Belgium investigates Russian interference in European parliamentary elections

Russia is allegedly interfering in European Parliament’s elections. Source: Reuters

Belgium has launched an investigation into alleged Russian interference in the upcoming European Parliament elections.

The European Parliament (EP) comprises 705 members which are directly elected by the European Union’s (EU) 27-member countries every five years.

Countries like Russia and China have long been accused of meddling in domestic affairs and politics of other countries such as the United States. Their main objective is to destabilise the polity of their target geography and attempt to get candidates sympathetic to them win polls.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said Russia’s aim with the alleged interference is to let more pro-Russia candidates into the European Parliament, according to BBC. He further said that Belgian intelligence had found that spy networks were operating in Belgium and many other European countries.

“The investigation shows that Moscow has approached European members of parliament, [and] has also paid European members of parliament in order to promote a Russian agenda here,” said De Croo.

Czech Republic, Poland also probing Russian interference

In addition to Belgium, Czech Republic and Poland are also investigating such alleged Russian meddling in EU’s elections.

The Czech government had recently said that it had broken up a pro-Russia website, Voice of Europe, which both Czech and Polish authorities said was funded by Russia and was spreading Russian propaganda and funneling money to pro-Russia politicians.

The Czech found that Voice of Europe paid politicians from Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Hungary to make pro-Russia remarks to help influence the upcoming EP elections scheduled in June, said the BBC report.

Stressing on his responsibility for free and fair elections, De Croo said, “We cannot allow this type of Russian menace in our midst.”

Russian interference probe comes after warning of Chinese meddling

The report of Belgian probe into alleged Russian interference has come days after tech major Microsoft warned that China will use artificial intelligence (AI) to disrupt elections in India, South Korea, and the United States this year.

In its warning, Microsoft said that China has already conducted a dry run for such election disruption in the Taiwanese presidential election in January. The Chinese had reportedly run a campaign against William Lai of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a candidate deeply resented by the Chinese government. Lai ultimately won the election.

The warning said that China is expected to be joined by North Korea in such meddling.