The New European Commission’s Distorted Democracy Agenda

With the clear primacy of security issues in the new European Commission’s priorities, the place of democracy support in the EU’s geopolitical toolbox looks increasingly uncertain.

The new commissioners’ mission letters are long on the EU interests to be defended and silent on support for democratic norms internationally. Yet the way the EU has traditionally engaged in democracy support was part of its distinctive brand of foreign policy, helping to solidify partnerships with reforming governments and societies around the world.

Nevertheless, the EU’s commitment to supporting democracy internationally has plateaued or in many places weakened in recent years. Member states have become more reluctant to use sanctions or conditionality against autocratic governments and democracy funding has become a small fraction of the amounts invested in other priorities like defense, according to the annual audit of EU democracy policies Carnegie Europe carries out in the context of the European Democracy Hub.

The new commission looks set to push this trend further in many respects. External funding will increasingly be channelled through the Global Gateway, the EU’s initiative for infrastructure investment designed to rival China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Respect for democratic values by potential partner countries is not a prominent criterion for the selection of projects under the Global Gateway, and most of its initial projects have been in nondemocratic countries where the EU seeks to offset Chinese influence.

With many member states facing budgetary constraints and the rising demands of spending on defense, security, and industrial sovereignty, standalone funding for EU democracy assistance may get further crowded out, or wound down. In an additional sign of the weakening of this supposed mainstay of EU foreign policy, member states were unable or unwilling to agree a new democracy action plan to replace the one that expires this year. These developments risk undercutting the EU’s ability to build partnerships with democratic reformers and societies, a strategically vital pillar of its international projection over many years.

Still, the EU’s security turn has not entirely killed off democracy policy. Instead, it has transformed much of its approach toward a more defensive democracy support strategy.

While there is little in the new commission aimed at supporting democracy internationally, there is a focus on defending it internally as adversaries have increasingly sought to weaponize Europe’s democratic open space. The commission’s political guidelines 2024-2029 have a chapter on protecting EU democracy. Through the Democracy Shield initiative proposed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen more capabilities will be allocated to fighting against disinformation and malign online influences from external actors.

The EU’s shift is from proactive democracy promotion toward defensive autocracy containment. This means more focus on pushing back against authoritarian powers as a way of preserving European influence in the international order. This is a different kind of democracy agenda to the traditional one of supporting reformers inside third countries with the aim of extending the global reach of democratization processes.

These tilts in EU geostrategy give much cause for concern.

The new commission’s focus on defending EU democracy from outside forces is necessary but gives a false impression that democracy’s risks emanate primarily from others and not from member states’ own governments. There is a need not just to protect but also reform democracy within EU member states to address the feelings of disenchantment, disenfranchisement, and resentment with the political system. The shift from external to internal democracy policy was needed but is becoming too absolute.

And externally, the relative absence of any new EU initiative or commitment to international democracy is out of step with the intensity of political change and turbulence around the world. Many countries are going through significant crisis or moments of change that show democratic and autocratic forces clashing with greater intensity­—in Venezuela, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Georgia, and many other countries. The EU’s relatively passive, hands-off distance from these defining events is hardly a recipe for maximizing its ability to safeguard its own geopolitical shaping influence.

Although European leaders and strategies talk about the need to hold authoritarian power at bay, in practice most of the EU’s trade, energy, climate, and aid accords in recent years have been concluded with nondemocratic regimes. A ubiquitously repeated criticism is that it makes little sense to divide the world into democratic and autocratic blocks; but this is a strawman as EU diplomats have anyway long rejected such a binary and hardly need reminding about the importance of pragmatic cooperation with autocrats. The bigger risk is of the EU overly neglecting rather than overly prioritizing democracy.

Although democracy policy certainly needs to be more firmly nested within EU security strategies, framing it too heavily as an interest-driven containment of China and other authoritarian powers risks stifling many locally driven political reform agendas. Guarding itself against autocracy is important, but the EU must also be more sensitive to societal views in the so-called Global South as these become more consequential.

The EU needs to correct these emerging distortions. It certainly needs to defend itself and its own democracy but also to preserve the democratic ethos that makes it a distinctive and impactful geopolitical player. Even if the prudent EU defensive democracy agenda is commendable in many respects, the incoming commission appears to have a dangerously imbalanced reading of democratic challenges.

Elene Panchulidze is a researcher coordinator at the European Partnership for Democracy.