The Role of the EU in Protecting Democracy through Legislation: The Case of Disinformation

The article addresses the challenges to European democracy posed by the phenomenon of disinformation and evaluates the European Union’s (EU) legislative response. It examines the EU’s recent legislative initiatives to combat disinformation as a case study for safeguarding democracy as an EU value under Article 2 TEU. After a brief reflection on the types of challenges that disinformation poses for the protection of EU values, the article analyses three EU legislative acts and their contribution to defending democracy from disinformation: the Digital Services Act (DSA), Regulation 2024/900 on transparency and targeting of political advertising, and the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). The article then identifies three key lessons from the EU’s anti-disinformation strategy that are instructive for the role of the EU legislature in fighting disinformation and, more broadly, in safeguarding the value of democracy: the use of internal market legislation to protect democracy, the shift towards a co-regulatory approach, and the expansion of the content of the EU value of democracy. In the end, the article argues that, despite some constraints, it is positive that the Union is protecting democracy (also) through legislation.