EU Commission's vice-chief and Poland's justice minister discussed spyware threats ahead of EU parliament election

Bodnar and Jourova held a joint press conference after the talks.

"A few weeks ago in Brussels, I have outlined out plan of action. Completion of this plan is crucial because the Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union procedure launched against Poland depends on it," Poland's justice minister said.

During Thursday's talks with Jourova, he informed her that works on an amendment to the law on the National Council of the Judiciary were ongoing, that successive bills would be proceeded by the parliament, and that a whole package of solutions on how to fix the Constitutional Tribunal was prepared.

"We've also discussed the issues that are important in terms of preparations for the European Parliament election. Each and every election to the European Parliament is a huge celebration of democracy at the European level," Bodnar said.

The minister also stressed that Jourova was strongly involved in various issues related to preventing dangers to the electoral process. He added that he was grateful to Jourova for visiting Poland once again and for the "constant dialogue" regarding the rule of law and democratic standards in Poland and in the EU.

Jourova briefly mentioned the usual topic of discussion with Bodnar, namely the rule of law issues, explaining shortly after that "this time it’s not the main reason why I came to Poland because I’m on the so-called Democracy Tour". "I am visiting member states asking the member state representatives, but also other entities, how ready they are to protect the electoral process."

"I think that it’s very important in this super election year that we have responsible preparations for different kinds of threats from foreign interference, disinformation campaign from Kremlin and other bad actors. We have to get ready for cyberattacks and we also have to get ready that here, for the first time, the AI, artificial intelligence might be massively used to mislead and manipulate the voters’ preferences," she added.

Jourova said she and Bodnar also discussed "what to do against the abuse of spyware such as Pegasus and Predator". "The Commission is preparing guidelines on some kind of non-legislative measure informing the member states about legal consequences of abuse of such spywares. 

"I've heard from minister Bodnar that Poland is also active in this direction. I want to say on Pegasus that once it is used by the state actors against political opponents or journalists, we find it as a serious breach to the rule of law," the EU Commission vice-chief stressed.