On 15 October 2025, the Foreign Affairs and European Union Policies Committees of the Senate approved the resolution on ‘Foreign Interference in the Democratic Processes of European Union Member States and Candidate Countries‘. This is a significant step on the path to protecting Italian and European democracy from hybrid threats and information manipulation.

The initiative also stems from the urgent report of the Venice Commission, an advisory body of the Council of Europe that monitors compliance with democratic standards, and six months of hearings dedicated to the topic of interference.

We talk about this with Senator Marco Lombardo, a member of Azione and author of the proposed law on the so-called ‘Democratic Shield‘, which aims to counter the interference of foreign actors in national and European political processes.

‘The next step is to bring the resolution to the plenary’

Luca Cadonici: After months of hearings and an almost unanimous vote in the Commission, the debate on foreign interference is now entering a more mature political phase. Do you think that, after this vote, there really is the will to tackle the issue with determination?

Sen. Marco Lombardo: I hope so. There is an urgent need to increase Italians’ awareness of what hybrid war means: every day we are exposed to the risks of manipulation and disinformation. Italy is among the most vulnerable countries, particularly in relation to Russia.
This resolution is a first step, but it is not enough. It needs to reach the House, be voted on, and lead to the start of a legislative process for a national Democratic Shield. Only then can we say that we have really done something to defend the integrity of our democratic processes.

‘The League voted in favour out of majority duty’

Luca Cadonici: Senator Lombardo, what in your opinion prompted a part of the majority – in particular the League – to want to remove explicit references to Russian disinformation from the text, despite the evidence of coordinated campaigns at European level?

Marco Lombardo: Granted that in the end the League voted in favour, even though Senator Borghi was not present, I believe it was majority duty that prevailed. They had initially removed the reference to Russian interference in Romania from the premises of the text, consistent with their public position of denying Moscow ‘s interference in the Romanian elections. However, the work of the Venice Special Commission, which is quoted in the resolution, in fact brings back those same conclusions: in a sense, they took it out the door but it came back in through the window.

‘The M5S abstained in order not to admit the reality of interference’

Luca Cadonici: And the position of the 5 Star Movement?

Sen. Marco Lombardo: They were the only party to abstain, formally as a matter of method – they argued that the resolution was partial and that other parties should be heard. In fact, the 5 Star Movement has always been critical of the issue of Russian interference: they even asked to hear the Russian ambassador, as if there was no war going on between Russia and Ukraine. Recently, they have also wanted to extend the hearings to the Holy See, evidently trying to broaden the audience of those being heard to avoid getting into trouble. One point on which their comments are not entirely unfounded, however, concerns the fact that interference does not only come from Russia, China or Iran. Forms of foreign interference can also be considered to come from the United States, with reference to how X influenced, for example, the election result of extreme right-wing parties in Germany.

‘Russia and China threaten our democracies in different ways’

Luca Cadonici: You have also repeatedly referred to the growing role of China. What kind of interference do you consider most relevant and how do the new forms of hybrid warfare fit into this picture?

Sen. Marco Lombardo: There is not only Russian disinformation. China exerts its interference through economic and financial leverage, investing in critical infrastructure not only in Europe, but also in Africa and the Balkans. It is a form of technological colonialism, a silent but extremely pervasive penetration.
Russia does it with propaganda and information manipulation; China does it with economic power. And we Europeans find ourselves in the middle.
In this context, the management of migration flows can also become an instrument of foreign influence, capable of creating political instability and artificial consensus in European countries. Understanding and countering these mechanisms is an integral part of defending our democracies.

‘We need a democratic shield against cognitive warfare’

Luca Cadonici: In the final text, the resolution calls for ‘assessing the appropriateness’ of taking certain measures. Does this not seem too cautious an approach to a problem that is now structural for European democracies?

Sen. Marco Lombardo: Yes, absolutely. I myself and other Democratic Party senators would have liked a more incisive text, with more binding commitments. But the majority compromise led to an intermediate result, which for us is only a starting point. Now we must bring the resolution to the plenary and turn it into a real political act.
For Azione this is the logical basis for adopting a Democratic Shield against foreign interference, as already proposed by President von der Leyen at European level. Hybrid and cognitivewarfare is not a fantasy, but a reality that we must address with appropriate legislative instruments.