On 23 June, the special committee of the European Parliament on the European Democracy Shield (EUDS) confirmed its report on the Shield initiative. The report, initially drafted by MEP Thomas Tobé (EPP), underwent a thorough amendment procedure resulting in a significantly strengthened document.
Along with other members of the civil society coordination group on the Shield, coordinated by EPD, we advocated for a series of amendments, which has led to some important shifts in favour of democratic resilience.
Overall, the report calls on the EUDS to be more ambitious and stresses that soft policy measures are insufficient to address the challenges democracy faces. In order to strengthen the agenda, a broad series of concrete recommendations have been made by the committee – many of which are in line with recommendations from the democracy support community.
This overview aims to highlight some of the key formulations and proposals that are in line with the demands of the democracy support community. Its length indicates an acknowledgement of the expertise of civil society in the field of democratic resilience.
Given the density of the report, it is difficult to provide a full overview of its content. Nevertheless, this explainer aims to answer the question: what notable changes did the report go through?
Civil society
The report further strengthened its support for civil society, acknowledging its central role in defending democracy. It highlights the expertise civil society has in monitoring threats to democracy as well as its experience in countering them directly in a wide range of areas.
Going beyond the initial draft, the report calls for sustainable and diversified funding for civil society, and the mainstreaming of democratic resilience across EU funding programmes. This includes the acknowledgement that basic operational funding needs to be provided in order for civil society to be able to perform its role.
A crucial rephrasing was approved regarding the transparency of civil society funding, removing the sole focus on civil society and instead calling for the transparency of funding for various interest representation activities.
Additionally, the report underlines that Member States should ensure that compliance with the Directive on third-country representation should not lead to any restriction of fundamental rights, thereby warning against the documented practice of anti-democratic governments implementing foreign agent laws to restrict the activities of civil society.
Digital
The EUDS committee expresses its strong support for the full EU digital acquis, which is an expansion from the draft report which only identified specific legislations. This section of the report systematically outlines many of the challenges that the online environment presents to the information space and democratic resilience more broadly.
Some of the thematic areas receiving further scrutiny are:
- The systemic risk that engagement-based recommender systems pose to civic discourse and electoral processes, referencing evidence that current recommender systems have the ability to amplify divisive, polarising, or misleading content, and thereby fuel the proliferation of disinformation. It also addresses the ability of owners/shareholders to manipulate algorithms and distort the information environment, with political consequences.
- The report proposes to include the option of non-personalised feeds
- The ability of inauthentic activity and inauthentic content to create the illusion of public support. The report includes an impressive list of possible manipulation techniques that are proliferating at an exponential rate.
- Calls for the transparency of actors behind online content without abolishing anonymity online, which is of great importance for activists, investigative journalists, and human rights defenders, among others.
- The need to assess the role of online influencers in democratic debate
- Proposes the establishment of a framework similar to journalistic standards, which influencers should adhere to
- Stresses the need for transparency on remuneration flows, platform-facilitated funding and sponsorship arrangements
- Expresses support to expand Europe’s tech sovereignty. Warns against the current dependence on non-EU tech, and the US digital infrastructure in particular, which poses a risk to democracy, freedom, security and competitiveness in the EU.
- Supports the development of ‘value-driven’ EU alternatives to dominant online platforms
- Calls for increased investment in secure, interoperable and resilient information-sharing systems and local data centres
- The need for transparency on monetisation practices if the EU is to succeed in its goal of demonetising disinformation
- Proposes for platforms to disclose remuneration flows publicly, at the very least on an annual basis
- Stresses the need for corrective action in the case of wrongful suspensions that can affect the income of vulnerable media outlets
Media resilience/freedom of expression
Although the draft report already contained supportive language regarding independent media and freedom of expression, this was further strengthened in the final version of the report.
The report unequivocally states that safeguarding the media sector from political, economic, or structural capture is a precondition for ensuring democratic resilience. It also notes that the current digital information environment often places media actors at a disadvantage, as they assume editorial responsibility and public-interest obligations, while online platforms in their role as intermediaries, have no comparable obligations, but generate the bulk of advertising revenue.
Proposals include:
- The need to explore new funding solutions in the face of the funding crisis faced by the European media sector
- The need to protect journalists from illegal spyware
- To ensure that engagement-driven recommender systems do not circumvent independent media, and direct their audience towards AI-based search features
- Prevent malicious actors from monetizing disinformation
- Stresses the need for core funding for media and fact-checkers under the Global Europe programme
- Acknowledging the interaction between domestic information manipulation and FIMI. The two are greatly interlinked and fighting FIMI cannot succeed without addressing domestic drivers of disinformation.
The report further highlights that freedom of expression extends to humans, not machines or software. As such, AI slop and inauthentic content activity cannot and should not be protected by this right. It also reminds that VLOPSEs have a joint responsibility to respect and safeguard the freedom of expression, in part by conducting robust risk assessments and mitigation.
European Centre for Democratic Resilience
While the ECDR was already launched in February 2026, many questions remain about its structure and governance. The EUDS report proposes that the Centre be established by a legal act as a structurally autonomous EU entity in order to ensure its continued functioning beyond this Commission’s mandate.
Other proposals include:
- To contribute to the development of clear EU definitions on the various elements of democratic resilience
- For civil society to be included in the development of the Centre’s mandate, and to provide clarity on the Stakeholder Platform, which should form part of the ECDR
- The possibility of applying the polluter pays principle to entities/organisations whose operations negatively affect the information space. Through this model, the ECDR’s budget could be increased.
- To include EP representatives in the Centre’s governance structure and ensure it reports to the EP regularly
External dimension
The integration of candidate countries has been woven into the report in its entirety. The Commission’s Shield communication marked a notable positive departure from previous practices by involving EU candidate countries across the initiative, thereby recognising that many of the threats facing democratic resilience are shared across the continent and are of an inherent cross-border nature. While the EP’s draft report did not initially follow this approach, this has been significantly improved in the final version, including in the areas of election management, media support, digital alignment, civil society protection and the respect of the rule of law. It also calls for a differentiated and context-sensitive implementation of the Shield in different candidate countries, based on their individual commitment to democracy and democratic resilience. This is something EPD and its partners have advocated for strongly and are pleased to see reflected in the report.
The report further challenges the removal of thematic programmes from the Global Europe programme within the current MFF proposal, particularly those focused on Human Rights, Democracy, and Civil Society.
Next steps
The report confirmed by the EUDS committee presents a strong political push for further action to protect democracy and strengthen democratic resilience across Europe and beyond. It currently awaits approval by the European Parliament plenary session in September.
From the perspective of a democracy support practitioner, this report presents a robust and necessary addition to the Commission’s democracy support agenda, reflecting many of the calls from civil society organisations ever since the communication was first published.
