Next year, several EU countries representing more than half of the EU population are due to hold national elections by direct popular vote: Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, and Spain.
Considering today’s geopolitical upheavals and recalibrations of the international alliances, it would hardly be an exaggeration to assume that foreign interference will mark the conduct of the elections in all of the above-mentioned countries.
Seen from this point of view, the 2027 elections in the EU will become a stress test for the EU initiatives to counter foreign political meddling.
In recent years, Brussels recognised several countries as sources of foreign interference in political processes in the EU – Russia, China, Azerbaijan, Iran, and North Korea – but the EU’s flagship project that explores so-called “Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference” (FIMI), EUvsDisinfo, prominently lists only two “threat actors” – Russia and China.
Russia has indeed been involved in information warfare against the EU, especially since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 trying to reduce Western support for Ukraine and sabotage Western unity.
