The Romanian government is being accused of censorship ahead of a presidential election this Sunday — and not by the MAGA-loving right-wing crowd normally clamoring about free speech. Liberal civil society groups and centrist politicians say draconian online content laws rushed through to counter Russian disinformation after November’s canceled poll have prevented normal people from having their say on social media. According to a review of social media posts, supporters of far-right front-runner George Simion are among those targeted. Last year’s presidential election was controversially canceled after what authorities deemed to be major Russian election interference in support of ultranationalist candidate Călin Georgescu. With Georgescu banned from standing in this month’s rerun, 38-year-old nationalist Simion is in the lead after the first round but polls have shown the gap to the moderate candidate Nicușor Dan narrowing significantly for Sunday’s decisive vote. Elena Calistru, president and co-founder of local non-profit Funky Citizens, which monitors disinformation, said that the implementation of measures passed by the Romanian authorities is failing to meet the bar for electoral objectivity.  The criticisms center on emergency regulations rushed through in January that are considered too far-reaching and punitive, with regular voters unfairly considered as “political actors,” platforms required to take down content within five hours, and the risk of fines of more than half an average yearly salary. Over 4,000 content-removal orders have been given since April 4, most of them for TikTok. Neither Romania’s Permanent Electoral Authority nor the Central Electoral Bureau responded to a request for comment. “The authorities failed big time in November and they want tools to solve some of this behavior,” said Septimius Parvu, who coordinates the elections program at the local non-profit Expert Forum, which fights for transparency and accountability.  The Central Electoral Bureau “has to follow tens of complaints daily” and “some of their decisions are controversial, as the institution ordered that content which should not be labeled as political advertising to be removed,” he said. Dan Barna, a Romanian center-right lawmaker in the European Parliament, last month wrote to the Commission to raise concerns about the election bureau “censoring private citizens’ free speech,” citing the removal of posts “under the pretence” that users are political actors. If emergency rules mean “regular private citizens, not related to any political affiliation or nothing” are seeing their posts banned, it’s a “Kafka”-esque story, Barna said in an interview.  “I’m really afraid that if there are too many abusive deletions or if we have too many court decisions [overturning them] afterwards,” this election could fuel far-right criticisms of legitimate efforts to protect against illegal content online such as hate speech, he said. With Călin Georgescu banned from standing in this month’s rerun, 38-year-old nationalist George Simion is in the lead after the first round but polls have shown the gap to the moderate candidate Nicușor Dan narrowing significantly for Sunday’s decisive vote. | Robert Ghement/EFE via EPA One of the videos the bureau has demanded be taken down shows a man in his living room clapping to the sound of pop music with the caption “Clap if you want to come home too, clap for GS and CG,” referring to George Simion and Călin Georgescu. The man, who has 148 followers, mostly shares content about a child who appears to be his daughter. Several videos that POLITICO reviewed showed influencers of various types posting content supporting Simion. Some come from local politicians and accounts that could be bots.  According to the Central Electoral Bureau, any user who mostly posts political messages and does so repeatedly should be considered to be a political actor, and any content that “directly or indirectly urges voters to choose or not to choose, to vote or not to vote” for a candidate is considered political advertising material.  Users can contest decisions in court within 48 hours, which some have done, but Calistru from Funky Citizens said not everyone is in a position to do so.  The Central Electoral Bureau is a temporary administrative body that will effectively disappear after Sunday’s election. Past experience shows “that even though there are cases in which some of these temporary bodies might be abusive in their conduct, you have no legal way to go against them in a court,” Calistru said.  Platforms aren’t necessarily complying: “All the platforms want to check the decisions, there is a reluctance to enforce them, especially in the five-hour window,” according to Parvu.  Still, concerns have also been raised about the ordinance’s compatibility with EU law and a lack of accountability due to its emergency nature. “The way [the ordinance] was done was very untransparent,” it appeared on the government’s agenda and not published in advance. It was “approved first and put up for public debate later,” said Parvu. Bucharest’s court of appeal ruled the emergency laws should have been vetted by Romania’s Constitutional Court in a late April ruling.

LONDON — Are you an opinionated tech mogul with some cash to spare? Fancy tipping the scales in British politics to boost some of your favorite causes — or just wreak some havoc? Look no further. As it stands, overseas donors are outright banned from giving money directly to candidates or political parties in the U.K. Boo! But don’t worry, there are ways around it. POLITICO has a handy guide to all the ways British politics is wide open to outside cash. Just keep it between us, alright? THE DIRECT APPROACH With the ability to donate unlimited sums to political parties and candidates, U.K. registered companies serve as a major source of funds in British politics. Loss-making? That’s cool. Foreign-owned? No problem. With very few restrictions on firms, turning to them has become a well-trodden path for foreign individuals looking to inject cash into the U.K. system. Helpfully, the U.K.’s due diligence regime is woeful, making it a breeze to set up companies, or create a daisy-chain of firms that helps obfuscate cash flows. Establish a holding company in a tax haven with strict privacy laws, and you’ll make it almost impossible for pesky journalists to uncover the operation. But better dash if you’re wanting to splash that corporate cash, because killjoy ministers are reportedly considering a crackdown to help “protect democracy.” The party-pooping proposals could see a cap imposed on the amount a firm can donate based on either profits or a share of revenues. Sure, shareholders may stomach the odd wad being earmarked for political donations — but the new rules would stymie more ambitious plans to wrench open the funding taps, so let’s explore some alternative options. UNINCORPORATED ASSOCIATIONS Snappily named unincorporated associations (UA) are a unique quirk of the British system. The U.K.’s due diligence regime is woeful, making it a breeze to set up companies, or create a daisy-chain of firms that helps obfuscate cash flows. | Charles McQuillan/Getty Images Conceived as a way for small organizations — like a community sports club — to organize themselves without the red tape that comes from setting up a formally registered company or charity, they’ve become a major vehicle for campaign cash. Think of them like a U.S. political action committee, but without any of those irritating transparency or scrutiny rules. Awesome, right? Any group of two or more individuals working toward a common goal — and not focused on making a profit — can set one up. There’s no need to file financial statements or open business bank accounts. They don’t even need to have a name. The definition is so vast that some experts say it’s possible to technically form one without even realizing you’ve done so. According to figures from the Electoral Commission — the U.K.’s election finance watchdog — UAs have donated over £12m since 2022. Luckily, finding out the true source of that cash ain’t easy. That’s because UAs only have to register basic details with the Electoral Commission if they donate more than £37,270 in a single year. Even then, they’ve only got to report donor information if they personally donate more than £11,180 over the same period. Getting close to the limit? Well, just set up another one and crack on. No wonder, then, that the Committee on Standards in Public Life — which advises the U.K. government on ethical standards — said back in 2021 that UAs offer a “route for foreign money to influence U.K. elections” with almost no transparency around the practice. ONLINE CAMPAIGNING With a strict ban on paid political ads on U.K. television channels and with most paper leaflets being dumped straight in the recycling, digital campaigning is king on this side of the Atlantic. And get this: Outside of the 365 days before an election — known as the regulated period — there are no spending limits for non-party campaigners. With a bit of forward thinking about a potential election date, you’ll be free to pull together controversial content and toss a few million at promoting it through cyberspace, offering unprecedented domination over the U.K.’s political narrative before spending limits kick in — and force your opponents to drain their war chests in an attempt to hit back. Even within the regulated period, there’s a spending limit of around £700,000 for outside campaign groups. That’s still a small fortune in U.K. electoral terms, and again, there’s little to stop an individual or group from setting up a distinct campaign vehicle for each issue of interest, all with separate donation limits. Having been neutered by previous governments, the U.K.’s election watchdogs are almost toothless to respond. The registration of non-party campaigners relies largely on self-policing, there are no rules ensuring content has to be accurate or truthful … and even the wildest misinformation won’t prompt a re-run of an election or a referendum. The U.K.’s election watchdogs are almost toothless. | Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images As Jess Garland, director of research and policy at the Electoral Reform Society, points out, most registered non-party campaigners are only incentivized to adhere to the rules because they operate inside the U.K. outside of election periods. Unbound by those restrictions, a well-resourced campaign that is based outside the U.K.’s jurisdiction and focused solely on influencing a certain result would pose a novel problem. “You could set up an entity for that moment and then just disappear,” Garland told POLITICO. “And then whose job is it to find out whether you’ve had any influence, or even if you should have registered in the first place? It’s a big risk.” Happen to also be a billionaire owner of a social media platform? Well, then you’ve hit the jackpot, given the importance of data in modern political campaigning. Having insight into the hopes, dreams and fears of a populace offers an unrivalled ability to tailor those messages with devastating impact. THINK TANKS If you don’t want to wait until polling day to test your ability to mould U.K. politics, then consider tossing some dosh at a policy shop sympathetic to your political pet peeves — or just set up your own. Almost every flavor and faction in Westminster is served by a think tank, and with no shortage of shadowy funds already floating about in the sector, it’s a time-tested approach. Almost every flavor and faction in Westminster is served by a think tank. | Leon Neal/Getty Images New operations are constantly popping up, and cash-strapped political parties lean heavily on policy pros to help flesh out pitches to voters — and even the major parties have been known to copy and paste policy proposals straight into manifesto documents. Luckily, transparency around think tank funding is completely voluntary in the U.K., and the government has repeatedly resisted calls from anti-corruption campaigners to impose declaration rules. It means well-funded wonks can give evidence to influential parliamentary committees, respond to government consultations and brief MPs on policy issues without any requirement to reveal who is bankrolling them. It’s the kind of opaque persuasion opportunity that turns lobbyists green with envy. WORD OF WARNING That’s plenty to be cracking on with, but even if you fall foul of the existing rules, the maximum penalty the Electoral Commission can impose is a laughable £20,000. That’s walking-around money for a democracy-loving billionaire. Still, irksome transparency campaigners reckon there are a few simple steps the government could take to properly ruin the mood, and they won’t stop banging on about it. Slapping a donation limit on individual donors would make many of these loopholes moot, and could prove popular with the British public, a majority of whom believe mega-donors are motivated to splash cash in the hopes of gaining influence. Ungrateful sods. Well-funded wonks can give evidence to influential parliamentary committees, respond to government consultations and brief MPs on policy issues without any requirement to reveal who is bankrolling them. | Ian Forsyth/Getty Images There are also calls from Transparency International UK to not only reverse recent increases to spending limits, but to set them at a far lower level than previously. It’s a move that Duncan Hames, the group’s director of policy, has argued would end the “arms race” engulfing British politics. “If you restrict how much campaigns spend, then with it you restrict some of the more risky ways in which they raise the money,” he told POLITICO. “That affects all of them and they don’t actually need as much money.” Even worse? There’s growing pressure for the Electoral Commission to be empowered not only to properly enforce the current rules, but also to investigate and expose those taking advantage of the existing workarounds. But don’t panic, because campaigners have little to show despite spending over a decade pushing for these easy fixes. And with U.K. politicians becoming increasingly hooked on billionaire bucks, the system is likely to remain an open goal for plenty of time yet.

BRUSSELS — Kaja Kallas’ troubles started on her first day. The EU’s top diplomat was on a trip to Kyiv when she tweeted: “[T]he European Union wants Ukraine to win this war” against Russia. Some EU officials said they felt uneasy that the head of the European External Action Service, less than a day into her job, felt at liberty to go beyond what they considered to be settled language more than two years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “She (Kallas) is still acting like a prime minister,” said one EU diplomat who, like others quoted in this piece, was granted anonymity to discuss internal bloc dynamics.  The aforementioned diplomat and nine other EU diplomats and officials pointed to what they viewed as a series of missteps during Kallas’ first few months on the job, from floating heavy proposals without buy-in to taking liberties with foreign policy statements, they told POLITICO. (Kallas still has her defenders among the EU’s northern and eastern states, including Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. A second diplomat said: “Overall, we are very happy with her.”) As Kallas put her stamp on the job, pressuring EU countries to give more military aid to Ukraine, several diplomats chafed at her leadership style, complaining of what they described as a lack of consultation on sensitive matters. In subsequent months those concerns have only grown, including regarding Kallas’ hawkishness on Russia, which has left her out of step with Spain and Italy, who do not share her assessment of Moscow as an imminent threat to the EU. “If you listen to her it seems we are at war with Russia, which is not the EU line,” one EU official complained.  HATERS GONNA HATE As Kallas returned from the Munich Security Conference in February, she put together a proposal for EU countries to provide billions in urgent military aid for Ukraine after U.S. Vice President JD Vance dismissed Russia as a concern.  The Estonian politician reacted as a prime minister might — by circulating a 2-page document to rapidly compensate for a potential U.S. shortfall, asking the bloc’s 27 member countries to find at least 1.5 million rounds of artillery ammunition, among other requests.  The proposal landed on a Sunday evening, without warning, ahead of a foreign affairs gathering set to take place in the days ahead, and it ruffled feathers. Even more damning to some recipients was the way Kallas had structured her proposal: It required each country to make a contribution proportional to the size of their economies. The rationale was that this would force larger EU countries such as France, which have contributed less per capita than Northern or Eastern European countries, to dig deep. To some, however, that felt like coercion. Criticism reached a fever pitch last week when Kallas agreed to downgrade the ambition of her plan to seek just €5 billion worth of artillery shells as a first step. Two diplomats, from Eastern and Northern Europe, noted that Kallas had failed to obtain buy-in from major countries such as France before tabling her proposal. “This sort of came out of nowhere. The process could have been better managed to avoid taking people by surprise,” said one of them, adding in Kallas’ defense: “If she’d done the perfect process they would have hated it anyway.”  Kaja Kallas arrives for the start of a European Union Summit at the Europa Building Forum, in Brussels. | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images An EEAS official downplayed the criticisms, saying member countries had chosen Kallas because they wanted a wartime leader. “They hired a head of state for a reason, not to moderate quietly and find the lowest common denominator but to push things forward,” the official said. “Many people argue we are in 1938 or 1939. It’s not the time to hide behind processes. European leaders keep calling for more Ukraine aid, ok cool, time for deeds not just words.” ‘JURY IS STILL OUT’ It’s the bookend to a bumpy start for the former Estonian prime minister, who took over the EEAS, the EU’s diplomatic arm, at a time coinciding with a proposal to slash its staffing and funding. Hailing from a small country (at 1.4 million, Estonia’s population is smaller than that of Paris), as well as from a liberal party that fared poorly in recent Europe-wide elections, Kallas is an outsider in a EU now dominated by conservative leaders, and where national leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Chancellor-to-be Friedrich Merz are increasingly setting the pace on defense policy. The failure of the Kallas plan came on the heels of a canceled rendezvous in late February with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who spiked the meeting in Washington, D.C. at the last minute.  A fifth EU diplomat and a former senior EU official both agreed that Kallas hadn’t properly set the groundwork for the meeting by offering a clear deliverable to the U.S. side.  “She went with her hands in her pockets,” said the former senior EU official — an assessment that Kallas’ spokesperson disputed, stating that the meeting had been confirmed and “well-prepared.” Then came the infamous exchange by Vance and U.S. President Donald Trump in an Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Amid the widespread shock at the vitriol aimed at Zelenskyy, Kallas tweeted that “the free world needs a new leader” — a comment that may have matched the mood of indignation in many parts of Europe, but also irked countries adamant about maintaining a bridge to the Trump White House.  “Most countries don’t want to inflame things with the United States,” said a sixth diplomat. “Saying the free world needs a new leader just isn’t what most leaders wanted to put out there.” It’s still early days for Kallas in her new post, some of the diplomats concede. And as Brussels has seen, a lot can happen in a short time. “The jury is still out,” a senior EU diplomat added. 

A Turkish court on Sunday jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, President Tayyip Erdoğan’s top political rival, despite widespread protests against his detention and the allegations against him. Prosecutors have accused İmamoğlu of corruption and aiding a terrorist group, saying he is suspected of leading a “criminal organization.” He is awaiting trial on those charges. Detention orders have also been issued for close to 100 individuals connected with İmamoğlu, including his press adviser, Murat Ongun, CNN cited local media Anadolu as reporting. İmamoğlu was elected mayor of Istanbul, Turkey’s biggest city, in 2019 and again in 2024. He is the opposition Republican People’s Party’s likely presidential nominee. The party has said the charges against him are politically motivated, describing them as “a coup attempt.” In a post on X hours before his jailing, İmamoğlu wrote: “The walls of fear have been overcome, now there is a nation,” referring to a protest that was scheduled in Istanbul’s Sarachane Park Saturday night.

Take that, Elon Musk! Belgian railways, Brussels metro STIB and Flemish bus company De Lijn quit social media platform X, the companies announced Wednesday. “We are leaving X. This communication tool no longer aligns with the values upheld by #SNCB,” said NMBS/SNCB in its last post on X. The other companies did not provide a reason for their departure. X, formerly Twitter, is owned by tech billionaire Musk. He has been criticized for publicly endorsing European far-right parties, and he serves as key adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump. Musk’s X has also been under investigation by the European Commission over its compliance with the bloc’s flagship content moderation law, the Digital Services Act (DSA). Under Trump, Musk is heading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has slashed federal agencies and cut international aid. Walloon public bus company TEC last week announced its departure from X. “The TEC on X, that’s over,” TEC posted. The decision of Belgian transport companies follows a wider trend of news outlets and nongovernmental organizations leaving X. All of the companies have accounts on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. STIB also has an account on TikTok.

BRUSSELS — United States President Donald Trump’s international aid freeze will evaporate funding for civil society groups across Eastern Europe, undercutting pro-democracy initiatives and creating an open goal for Russia to boost its hold on the region. The Trump administration’s steps toward dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — pausing most existing foreign aid for 90 days pending review and placing nearly all its employees on paid leave — directly affects ongoing humanitarian and development projects worldwide. The effects will be particularly profound in Europe, where USAID pledged $17.2 billion worth of aid in 2023, the lion’s share of which went to Eastern European countries bordering Russia. The money, equivalent to 40 percent of the agency’s total aid commitments, is used to fund projects ranging from democratic reforms to energy infrastructure and disease prevention. For countries like Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine, where Russia’s shadow looms large, analysts have warned that cuts to aid from Washington would dramatically strengthen Moscow’s hand and reinforce the narrative of unreliable Western partners. “This move undermines confidence in the U.S. and trust in democracy,” said Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Center, an independent think tank based in Armenia. “It also means that the U.S. is neglecting the soft power capable of countering Russian narratives.” Ultimately, he added, “the freeze of USAID funds only makes authoritarian governments happy.” Russia is already present in these countries, said Tinatin Akhvlediani, a research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, adding that losing foreign funding will only strengthen its malign influence. “The Kremlin will continue to build this narrative that these countries are alone, that the West is abandoning them, that the U.S. and Western countries are not strong allies.” ‘CATASTROPHIC’ In Belarus, the aid freeze poses an existential threat to NGOs, which have long been in the crosshairs of strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko’s regime. “It happened so fast — the results were catastrophic for us,” said Yuliya Ralko, international secretary of RADA, a Belarusian umbrella organization of youth groups that has been operating in exile since 2021. Ralko said RADA “had to cut salaries by 50 percent” and severely curtail educational projects that aim to “minimize the gap between Belarusian and European youth” and counter Minsk’s attempts to “turn young people away from Europe and toward Russia.” Around half of the NGO’s 2025 budget was funded by USAID grants. “I hope the U.S. government will change its mind because I don’t know how long we can go on volunteering like this,” Ralko said. The impact of the USAID cuts is being felt across the region. The agency pledged $16.8 billion in aid to Eastern Europe in 2023. The bulk of it — $16.4 billion — went to Ukraine, followed by Moldova at $211.5 million and Georgia at $91.4 million. Most of the aid was funneled into projects to strengthen civil society and the rule of law and to boost economic growth; emergency relief accounted for nearly $1 billion, and almost half a billion was devoted to energy infrastructure. While it is not yet clear how much of this aid has already been cut or is at risk, the uncertainty is already wreaking havoc. In Ukraine, dozens of media outlets, as well as organizations involved in everything from fighting for judicial reform to battling corruption and helping war veterans, have had to either reduce or completely halt operations. They are yet to find out if their programs will be renewed after the 90-day audit ends in mid-April. In Armenia, USAID pledged $8.5 million to support more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians who were forcibly displaced following the 2023 Azerbaijan offensive. While USAID Armenia clarified that basic humanitarian assistance would not be affected for the time being, a host of other initiatives — including programs to guarantee election transparency, strengthen the media landscape and improve the energy infrastructure — are at risk. The agency committed $71.7 million to the country in 2023. In Georgia, pro-Russian ruling party Georgian Dream was quick to capitalize on the aid freeze to further restrict the operations of civil society groups. “The worldwide USAID scandal … has made it obvious that we should fully reclaim our country,” Georgian Dream party chair Mamuka Mdinaradze said. “Georgia is already in a troubled situation because the government has adopted the so-called foreign agents law, which already targets and curbs all the democratic movements, civil society and free media,” said Akhvlediani of CEPS. “Cutting U.S. funds punishes all the democratic movements in the country even further.” Giorgi Gogua, the founder of Project 64, a multimedia startup producing explanatory journalism in Georgia, said USAID money made up around 40 percent of its 2025 budget. But now the company’s future is in doubt. “This was our startup capital, which as it turned out, we don’t have anymore,” Gogua said. “If we can’t find a solution, we’ll be forced to stop our operations, at least partially …. So far we haven’t been able to pay our staff at the end of last month.” Gogua has been working to find new donors, but with the Georgian government planning to adopt more restrictive laws that would ban foreign funding for media altogether, those cash streams are unlikely to materialize. This would hit independent media outlets hard, especially online media that struggle to commercialize their work due to the small market, and that rely almost entirely on foreign cash to operate. “At this point, we don’t have expectations that USAID funding will continue. We’re speaking to European donors to help us with emergency funding and fill the financial gap,” he added. ‘EU CANNOT FILL THE GAP’ The EU needs to step in and fill the vacuum by providing funding for civil society and humanitarian groups, the Regional Studies Center’s Giragosian argued, while noting that Brussels is “notorious for moving very slowly, it’s very bureaucratic.”  The EU is already a major aid provider to the region. In 2023 the bloc’s member countries disbursed €19.6 billion to six countries in the Eastern neighborhood — Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Belarus and Armenia — either bilaterally or through EU institutions. Yet replacing the U.S. funding would require mobilizing millions more in a region where Europe’s influence has ebbed and flowed in past years. Brussels’ development assistance to most countries in the region — with the exception of Ukraine and Moldova — fell between 2019 and 2023, partly due to domestic legislation aimed at curtailing activities that could promote pro-EU sentiments. Commission spokesperson Guillaume Mercier said the EU executive was following the USAID crisis “closely,” and that it would wait until there was “clarity as to the scale and focus on USAID” before assessing “any potential impact on our objectives.”  Mercier pointed out that the EU was already a “leading donor” but added that “everyone in the international community must shoulder their responsibility.” “The EU cannot fill this [funding] gap left by others,” he said. Others warned that it’s in Brussels’ own security interest to ensure civil society groups don’t collapse. “If the European Union doesn’t stand up for the cause and work through more sustainable mechanisms for partnership … it will not be able to deliver its own goals,” said Katerina Hadzi-Miceva Evans, executive director of the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law Stichting, a Hague-based NGO that works with civil society organizations. She recalled a recent address by European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen to ambassadors, in which she had stressed that the goal of EU foreign policy was to “deliver stability, security and prosperity for our citizens.“ “It’s really important for the European Union to think very strategically — who are my partners, with whom am I standing up for the cause, and how can I provide stability and security for them as well?” Hadzi-Miceva Evans said. CEPS’ Akhvlediani agreed it was in the EU’s best interest to plug the gaps left by the U.S. withdrawal. “If the EU aspires to be a geopolitical actor that is committed to its enlargement process, then it must step up,” she said. “Otherwise, its credibility is at stake.” Veronika Melkozerova contributed to this report.

Elon Musk’s X has challenged a German court decision that instructed the platform to share data with researchers, the court confirmed to POLITICO. In an urgent injunction, the Berlin Regional Court last Thursday instructed X to share real-time access to the data on the upcoming German elections via its online interface until Feb. 25.  The case is one of the first major judicial tests of the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a landmark social media regulation. The plaintiffs, Democracy Reporting International (DRI) and the Society for Civil Rights (GFF), alleged that X hindered them from tracking potential election interference by not granting them access to key engagement data such as likes, shares and visibility metrics. “X challenges whether the German court is competent to hear the case, given that X’s HQ is in Ireland. The company has not provided data access and our window to conduct the study before the elections is closing,” DRI’s Executive Director Michael Meyer-Resende said in a reaction. The court said a hearing is likely to follow X’s objection but that no date has been set. X did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment. The DSA requires that platforms share data with researchers for certain studies. The Commission already accused X in July last year of breaching the DSA for not meeting requirements around data access. It also quizzed Meta last year over its decision to shut down research tool CrowdTangle. Multiple reports by civil society organizations have found evidence of Russia-backed foreign interference in Germany’s election scheduled to take place on Sunday Feb. 23.

Live coverage from Munich: POLITICO is on the ground at the Munich Security Conference, where we’re having conversations with top officials, lawmakers and experts at our POLITICO Pub. Follow our exclusive coverage here. MUNICH — From Paris to Munich, JD Vance devoted his first trip overseas to ripping apart Europe’s tech regulatory playbook — page by page. In a speech that shocked attendees at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, the United States vice president lambasted European Union policies aimed at fighting disinformation and illegal content on social media, comparing the laws to Soviet-era censorship and calling the EU officials enforcing them “commissars.” Vance’s Munich address came just days after he told Europe that its tech laws were holding back the development of artificial intelligence and stifling innovation, at the Paris AI Action Summit on Tuesday. His remarks were the strongest U.S. rebuke of European tech regulation yet, following weeks of increasingly hostile rhetoric from President Donald Trump, X owner Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Trump and Zuckerberg have both likened fines on technology companies for breaching EU law to “tariffs.” Others blame EU digital laws for crippling free speech. The European Commission’s response was muted. Its most senior tech policy official, Henna Virkkunen, repeated a line that its rules “are same for everybody, for European companies, for American companies, for Chinese companies.” Vance felt no similar constraints. Speaking just after Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday, he said: “I look at Brussels, where EU commissars warn citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest, the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be ‘hateful content.'” Vance also dismissed European worries that foreign countries — notably Russia — are actively meddling in European democracies with hybrid campaigns, including on social media platforms. Germany is heading for an election on Feb. 23, and officials and disinformation experts have flagged several coordinated efforts to influence the vote through disinformation. Vance mocked the notion that such campaigns could derail elections. “If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.” In his speech, Vance singled out Romania. A first-round election in November resulted in a surprise victory for the far-right ultranationalist Călin Georgescu, in part thanks to a wildly successful TikTok campaign. The result was later annulled amid concerns over a Russian influence campaign. “To many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old entrenched interests hiding behind ugly, Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion, or God forbid vote a different way, or even worse, win an election,” Vance said. TECH FACE-OFF, ROUND 11 Vance’s Munich stop was just the latest case of the U.S. government pressuring the EU to tone down its enforcement of tech laws. In Paris on Tuesday, he insisted that Europe needs an approach that “fosters the creation of AI technology rather than strangles it.” “To restrict it’s development now would not only unfairly benefit incumbents in the space, it would mean paralyzing one of the most promising technologies we have seen in generations,” Vance said in his first major trip overseas since taking office.   The EU’s new law on social media, the Digital Services Act, comes with the threat of fines of up to 6 percent of global annual turnover — and Musk’s social media platform X is expected to be slapped with a fine in the law’s first investigation. Social media giant Meta in past years was hit with monster fines, including a €1.2 billion penalty, for privacy violations; last November it was fined €797 million for breaching EU antitrust rules. The European Commission has so far suffered the blows dealt to it by Washington without much response. Asked by POLITICO what the EU thought of Vance’s speech, tech chief Virkkunen said the vice president was “misunderstanding that we are regulating the content on online platforms,” as that is something the bloc is “not doing.” “The European Union has our own rules and legislations, and of course we will enforce them,” she said. That muted response drew criticism from some European lawmakers over the weekend. French liberal European Parliament member Nathalie Loiseau said “the European Commission should stop shying away.” Damian Boeselager, European lawmaker for Germany’s left-wing Volt party, said it “is wasted communication chance to really assert European sovereignty, also in the digital space.” Others were more lenient. “To start a direct confrontation with USA right now is probably not the smartest way to react,” said Christel Schaldemose, the Danish social-democrat lawmaker who led the drafting of the Digital Services Act. According to Marietje Schaake, former liberal European Parliament member and tech expert at Stanford University, “the attacks on Europe should strengthen its resolve to deepen its digital sovereignty, and to become significantly less dependent on the technology companies that proudly support this confrontational White House.” Laurens Cerulus reported from Munich. Eliza Gkritsi contributed reporting from Brussels. Antoaneta Roussi and Joshua Posaner contributed reporting from Munich.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said Monday he found it “worrying” that a billionaire social media owner like Elon Musk is inserting himself into the politics of other countries. Musk, a key ally of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, has been on a social media rampage over the holidays, endorsing the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, repeatedly denouncing the U.K.’s Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer and even torpedoing his relationship with British hard-right chief Nigel Farage. “I find it worrying that a man with enormous access to social media and large financial resources is so directly involved in the internal affairs of other countries. This is not how it should be between democracies and allies,” Støre told public broadcaster NRK. Støre was responding to a question on whether he is worried about potential interference from Musk in Norwegian elections. “If we were to see it in Norway, I hope and assume that a united Norwegian political environment would warn and distance itself from it,” Støre added. Støre’s comments are part of a mainstream political backlash against Musk, in which German political leaders have argued that the Tesla entrepreneur’s AfD endorsement amounted to election interference. Musk has announced he will hold a live discussion this week with the AfD’s chancellor candidate, Alice Weidel, on X ahead of Germany’s snap election on Feb. 23.

KYIV — Ukraine is studying European models of electoral law, including electronic voting, with an eye toward holding elections soon after the end of its war with Russia. Holding free and fair elections will be key to normalizing the war-torn country — and to its ambitions to join the European Union. “We need to understand how we can democratically hold elections using the best and most effective practices,” Olena Shuliak, chair of the Organization of State Power Committee in the Ukrainian parliament, told POLITICO. Before the war, Ukraine was still conducting exclusively in-person voting for parliamentary, presidential and local elections. Meanwhile, there hasn’t been a national vote since 2019, meaning President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian parliament have overstayed their terms. That’s because the constitution forbids holding elections during martial law and active warfare, as Kyiv can’t guarantee the safety and voting rights of all Ukrainians, such as soldiers and people living in Russian-occupied territories. “We currently have a huge problem with the voter registry, because people have left [for] abroad,” Shuliak said. “According to various estimates, 6.5 million are internally displaced alone.” Even after the war, one of the key challenges will remain enabling citizens scattered around the world to vote, which could include some in Russian-held Ukrainian territory. “Where they are now, where they will vote — all these things need to be resolved,” Shuliak added. To this end, she continued, Ukrainian officials have been studying different European election models to adopt practices that would allow them to conduct free and fair elections after the war ends. “We’re interested in [the] nuances of electronic voting and [the] technical assessment of other alternative voting options, also from the perspective of IT security,” Shuliak said, adding that MPs are also considering mail-in voting, in-person voting abroad on election day, voting by proxy and online voting. Kyiv frequently comes under pressure from various allies to hold elections, while the Kremlin uses the lack of voting in Ukraine for propaganda purposes, claiming the Kyiv leadership is illegitimate and Ukraine is not a democracy. According to the recommendations of the Venice Commission at the Council of Europe, and of the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, significant changes to electoral laws should be adopted at least a year before the date of the next elections in Ukraine. Kyiv-based election watchdog OPORA has also urged the government to begin preparations for voting once the war is over. Andriy Yermak said: “After [a] just peace, we will be immediately ready for the proper democratic elections.” | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images “Democracy is not only about voting day. If the state does not work on the electoral infrastructure even when elections are not possible for security reasons or war, then it [sends] a signal that it is moving away from the standards of democracy,” Olga Aivazovska, chairman of the board at OPORA, told POLITICO.  In a Dec. 5 video interview with Britain’s the Telegraph newspaper, Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said: “Zelenskyy is a democrat by nature. He is ready for elections at any moment. But the election has to be organized in a way everyone in the democratic world will recognize as fair. All citizens of Ukraine must have the opportunity to vote, including soldiers and refugees.” In September, Ukraine’s Central Election Commission started to update information on the voter stations that remain in the country, given that Russia still occupies some 20 percent of Ukraine. Yermak said: “After [a] just peace, we will be immediately ready for the proper democratic elections.” Shuliak, however, said it will take “at least six months” for elections to be held after the end of martial law.