14
Dec
2022
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Defending democracy from foreign interference (debate)
Mr President, I do not know whether for us it will be like the works of Heracles, to which Raphaël Glucksmann referred. What is certain is that I agree with him: Interference and corruption are the cancers of our democracies. Parliament, together with Qatargate, is paying for it today. Yes, this House has done a huge job since 2019 – I am thinking for example of the Digital Services Act – but this scandal shows that we need to do much more and much better to preserve the integrity of our liberal democracies in the face of any form of interference, whether from Russia, China or the Gulf countries. In the immediate term, it is essential to introduce new measures to ensure the transparency of our institution and to better defend our democratic processes. Promptly adopting, for example, the regulation on political advertising would probably go in that direction. However, we also need to look at where our vulnerabilities really are, because sometimes they are where we don't think they are. Sport, for example, has become a place of interference, political influence, corruption and violation of European law. Qatargate is an example of this, and here too it is time for the EU to fully assume all its responsibilities.