EU Elections: new rules to prevent breaches of data used to influence elections

A proposal introducing penalties on European political parties deliberately breaching data protection to tamper with EU² elections was informally agreed on Wednesday.

The new provisions agreed by Parliament¹ and Council³ negotiators are aimed at protecting the electoral process from online disinformation campaigns based on misuse of voters' personal data. Some recent cases, like the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal, show how the vulnerabilities of data protection systems may undermine democratic debate and free elections.

A few months before the European elections, Parliament and Council negotiators have agreed on a draft law that would introduce financial sanctions on European political parties or foundations that infringe data protection rules deliberately to influence or attempt to influence the outcome of European elections.

In practice, once a national supervisory authority decides that such an infringement has occurred, and when the Authority for European political parties and foundations is informed about this decision, the latter can trigger the verification procedure, which can lead to a financial penalty being imposed.

Next steps

The deal concluded by the negotiators will have to be backed by the Constitutional Affairs Committee (on 29 January) and the Parliament as a whole (in March) as well as by Council before it can enter into force. The regulation⁴ will be binding and directly applicable in all member states on the day of its publication in the EU Official Journal.

Background

The procedure for the elections to the European Parliament is governed by the national provisions of each member state. In addition, European political parties will also organise their own campaigns at European level. One of their purposes is to promote the lead candidates’ process for the election of the European Commission⁵ President.

The European Commission put forward the proposal as part of a package focusing on free and fair European elections, as announced in the last State of the Union speech. The new provisions amend the 2014 regulation on the statute and funding of European political parties and European political foundations.

• 1. 

  The European Parliament is the EU's law-making body. It is directly elected by EU voters every 5 years.
  What does the Parliament do?
  The Parliament has 3 main roles:
  Legislative
   
• 2. 

  De Europese Unie (EU) is het belangrijkste samenwerkingsverband in Europa. De deelnemende landen hebben voor deze Unie een aantal organisaties opgericht waaraan zij een deel van hun eigen bevoegdheden hebben overgedragen. Dit zijn onder meer het Europees Parlement, de Europese Commissie, de Raad en het Europese Hof van Justitie.
   
• 3. 

  In the Council, government ministers from each EU country meet to discuss, amend and adopt laws, and coordinate policies. The ministers have the authority to commit their governments to the actions agreed on in the meetings.
  Together with the European Parliament , the Council is the main decision-making body of the EU.
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• 4. 

  This legally binding act of the European Union is directly applicable in all member states of the European Union. The regulation is similar to national legislation in terms of the impact and direct effect it generates. As such the regulation is the most pervasive of all the legal instruments of the EU.
   
• 5. 

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