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Brussels 11 February 2026 

MCC Brussels today announces the launch of the Democracy Interference Observatory (DIO), a new initiative designed to expose, document, and analyse how the European Union and EU-linked actors shape national elections across Europe. MCC Brussels will be cooperating with other organisations dedicated to defence of free speech on the DIO project.

The Observatory will begin with a focused investigation into the Hungarian parliamentary elections scheduled for 12 April 2026, serving as the first case study in a broader, scalable monitoring framework that will expand to additional member states.

The launch of DIO follows a growing accumulation of public evidence showing that modern elections are increasingly affected not only by domestic political actors, but by dense networks connecting EU institutions, national authorities, digital platforms, and politically active NGOs. 

The Democracy Interference Observatory has begun systematically collecting this evidence, of which we highlight three illustrative examples below.

  • EU Interference in the 2024/25 Romanian elections

Already last year, MCC Brussels has sought access to EU Commission documents containing information on the Digital Services Act (DSA) proceedings related to the Romanian presidential elections. The Commission has denied access to these crucial documents though, with the explanation that the DSA overrides the EU’s own Transparency Regulation – a decision upheld by the EU Ombudsman on 19 December 2025.

Yet recent releases by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, based on internal documents from major digital platforms, reveal extensive coordination between government authorities, technology companies, and external organizations to police and steer political speech online. These disclosures demonstrate that large-scale, institutionalized content governance affecting democratic debate is not speculative, but already operational. Also, the U.S. House documents align with MCC Brussels investigations into the DSA proceedings around the Romanian case.

  • Activation of EU-financed NGO networks in preparation for the Hungarian elections

EU-funded activist NGOs play a central role in feeding content, assessments, and recommendations into EU-level rule-of-law reports and democracy monitoring exercises, including those targeting Hungary. MCC Brussels has recently uncovered the direct involvement of Democracy Reporting International (DRI) in legal action seeking access to platform data related to the Hungarian elections, raising serious concerns about transparency, conflicts of interest, and political neutrality. DRI, a so-called non-governmental organization, gets 74% of its funding from governments: 47% from the German Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 20% from the EU and 7% from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

  • Adoption of the foreign interference narrative by Hungarian actors

As we see, political developments in Central and Eastern Europe point to the emergence of a recognizable operational pattern. 

Following the Romanian elections, allegations of large-scale foreign interference were rapidly invoked to justify extraordinary regulatory measures, intensified platform enforcement, and expanded fact-checking operations. That same playbook is now beginning to appear in Hungary.

Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar has publicly adopted the Romanian framing, warning of foreign (specifically Russian) interference and calling for stronger EU-level responses. In parallel, his head of Cabinet, Márton Hajdu, has publicly argued for the application of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and AI Act in Hungary to counter online “disinformation.” 

Taken together, these developments point to a repeatable sequence:

First, construct an interference narrative.

Second, activate EU regulatory pressure and platform enforcement.

Third, amplify NGO-driven monitoring and fact-checking networks.

Fourth, reshape the electoral information environment.

The DIO will systematically monitor four key domains: the information environment and EU digital governance tools; EU-connected funding ecosystems; institutional pressure and conditionality mechanisms; and the narratives used to justify exceptional countermeasures.

Given the clear evidence of a specific strategy common to the EU Commission, EU-funded NGOs, and national regulators, DIO will shortly release a detailed report of the emerging “interference playbook,” drawing on recent European elections and documented cases.

“The purpose of the Democracy Interference Observatory is to make these mechanisms visible,” said Frank Furedi, Executive Director of MCC Brussels. “Elections must be decided by voters-not quietly managed through regulatory pressure, financial leverage, and information control. Transparency and free speech are the strongest safeguards of democratic self-government.”

DIO will continuously publish its findings through public dashboards, investigative briefs, and source-based reports, making documentation accessible to journalists, researchers, policymakers, and citizens.

The mission of DIO is democratic: to defend electoral self-determination, democratic accountability, and free expression across Europe. We cordially invite organisations upholding these principles to get in touch with DIO and MCC Brussels (contact@democracy-interference.info).