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The leadership of the Commission during this

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state for the moment for Europe, for our service.

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Good morning.

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First of all, Prime Minister Fredrickson,

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it's a pleasure to be here.

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Dear former Prime Minister and NATO Secretary General Vazmussen,

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thank you very much for the invitation.

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Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

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it is a great pleasure to be with you today

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at this Copenhagen Democracy Summit.

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And, dear Anders, I'm sure that every year

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all of your speakers say the same thing,

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which is basically that the Democracy Summit could not come at a better time.

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And while I will spare you with that line,

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I want to make a case for why this year it really is true.

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The first and perhaps most obvious reason is

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that we are coming up to some very important landmarks

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for our European democracy.

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Europeans will very soon start taking to the polls

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in what is perhaps the most important European elections ever.

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I say that because what is at stake in this election

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will define the future of our continent.

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Elections, as you know, are never about one narrow issue.

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But they are about giving a clear sense of direction for our society.

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So, the question we all have to ask ourselves is,

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do we want a strong Europe that fights for our values and our democracy?

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Or, on the other hand, do we let our democracies be hijacked

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by depropses or puppets of authoritarianism?

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Do we let them erode and corrode everything we have built over more than 70 years?

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To some, this may sound dramatic or even a false dichotomy.

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But I believe it is the stark choice in front of us.

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So, we need to show that democracy is not just a nice to have,

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but that it is the best and fairest way to deliver on the things

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that matter the most for the people.

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And we need to build a strong coalition of this centre

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to fight for our values and our democracy.

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And to put that into a wider perspective, I believe we can draw inspiration

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from an anniversary on the eve of the elections.

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Because the 5th of June will be another important landmark for our democracy.

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And I want to congratulate all of Denmark for what will be the 175th anniversary of your constitution.

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It will be a moment to reflect on the central premise and the central promise of this constitutional act.

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It is the promise of freedom.

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The personal freedom to believe and think what you want.

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The freedom of speech to say what you want.

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Or the freedom to protest and to demonstrate your views.

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These freedoms and responsibilities that come with them are still some of the hallmarks of our modern democracies.

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Which brings me to the second point on the timing of this event.

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Those core tenets of our democracy are under attack today like never before.

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What we once thought was for granted is now being openly threatened in so many different ways.

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And while this is true everywhere around the world, it is also an urgent issue here in the European Union.

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We are of course seeing this in Ukraine, with Russia's brutal view of Ukraine.

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And we should gather no illusion about what this war is for Putin.

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It is of course about winding off a free and independent Ukraine of the man.

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But it is also worn the entire international rules-based system as an existential threat for the European Union and Europe.

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And it is an existential threat to our freedoms and democracies.

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I am in particular concerned about the rise of foreign interference and manipulation in our societies, our democracies and our elections.

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Just think of what we have seen play out in the last few weeks across you.

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We have seen swarms of negative disinformation, targeting different issues and individual candidates.

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Like for example, the fake video posted under the logo of Agil Fransky National, falsely claiming an epidemic of tuberculosis was imminent because of Ukrainian soldiers in French hospitals.

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And it is not just fakes of fabricated content.

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It is also buying, inference, and policy days.

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We have seen far-right politicians and lead candidates from AFD in Germany in the pockets of Russia.

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They are selling their souls on Russian propaganda objects and videos.

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A close collaborator of a far-right politician was even arrested, accused of spying for China and giving it information from the European Parliament.

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We have also seen a huge spike in Malaysia's cyberattacks, like the one on Danish energy infrastructure last year.

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Or again in the last weeks in Sweden, Germany, and Estrania, Czechia, Poland, and others.

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My own campaign website was attacked by cyberattacks just last week.

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The aim of all this is to divide our societies from within.

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And it is this deeper in person society which I am most concerned about.

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Because the point about this malign interference is not just what is being said or done in each individual case.

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It is about sowing division and firing the flames of extremism.

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It is about weakening our resilience or commitment to a cause, for example, supporting Ukraine.

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It is about eroding trust in our institutions and elections.

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It is about confusing people so they don't know who to believe or if they can even believe anyone at all.

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And it is about giving cover and encouragement to the more dangerous extremes in our societies.

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And this leads to some of the shocking attacks and threats we have seen in this election, which I utterly condemn.

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And it leads to many promising young candidates that I speak to during this campaign, wondering whether they should get involved in politics at all.

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Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot tolerate peace.

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And we have to very stop to this.

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And the good news is that we have done a lot in the last years on defense of democracy.

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We have regulated the digital platforms, and we have taken big steps on disinformation, media freedom, or the rules of political parties.

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And the point is not that disinformation or malign interference is new.

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It is that the technology and the techniques used are currently moving faster when society can adapt and react.

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So it is now time to take our action to the next level.

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We must be as ambitious as the threat is serious.

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And this is why, if I am elected as president, the Commission will put forward the European Democracy Shield as one of the key priorities of the next Commission.

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And this should be an ambitious European project that focuses on the biggest threats from foreign interference and manipulation.

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And allow me to give you some of the first elements of the European Democracy Shield.

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The first is about detection, because nothing is as powerful as unwaving information manipulation.

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This requires first and foremost a free medium.

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And in addition, we need to build up public expertise in order to detect information manipulation.

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And this means, on one hand, better information threat intelligence sharing from the various agencies that are dealing with this at national levels.

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But it also means creating new common capabilities at European level.

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There are very good examples on national level.

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Take the Sweden Psychological Defense Agency.

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Or in France there is Virginia.

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And I believe Europe now needs its own dedicated structure on country and foreign interference.

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It will pool the necessary expertise and think up and coordinate with existing national agencies.

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The second element is about treatment.

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We have already made progress with, let's say, the Digital Services Act.

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So, once we have detected malign information or propaganda, we need to ensure that it is swiftly removed and blocked.

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And this is the role of online platforms.

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Now they have a set of responsibilities with this DSA.

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We must be now very vigilant and uncompromising when it comes to ensuring that it is properly enforced.

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It is not just a moral responsibility the platform has.

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It is European law that has to be divided.

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Now, as things divide, because we have to assess if this is sufficient.

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And, of course, I am referring to artificial intelligence.

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Artificial intelligence, as you know, now allows for the creation of incredibly realistic deep fates,

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which can have a very destabilizing role in electoral campaigns.

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And we have already seen that in Europe.

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And this is why our AI Act has some transparency requirements built in.

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And I am very much welcoming that the political charges sign the voluntary code of conduct ahead of these elections.

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It is on the classical use of AI campaign tools.

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But as we look ahead, we need to consider how to strengthen our approach to AI content, and in particular, these things.

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And finally, it takes resilience.

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As technology evolves, we need to build our societal immunity around information and equation.

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Because research has shown that pre-banking is much more successful than debunking.

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Pre-banking is basically the opposite of debunking.

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In short, prevention is preferable to cure.

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Perhaps if you think of information manipulation as a virus, instead of treating an infection once it is taken hold, that is debunking.

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It is much better to vaccinate so that the body is inoculated.

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Tree-banking is the same approach.

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Because disinformation relies on people passing it on to others.

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It is essential that people know what malign information's influence is, and what the techniques are that are behind it.

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And as the knowledge goes up, our chances of being influenced goes down, and that builds up the society's resilience that we will need.

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So, ladies and gentlemen, this is Europe's moment of truth in so many ways, whether it is on victory, whether it is on defense, whether it is on competitiveness or democracy.

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And this is a message I hear everywhere as I travel around Europe before these elections.

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The challenges and the threats may appear daunting.

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And, as I've mentioned, the truth is that we do have a fight on our hands.

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But we have shown in the last years that when we are united, Europe is stronger and much more resilient than we give it credit for.

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So, let's not cite the authoritarians or the extremes at their own game.

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Let's cite them by offering a positive vision of the future.

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One which protects what we hold dear, our democracy and our values.

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One which builds a European democracy shield against foreign interference.

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One which steps up when and when and where it matters.

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One which steps up for our security, for our prosperity and, of course, for our democracy.

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So long live Europe and long live European democracy.

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Thank you very much.

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Thank you very much.

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We hear a lot from elected officials.

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Exactly.

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We've heard a lot.