Senior members of the European Parliament have threatened action against tech firms if they interfere with elections in EU member states
The Trump administration is guilty of “interference” in European elections, leading EU politicians have warned as they threaten a fresh crackdown on American tech firms like X.
Multiple senior figures from Brussels said that the US government could be bracketed with hostile foreign states who have been seeking to manipulate democracy around the world.
They pointed to JD Vance and other members of Donald Trump’s Cabinet endorsing far-right parties across Europe, as well as allegations that Elon Musk’s company has deliberately highlighted posts which endorse those parties.
Republicans have been critical of EU countries’ policies on free speech, accusing them of censoring right-wing viewpoints online and in elections.
Vice President Vance used a speech in Munich to accuse European leaders of undermining their own societies by suppressing views which run counter to those of liberal elites.
Musk backed AfD in German elections
And Musk, who was an adviser to Trump until they fell out this week, actively campaigned for Germany’s far-right AfD, saying the country should not be burdened by “past guilt” about the Nazi era.
Nathalie Loiseau, a member of the European Parliament who is a close ally of Emmanuel Macron, said that responding to the Trump administration’s comments would be part of a taskforce she is leading on defending democracy in the EU.
Speaking during a visit to London, she said: “That is absolutely in the scope of what we are looking at, unfortunately.”
Loiseau claimed that the US government had interfered in recent elections in Germany, Poland and Romania, adding: “We just saw that in the Netherlands where the Government fell because of the far right, there was sort of a tacit endorsement of the far right by the US administration. And this is outrageous.”
She also pointed to Vance’s Munich speech – Loiseau said: “Lecturing the room, telling them what they should think, how they should vote, was just appalling.”
The French MEP added: “We know that there is strong pressure from the Trump administration… to tell us that our regulations should be weakened. I think we have to resist this pressure.”
‘We don’t have a problem with free speech in Europe’
Tomas Tobé, a Swedish MEP who is vice-chair of the largest party in the European Parliament, said: “We don’t have a problem with free speech in Europe. What we have a problem with is Russian disinformation, we have problems with manipulation.
“If you take Mr Musk for example, of course he can choose to have an interview with the AfD leader, he can even say publicly that he is in favour of that political party, but it is not OK to change the algorithms of the platform X to favour one political party.”
He pointed to existing EU laws such as the Digital Services Act which could be wielded against X to stop it from deliberately promoting one viewpoint over another. Punishments could include multi-million-euro fines.
US-based tech firms have historically sought to avoid being embroiled in other countries’ legal systems but have sometimes fallen foul of court judgments. Last year X was entirely banned in Brazil for several weeks until the firm agreed to pay fines totalling nearly £4m over breaches of local law.
EU politicians have confronted their US counterparts in person to warn them they will take action against American companies regardless of whether the administration agrees.
Sandro Gozi, another French MEP on Loiseau’s taskforce, said: “We were very clear that for us, it is unacceptable and unthinkable that they tell us what we can do with our legislation.”