On November 24, during the conference “Poland Eastern Policy 2023”, as a part of our expert programme Protecting European Values we organised a panel: “Mapping threats to democracy in the EU. Russian interference in the political life of EU countries”.
The discussion was moderated by Professor Maria Wincławska from the Nicolaus Copernicus University (UMK) in Toruń, a member of the expert team of our project. The panel began with interventions from PhD Anais Marin (expert of our project, Chatham House, France) and PhD Agnieszka Bryc from the Nicolaus Copernicus University (fellow of our project), who presented a wide scope of different forms of hostile interference by Russia in the internal affairs of EU countries and its destabilizing impact on political life and public opinion. They described in depth the negative impact of institutional, propaganda and financial support provided by the Kremlin to anti-Ukrainian and anti-democratic political parties on democracies in the EU. The experts of our project: PhD Guillem Ripoll from the University of Navarra and PhD Andrei Macsut from the Romanian Academic Association showed on the example of their countries: Spain and Romania, respectively, how Russia’s interference influences the internal affairs of individual member states and how it takes into account their specificities. Guillem Ripoll drew attention to the downplaying of the topic of the role of Russian money in Spanish politics, resulting from the geographical distance and the lack of a direct threat from Moscow. Andrei Macsut described the falling support of Romanians for EU membership intertwined with an increased activity of Russian secret services promoting Eurosceptic sentiments in the Romanian society in order to create a social pressure on Romanian politicians.
Polish Eastern Policy is an annual conference that has been held for almost 20 years, to which we invite experts, scholars, journalists, politicians, non-governmental activists and diplomats from Poland and around Europe and the world. We debate the most important problems in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, Russia and the internal situation in the EU and NATO, placing them in broader contexts: global and continental, always emphasizing the importance of these issues for Polish Eastern policy.
