Helmut Brandstätter is a Member of the European Parliament and a prominent Austrian journalist and politician known for his work on democracy, European integration, media freedom, and foreign policy. Europe's democracies are under sustained external pressure: Russian interference in elections, online disinformation at industrial scale, an entrenched dictatorship on the Union's eastern border, and a full-scale war in Ukraine that has reopened the most basic question of how the continent defends itself.
Brandstätter sits at the centre of Parliament's response. As Coordinator of the European Democracy Shield — the special committee tasked with countering foreign interference in European elections and combating disinformation, including in the digital sphere — he is shaping how the EU pushes back against hostile influence operations. As the Parliament's rapporteur on Belarus, he is engaged with the political consequences of authoritarian consolidation in the EU's neighbourhood, and he remains continuously active on Ukraine. He is also part of a cross-party grouping of MEPs advancing the European Defence Union, working on the question of the EU's military capacity and how European defence should articulate with NATO.
In this conversation, Brandstätter will discuss what it takes to defend European democracies against foreign interference, the strategic stakes in Belarus and Ukraine, and the architecture of a credible European defence. Drawing on his political and journalistic experience, he will offer a direct assessment of where Europe stands and what it must still do.
