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Akbar Novruz

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The US House Judiciary Committee has released a report alleging that European Union institutions interfered in at least eight national elections across Europe by exerting pressure on digital platforms in the run-up to key votes, Azernews reports.

According to the document, the committee claims that officials from the European Commission held meetings with major online platforms ahead of elections in several EU member states, including the Netherlands (2023 and 2025), France (2024), Germany (2024), Poland (2023), Spain (2023), Belgium (2024), and Ireland (2024 and 2025). The report argues that these engagements went beyond routine regulatory coordination and may have influenced how political content was moderated during sensitive electoral periods.

Particular attention is given to Ireland’s media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, which is accused of hosting so-called “Digital Services Act (DSA) election roundtables.” The committee claims these meetings created indirect “censorship pressure” on platforms, encouraging more aggressive content moderation under the framework of the EU’s DSA, especially regarding political speech.

The report also references claims related to Romania’s annulled 2024 presidential election, stating that TikTok informed EU officials it had found “no evidence” of a coordinated Russian influence campaign on the platform. The committee notes, however, that this assertion has not been independently verified, and raises concerns about how such conclusions may have shaped regulatory and political responses.

Republican members of the committee argue that the findings point to a broader pattern of EU overreach that could undermine democratic processes and freedom of expression, particularly when regulatory bodies interact closely with private platforms during elections. The report frames these actions as part of a growing transatlantic dispute over content moderation, digital regulation, and the balance between combating disinformation and protecting political speech.

EU institutions have not formally responded to the report’s allegations. Brussels has previously maintained that the Digital Services Act is designed to ensure transparency, platform accountability, and election integrity, not to influence electoral outcomes.

A new report by US Republican lawmakers alleges the European Commission has orchestrated a “decade-long campaign” to censor political speech globally, including on American soil.

The accusations, detailed in a 160-page interim staff report released Tuesday (3 February) by the House Judiciary Committee, claim that commission officials held over 100 “closed-door meetings” with social media platforms since 2020 “where regulators had the opportunity to pressure platforms to censor content more aggressively.”

“Though often framed as combating so-called ‘hate speech’ or ‘disinformation,’ the commission worked to censor true information and political speech about some of the most important policy debates in recent history — including the Covid-19 pandemic, mass migration, and transgender issues,” the report states.

The document, dramatically titled “The Foreign Censorship Threat, Part II,” is, according to itself, based on tens of thousands of pages of internal communications from 10 Big Tech companies including Meta, Google, TikTok, and X, obtained under congressional subpoena.

The report is likely to intensify debates in Washington and Europe over digital sovereignty, election security, and the role of regulators in shaping online political discourse.