Propastop’s questions are answered by Ave Schank-Lukas, Head of the European Commission Representation in Estonia.
The European Commission recently presented the European Democracy Shield programme. What is its purpose, and what is its budget?
The European Democracy Shield, also known as the Shield, is an initiative of the European Commission with the primary goal of protecting the democratic institutions and practices of the European Union from influence operations by authoritarian states.
The Commission has set three priorities: first, safeguarding the integrity of our information space; second, strengthening institutions; and third, enhancing societal resilience and increasing citizen engagement.
This program does not involve a new budget; its activities will be funded using resources from the current EU budget. For the next long-term budget period from 2028 to 2034, the European Commission made a funding proposal in July, which also includes resources for the Democracy Shield program.
The central institution of the Shield will be the newly established European Centre for Democratic Resilience. What are its tasks and structure?
The European Centre for Democratic Resilience is a new structure that brings together the expertise and resources of EU institutions and member states with the aim of enhancing the EU’s collective capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to threats.
The Centre will be established using existing resources as a link between member states and the European External Action Service (EEAS), in order to avoid additional budgetary costs and to prevent duplication of efforts across different institutions. This means that the core strength of the structure lies in combining the expertise and capabilities of member states, candidate countries, and EU institutions. The plan is to develop a robust and coordinated early warning system to enable rapid response to information operations.
Member states may participate in the Centre’s activities on a voluntary basis. The European Commission envisions the Centre as a flexible structure capable of adapting to evolving threats.
A stakeholder platform will operate within the Centre—who will be involved, and how will they be engaged? Who could represent Estonia there?
In addition to experts from member states and the EU, the Centre will also rely on community networks (civil society organizations, academic institutions, and fact-checkers). These actors will form the platform, which serves as an advisory network of independent and active experts. Several civil society organizations, universities, and think tanks involved in defending democracy would be suitable to represent Estonia.
One of the tasks of the Shield is to protect the European Union’s information space. Who will be responsible for this, and how will it be done?
The Commission will work with the signatories of the Code of Practice on Disinformation and will develop a protocol for incidents and crisis situations to facilitate cooperation between relevant authorities and enable a rapid response to large-scale cross-border information operations.
To strengthen and safeguard the integrity of the information space, a network of fact-checkers operating in all official EU languages and the European Digital Media Observatory will be involved. The Observatory is developing new tools for detecting, analyzing, and monitoring disinformation.
The next task is the protection of free elections. However, elections remain the responsibility of each individual member state. How will the European Commission contribute to this, and is there not a risk of a conflict of interest with the government or a powerful political party in some member states? Even in Estonia, it’s easy to imagine that EKRE, upon hearing of such an initiative, might once again accuse the Commission of stealing our sovereignty.
Although the organization and conduct of elections fall under the responsibility of member states, closer cooperation at the EU level is needed to address shared challenges in this area. For this reason, new support units are being created based on the principle of voluntary participation by member states and primarily to support their efforts. The intention is therefore not to organize or oversee member states’ elections, but rather to offer assistance if desired—for example, to help prevent incidents like the one in Romania. (In December 2024, Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the results of the first round of the presidential election due to a massive hybrid attack by Russia—editor’s note.)
The credibility and independence of elections are also supported by the EU Regulation on Political Advertising, which came into force in October this year. Its aim is to prevent malicious foreign interference in elections and the manipulation of election results. It seeks to prevent information manipulation and to ensure that people can recognize when they are seeing political advertising and understand who paid for it.
Photo: Raigo Pajula
A similar question arises with regard to the Democracy Shield program’s stated goal of strengthening civic and media education in schools across the European Union. In Estonia, media and civic education have already been well established in schools for quite some time—what does the European Commission aim to add to this by creating the Shield?
As part of the Democracy Defense Program, the commission also presented a civil society strategy designed to strengthen civic and media education where there is both the desire and the need. A cohesive and media-literate society helps combat the spread of disinformation and protect democracy.
The civil society strategy can be seen as a network that connects civic organizations, where, for example, Estonian schools collaborate to teach something to foreign schools, or younger people share knowledge with older generations.
Next year, the European Commission will also propose how to develop digital skills and support the teaching of media literacy and civic skills alongside mathematics. In the age of technology, it is essential to focus on AI literacy and critical thinking.
The Shield also aims to protect free media. How can Estonian journalism outlets contribute to the creation of this shield?
Protecting free media is one of the program’s cornerstones. For the program to succeed, the contribution of journalism outlets to its various initiatives is crucial. For example, several community-based platforms (such as the Civil Society Platform and Knowledge Hub on Civic Space) will be launched next year, where NGOs, civil society associations, and media outlets can collaborate daily and share information effectively.
Media outlets can also collaborate with the emerging network of fact-checkers to provide their audiences with the most accurate information possible.
The new Media Resilience Programme supports free journalism and media literacy, aiming to find ways to encourage impactful investments in news media.
The creation of pan-European platforms that make news and information accessible to a broader audience across the EU is also supported. Collaboration between Estonian publications and these platforms is certainly important to inform other European countries about Estonian news and vice versa.
The Shield aims to protect against Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI). Was the possibility of launching counterattacks in the information space of hostile countries discussed as part of the Shield’s creation? After all, it is widely known that the current situation is asymmetrical—democratic countries and the EU have an open and easily vulnerable information space, while authoritarian regimes have tightly closed their information spaces off from external influence.
As the name suggests, the primary goal of the Shield is to protect our people, society, and democracy. Our aim is not to attack anyone but to provide civil society, media, and institutions with the tools to resist attacks, detect information operations as early as possible, and respond to them.
