Euractiv: Parliament says Commission’s ‘Democracy Shield’ against disinformation too weak (Lena-Maria Böswald)

The European Parliament and civil society experts are criticizing the European Commission's newly proposed "Democracy Shield" initiative, designed to counter foreign bots and disinformation, as fundamentally inadequate. In this Euractiv article, Senior Policy Researcher Lena-Maria Böswald highlighted the structural flaws of the initiative's main pillar, the proposed European Centre for Democratic Resilience. Böswald argued that because the center operates without a dedicated budget and relies entirely on the voluntary participation of EU member states, its overall effectiveness is severely compromised She explicitly categorized the Commission’s response as "too vague at a time when democracy is being actively undermined" by foreign manipulation.