With the American transition of power bringing the fight for national sovereignty and national security into the foreground of global conversations once again, it is important to have a retrospective look at how this conversation unfolded between Hungary and the European Union, when the Hungarian Parliament adopted the Law on the Protection of National Sovereignty in 2023. In its preamble it mentioned that that the adoption of the law was also justified by existence of the INGE Committee of the European Parliament. Others, like Márton Sulyok have already written about the context of the Hungarian law in terms of theory and practice on this blog, drawing on American parallels. In this paper, I will try to show how the European Union defends its own sovereignty against external influences.

The European Union’s defence of sovereignty

Right at the outset, it is important to state that the European Union has no sovereignty of its own because it has received its power (as conferred) from the Member States. The Member States exercise their sovereignty collectively through the EU institutions, thus the sovereignty concept used in international law only applies to the states and not the integration.

Consequently, the protection of sovereignty is the exclusive responsibility of the Member States, where the EU has no competence. Nevertheless, the European Union cannot remain inactive, because not only in Hungary, but also in Romania the elections were alleged to have been influenced from outside. In such case when a Member State’s internal democratic processes and political life is influenced by foreign actors, the European Union’s operation cannot be completely independent of this context. Thus, the question arises, what the EU can do to ensure that the Member States retain their autonomy, and that its own operation itself is free from external influence?

EU action against foreign interference

The European Parliament has been concerned with foreign interference for a while. A special parliamentary committee has been set up to deal with this issue: the Special Committee on foreign interference in all democratic processes in the EU, including disinformation, or INGE for short. INGE dealt with foreign interference threatening either EU or national elections, through disinformation, cyber-attacks or other forms of financing.

INGE has carried out several studies on the EU’s vulnerabilities. One of the studies describes how foreign money is destabilising democracy in the EU and points out that foreign funding is a long-established means of interfering in the politics of a state. It cites the BREXIT campaign, for example, in which right-wing parties were funded from Russian financial resources. The study points out that the foreign funding of political parties is not banned in all member states, but this does not solve everything anyway, because NGOs and think-tank organisations are also funded from abroad and intervene in politics. (The current American polemics about disbanding the USAID also inform this discussion on a global scale.)

The above-cited EU publication focuses mainly on Russian and Chinese influence and the document shows that these states have 7 different ways of gaining influence in a member state, such as:

• in-kind contributions, that is intangible or difficult-to-value benefits for political campaigns;
• straw donors with domestic citizenship or covert agents;
• shell companies and businesses;
• non-profit organizations, which are not required to disclose the identity of their donors;
• online political advertisements, whose regulation is generally looser than that of print and broadcasting media;
• media outlets funded or supported from abroad;
• emerging technologies, such as cryptocurrencies and cashless payments, offering anonymity

INGE has proposed in the publication that there should be a regulation in the member states concerning foreign funding of political parties. Closer cooperation between the EU and Member State institutions at both the horizontal and vertical levels has also been recommended along with actions to be taken by the competent bodies against foreign influence in other ways, i.e. not only through funding.

In terms of funding, the report urged that EU parties should only receive EU public funding, and that the Authority for European Political Parties and European Political Foundations should be strengthened to monitor this. On this basis, parties standing for election to the EP should only receive campaign funds from the EU, thus avoiding that foreign money is used to promote other interests in EP parties.

It is important to point out that the system is similar in Hungary under the national regulatory framework, so parties in Hungary cannot accept foreign funding from abroad and it is also forbidden to accept money from businesses.

In a further study, INGE explained other ways in which both the EU institutions and the Member States should act against foreign interference, such as disinformation, as mentioned in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russo-Ukrainian war.

In yet another study, INGE also explained which critical or strategic infrastructures can be used to influence the European Union and which should be given greater emphasis in terms of protections.

The Committee’s work demonstrates that the protection of sovereignty, i.e. decision-making or operation free from interference, is not only possible through foreign funding, and that in order for a state or an international organisation to remain independent, it must take steps to preserve its sovereignty and decision-making authority in a number of other areas. Nowadays, sovereignty also comes up in many contexts, such as economic, digital, military or energy sovereignty. It is understandable why the Committee is so broadly concerned with foreign intervention.

Lobbying rules in the European Union

The European Union has been trying to increase transparency and immunity from outside influence, which it is trying to achieve by keeping a transparency register, i.e. a database of interest representatives (organisations, associations, groups, and self-employed individuals) who are active in influencing EU policy and decision-making.

The Register aims to show the public who represents what interests at the EU level, on what mandate and with what resources (e.g. financial support, donations, sponsorship) in the form of a public web platform where interest representatives register up-to-date information on their activities at the EU level. A Code of Conduct, which sets out the rules for contacts between interest representatives and the EU institutions, and a complaints mechanism in case a registered interest representative is perceived not to have respected the Code of Conduct are also in place.

As it can be seen, lobbyists have been given leeway here to ensure that their transparency prevents otherwise permissible forms of lobbying from being exploited by third countries for their own benefit, which could harm EU interests. In fact, with this legislation, the EU has presumably tried to implement an analogue of the American FARA Act to ensure that lobbyists are properly regulated, as this can also give third countries a great deal of leverage. (Márton Sulyok argued for the Hungarian regulatory pattern’s analogies with the American solution here.)

A possible European narrative

In my point of view, the European Union cannot stand idly by, and neither can the Member States to defend their sovereignty. Foreign interventions, as you can see, are becoming more and more frequent, and it is not only in the interest of Member States, but also that of the EU to defend the independence of EU members. The problem is, of course, that there are also political interests behind the foreign influence, which makes it increasingly difficult to judge certain situations objectively. INGE also alluded to this when concluding that money coming from several countries has ultimately been used to exert political influence, but only certain countries have been singled out by the EP Committee in their findings.

A further problem is that the concept of sovereignty, which is primarily a legal concept, is becoming increasingly political, and it is therefore important that the protection of sovereignty should remain exclusively within the field of law throughout the EU, including the rules for its protection. The protection of sovereignty is just as important for states that have been granted candidate status for EU membership, because this process can be blocked by external influence, as we have seen in the case of Moldova or Georgia. The question arises as to what the European Union should do in such a case, because it is certainly important to take steps from a strategic point of view, but if we look at the competences, there is not very much that the European Union can do on its own.

In this case, therefore, it remains the task of the Member States – as sovereigns – to resolve these issues themsleves, but it would be important if the European Union were also to recognise the importance of protecting not only its Member States, but also its own institutions, from foreign interference.

It is therefore all the more surprising that the mandate of INGE has not been renewed for the 2024-2029 parliamentary term and that there is no longer a special committee to deal with foreign interference in the EP. In my point of view, the EU can do no more than to have a special committee to draw the EP’s attention, through research, to the importance of common solutions that could promote the protection of the sovereignty in and by the Member States. In doing so, it can create a framework within its own competences, but also within the competences of the Member States, so that they are enabled to address this issue and treat it as a priority.

In a broader global context, and besides the examples already cited, protection against external interference has appeared not only in Hungary, but also in the United Kingdom and Singapore, but it is certain that more and more countries will also see that some form of protection is necessary, so it would be useful if the EU could give recommendations to Member States and accession countries on how to approach this issue.

Gergely Kerkovits is a law graduate and PhD student of the Péter Pázmány Catholic University in Budapest. He is writing his doctoral dissertation on the relationship between civil society organisations and the state. His research focuses on freedom of association, sovereignty protection, public consultation, fundamental rights protection in international organisations. He is also a junior researcher of the MCC Public Law Center.