EU Demands Sweeping Censorship To Influence Elections

Unelected President Ursula von der Leyen is calling her Orwellian plan to undermine democracy a “Democracy Shield”

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen talks to the media in the Berlaymont, the EU Commission headquarters, on June 9, 2026, in Brussels, Belgium. (Photo by Thierry Monasse/Getty Images)

Last September, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen addressed Europeans in her State of the Union speech. “The rise in information manipulation and disinformation is, as we hear, dividing our societies,” she said. “That is why we urgently need the ‘European Democracy Shield.’”

But the “Democracy Shield” is, in reality, the Orwellian name for Europe’s plan to interfere in national elections by censoring millions of citizens on social media based on pro-EU propaganda “news” that the Commission will fund. It says it must do so in order to safeguard “the truth.”

The Commission, which is the EU’s powerful executive branch, says “disinformation,” including “foreign disinformation,” threatens to mislead voters and thus undermine democracy.

But Public and others have documented repeated instances of the EU spreading disinformation to undermine elections in Romania, the Czech Republic, and other nations, and then demanding social media on the basis of that disinformation.

Last year, the Commission fined Elon Musk $140 million for refusing to comply with its censorship demands, and the French government is attempting to prosecute him on the same grounds.

The Commission is planning a massive increase in government money for state propaganda, which it calls “independent” and “fact checking.

The unelected von der Leyen and the rest of her Commission are more powerful than the democratically elected European Parliament, and are essentially pursuing the agenda sought by the leaders of France and Germany, who are trying to prevent right-wing victories over the next several years.

And now, the EU plans to pump billions of euros in taxpayer money into selected media organizations to strengthen their purported “independence,” which in reality would make these media groups financially dependent on the state.