What changed between the draft committee report and the plenary report

Added:56. Emphasises the key role of authorities and political leaders in the enlargement countries in building cross-party cooperation towards EU accession reforms, maintaining cross-societal consensus for EU membership and communicating the benefits of EU accession to citizens efficiently and continuously; highlights the crucial role of civil society organisations in promoting fact-based public discourse on EU integration, countering disinformation and facilitating informed public debate; calls on the Commission and the Member States to systematically involve civil society actors in strategic communication efforts relating to enlargement and EU-supported reforms;

Added:57. Urges the Commission, including at the highest level, to use clearer and more direct language in its public communication, including on shortcomings, lack of progress and backsliding, particularly regarding the rule of law, in order to uphold conditionality, defend EU values and maintain the confidence of pro-European and pro-democratic actors;

Added:58. Calls for the EU institutions and the Member States to fully engage in further strengthening the reform processes in the candidate countries, in particular by enhancing their administrative capacities through targeted capacity-building programmes; calls for academic and educational cooperation among EU Member States and enlargement countries to be boosted by encouraging training courses focused on European values and the rule of law, good governance, public administration and the eradication of corruption, and by creating a venue for joint training for public officials from enlargement countries, including officials from local and regional authorities; highlights the success of twinning projects in transferring sectoral expertise and stresses the need to build on this positive experience, not least to increase ownership of the enlargement process within the Member States; stresses that capacity-building programmes should also prioritise strengthening independent civil society organisations and safeguarding the space in which they operate; calls on the Commission to support programmes that empower local communities, volunteers and civic initiatives that promote democratic culture, European values and social cohesion;

Added:59. Underlines the role of parliamentary diplomacy, accountability and EU democracy support programmes in sustaining the reform momentum; reiterates its readiness to enhance regular and transparent dialogue and cooperation with the national parliaments of candidate and potential candidate countries by building on previous positive experiences and successful formats, making full use of Parliament’s existing democracy support tools and initiatives and promoting increased parliamentary oversight of the EU accession process and related reforms;

Added:60. Underlines the need for electoral reforms that ensure free, fair and democratic elections in line with international standards; stresses that benchmarks on pluralism, party integrity, the transparency of party and media financing, and judicial and media independence are preconditions for financial support and progress; encourages the EU and the Member States to use participatory instruments involving citizens, parliaments, civil society and young people to exchange views, increase mutual understanding and instil a sense of ownership before formal accession takes place;

Added:61. Is concerned about the large-scale and malicious disinformation campaigns that have been continuously conducted by Russia and other actors for many years, which have increased in intensity since the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine; notes that candidate and potential candidate countries and the EU’s neighbourhood have been a clear focal point of Russian FIMI operations, one of the aims of which is to discredit the EU and diminish the perceived value of EU integration;

Added:62. Encourages stronger EU dialogue with civil society and greater support for independent investigative media, fact-checking bodies and civil society organisations working on media literacy in order to effectively counter disinformation and foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI); highlights the need for continuous support for and close cooperation with all enlargement countries facing strong external interference in their process of convergence with the EU and in their electoral processes; calls for the lessons learned from the EU Partnership Mission in Moldova to be applied; stresses the importance of assessing and improving the effectiveness of EU instruments designed to assist candidate countries in countering FIMI; welcomes the Commission’s intention to expand the proposed European Democracy Shield to the accession countries, thereby reinforcing their capacity to respond to threats such as FIMI and disinformation campaigns; calls on the Commission and the EEAS to deepen cooperation with vulnerable enlargement countries on information resilience, cybersecurity and hybrid threats; calls on the EEAS and the EU delegations in third countries to further strengthen their respective capacities to fight and counter disinformation and propaganda against the EU’s CFSP, including by investing in communication campaigns to fight foreign influence;

Added:63. Notes with concern that Russia has increasingly portrayed itself as a global defender of ‘traditional values’ by instrumentalising the Russian Orthodox Church as a vehicle for disinformation and soft-power projection, particularly in the countries of the former Soviet Union; underlines that such practices are designed to undermine democracy, social cohesion and pro-European orientations; calls for the CFSP and the enlargement policy to include specific measures to counter such influence, including faith-based diplomacy, strategic communication, and support for religious communities that were victims of Soviet oppression;

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64. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, and the governments and parliaments of the enlargement countries.