European Council role in the EU policy cycle

At its 18 October 2018 meeting, the European Council called ‘for measures to protect the Union’s democratic systems and combat disinformation, including in the context of the upcoming European elections, in full respect of fundamental rights’. Following this, the European Commission worked intensively on this aspect, including issuing guidelines for the conduct of the 2019 EU elections. In March 2019, the European Council provided affirmed ownership of the process by ‘welcoming the important work accomplished in this respect in the past months’, thereby endorsing the actions which had taken place. It then provided scrutiny of the process by outlining the aspects where implementation could be improved and called ‘for further enhanced coordinated efforts to address the internal […] aspects of disinformation and protect the European and national elections across the EU’.