The European Commission is pressing ahead with plans for a new law modelled on the US Foreign Agents Act in a bid to tackle Russian and Chinese influence amid warnings that the draft bill could end up hitting civil society groups more than foreign regimes.
Though insisting that the new law will not be a ‘Foreign Agents Act’, a Commission official told Euractiv that the draft law is designed to “protect our democracies by imposing transparency obligations on funds or links to third countries on entities seeking to impact public opinion and the democratic sphere”.
“Looking at the actions of the Kremlin and other third-country actors, we should not be naïve. It is high time to bring covert foreign influence and shady funding to light,” the official added.
The initiative is viewed as being part of the response to the Qatargate corruption scandal that broke out in December 2022, while Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised to address Russian and Chinese influence in the EU political space in her State of the European Union speech in September.
DG Justice has been tasked with preparing a draft directive and is close to concluding an impact assessment, with the law expected to be published in November, Euractiv understands.
The launch of the bill, which forms part of the EU executive’s Defence of Democracy package, had initially been planned for the second quarter of 2023, but a backlash from civil society groups pushed the Commission to conduct a thorough impact assessment, delaying the proposal.
This delay leaves a very narrow window for the legislation to be adopted by the European Parliament and national ministers, and insiders warn that unless the draft directive is narrowly focused, it has little chance of being concluded before next June’s EU elections.
There are also concerns that an ambitious directive – which gives some flexibility to national governments when implementing it – could allow some governments to twist the purpose of the law to target NGOs.
The law is set to be based on the United States Foreign Agents Registration Act initially adopted in 1938, designed to limit the influence of foreign governments and foreign propaganda in the US, which requires lobbying firms and NGOs to report their funding and work with ‘foreign agents’.
Civil society campaigners in the United States have argued for years that its Foreign Agents Registration Act’s broad definition of “foreign principal”, which covers foreign governments, individuals, foundations, nonprofits and companies, has imposed bigger reporting requirements on NGOs than on the likes of Huawei and Gazprom.
“If the Commission wants to tackle influence threats to democracy in the EU, they should cast the net wide, and require more transparency and financial disclosures for all interest representatives, foreign-funded or not,” Nick Aiossa, Deputy Director of Transparency International EU, told Euractiv.
“Lobby registers already exist at a Union level and in Member States like France and Germany, that have crucial data on who is paying for influencing policy. The Commission should seek inspiration from these examples,” he added.
Universal lobbying registers
An EU law that goes beyond harmonising the reporting requirements for national lobbying registers would be open to being used to target political opponents, civil society groups warn.
Instead, civil society groups have recommended that the bill focus on non-EU and EU lobbying activities by establishing mandatory lobby transparency registries in each member state.
In Hungary, civil society and academics say that rules on foreign funding of NGOs have been used by Viktor Orban’s Fidesz government to crack down on NGOs that promote democratic and academic freedom and groups promoting LGBTQ+ rights. Meanwhile, EU candidate country Georgia scrapped its Foreign Agents Act in March following international criticism.
“We recommend against a directive that narrowly targets covert interference by third country governments. This would be a risky tool with likely negative impacts for civic space”, Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) wrote in response to the European Commission’s public consultation.
CEO is also urging the Commission to reform its own EU Transparency Register, which records lobbying activities in the EU institutions. Though it is obligatory to disclose lobbying on behalf of third-country governments, they say the current register contains very few such entries.
‘The Register is not legally binding, lacks sanctions and is poorly enforced’, CEO stated.
(Benjamin Fox & Max Griera | Euractiv.com)
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Source: euractiv.com
