing 90% of its seats – going from 135 seats to 13. The National Rally of Independents (RNI), a liberal political party led by businessman and agriculture minister Akhannouch, emerged as the clear winner with 102 seats out of 395, followed by Authenticity and Modernity (PAM) with 87 seats and the conservative Istiqlal party with 81 seats.
Despite the difficult circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a high turnout – 50,35 % of registered voters compared to 43 per cent in 2016. This increase can be attributed to the decision to hold legislative, regional and local elections on the same day in an effort to boost participation. Furthermore, a newly introduced voting system changed the way seats are allocated. The number of seats in the House of Representatives is now calculated on the basis of the number of registered voters – whether they have voted or not – rather than the number of votes obtained. This new method of calculation, used in no other country in the world, should make it harder for large parties to gain many seats, to the benefit of the small ones.
While the Moroccan people powerfully shook the political landscape with their ballots, Morocco is a constitutional monarchy in which the palace still holds broad powers. The 2011 constitution devolved many of the monarch’s powers to the parliament and the government, but the King retains the power to nominate the prime minister from the party that wins the majority of seats in parliament and appoints key ministries. Accordingly, on September 10, the King, Mohammad VI, granted the leader of the NRI, Aziz Akhannouch, the mandate to form a new executive for a five-year term.
A new window of opportunity for civil society
The new government’s success will depend on their ability to tackle some of the country’s persistent ills. Among other serious structural challenges – including youth unemployment and the multifaceted consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic – corruption still represents a central issue. The country’s corruption not only has a direct negative impact on its citizens, but it is also a major obstacle to economic development and public services’ efficiency. According to the Trust Index conducted by the Moroccan Institute for Policy Analysis, about 66% of Moroccan citizens believe that the government’s efforts in combating corruption are ineffective.
The new political landscape and the upcoming “new generation of reforms and projects” promoted by an ambitious new development model announced in late May this year, may represent a new window of opportunity for civil society to strengthen its key role in transparency and anti-corruption policies. The Information & Integrity Project, led by EPD in cooperation with Impact for Development (IFD) and Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), will support civil society in this effort by assessing, through an inclusive and participatory analysis process, the effectiveness of transparency policies to identify challenges and gaps. The project will also advance civil society’s anti-corruption efforts by providing digital tools to monitor and evaluate the implementation of these policies in collaboration with public authorities and independent institutions. In this framework, the INSPIRED policy dialogue method, developed by EPD, from 2022 will open up spaces for dynamic discussions between civil society actors and newly elected public authorities to provide a refreshing boost to the existing community working in the area of transparency and facilitate exchanges between like-minded actors.
Photos taken in Rabat during the preparatory workshop on INSPIRED organised by EPD in the framework of the official launch of the Information and Integrity Project in Morocco.
This week EPD was listed among the signatories of two joint civil society statements on the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). One statement issued by 50 CSOs called for the EU to increase the choice, transparency and oversight over recommender algorithms of online platforms. A second statement calls for EU decision-makers to subject online platforms to risk assessments, to counter the proliferation of harmful behaviour such as gender-based violence on online platforms. Here we explain why the DSA matters so much to democracy.
The Digital Services Act – DSA for short – is a piece of EU legislation that aims to regulate online platforms such as Facebook, Google, Tik Tok and Amazon. Following the publishing of the draft legislation by the European Commission in December 2020, the European Parliament and European Council are currently adopting their respective positions on the legislation.
The DSA matters for democracy because it sets the rules over the online platforms we use privately and in public: to connect with friends and family, inform ourselves on issues affecting our lives, consume media and engage in discussions. Four issues in particular are important for regulating our online information space:
As a network of democracy support organisations, we have focused on political advertising on online platforms, with extensive advocacy and research under the Virtual Insanity project. Later this year, the European Commission will publish a legislative proposal regarding online political advertising. While the DSA has the opportunity to tackle systemic challenges in online platforms – such as ad transparency – the regulation of online political advertisements can help ensure political party’s integrity with a more targeted approach focused on political ads. Ahead of the publication of the draft regulation, EPD has provided extensive input through a paper on the European Democracy Action Plan (EDAP), a roundtable organised with the Open Government Partnership, a civil society consultation organised with DG JUST, participation in Vice President Jourova’s expert group on the EDAP, and joint input with our members to the EU’s online consultation.
While the regulation would only deal with platforms inside Europe, its impact will be global. As shown with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the EU can be a global standard setter in the regulation of technology. Moreover, the challenges to democracy from online platforms are not confined to the EU’s external borders. Cambridge analytica was first tested in Kenya, and in Myanmar the proliferation of hate speech on online platforms further spurred the genocide against the Rohingya. The DSA will be essential for setting the global standard for platform regulation and it is high time that democracies enforced principles of transparency and oversight to come to grips with the impact of online platforms on democracy.
As issues concerning the rule of law continue to threaten the fundamental rights of EU citizens, the Commission has released the 2021 Rule of Law Report, offering an overview of the current developments in the Member States. Recognising the key role that civil society and media organisations play in the defence of the EU’s foundational values, the Commission has tried to involve these key actors through a public consultation. However, the Commission’s approach throughout this process has been flawed and has failed to translate into the meaningful involvement of those actors whose voices must be heard. As a result, a coalition of civil society organisations and networks representing 61 organisations have united to offer recommendations for the Commission on how it can improve the credibility, inclusiveness and impact of the Rule of Law Report.
In this joint statement, the Commission is asked to first, adopt a clear, more inclusive and transparent methodology for non-governmental participation and to allow a more fair and reasonable time frame for this to take place. Secondly, it is advanced that the Report should consider all rule of law issues, including largely neglected issues such as the situation of public service media, civic space, and the widespread and systematic violations of fundamental rights. Lastly, the statement calls upon the Commission to strengthen the potential for impact of the report with concrete recommendations, clear linkages with other EU frameworks and policy instruments, an alert mechanism, and transparent dialogue on follow-up.
Civil society, media actors and other non-governmental stakeholders have shown a deep interest in engaging and contributing to the rule of law consultation, allocating staff and resources into making extensive submissions. However, this input has not been satisfactorily reflected in the Report and, as the statement recalls, “reform is needed to make the mechanism credible and effective, and indeed make it a preventive tool, with the real power to strengthen the rule of law and prevent challenges from emerging or deteriorating.” Accordingly, the Commission is asked to swiftly and fully implement the recommendations in this statement. The rule of law crisis continues to be a salient challenge for advocates of democracy and human rights across the EU, and the voices of non-governmental stakeholders will prove essential to its defence.
