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Protecting democracy from disruptions caused by artificial intelligence

Doc. 16417: compendium of written amendments | Doc. 16417 | 23/06/2026 | Final version

Compendium index

Amendment 1 Amendment 2 Amendment 3

Caption: AdoptedRejectedWithdrawnNo electronic votes

ADraft Resolution

1The development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology is advancing at an unprecedented rate, holding the promise of improving many aspects of human life and accelerating social and economic development. Indeed, AI may represent the most transformative revolution in human history. However, efforts to ensure that AI systems are safe and regulated by democratic governance frameworks are falling short of keeping up with the pace of innovation.
2The Parliamentary Assembly is deeply concerned about the potentially disruptive impact of AI on democracy in Europe and beyond. At the same time, the Assembly acknowledges that this technology should not be demonised, but can be instrumental in innovating democratic systems, provided that all stakeholders understand what is at stake and take immediate action.
3With the right governance framework in place, AI can be harnessed to strengthen democratic processes and institutions, as emphasised in the Roadmap Towards a New Democratic Pact for Europe. AI can facilitate public participation by providing citizens with access to information, explaining complex policies, mediating deliberations, and identifying patterns and common positions among large groups of people. On the other hand, it could also enable politicians and public authorities to gather proposals and information about citizens’ aspirations. In this sense, AI can be a powerful tool for participatory and deliberative democracy.
4AI can promote inclusiveness by eliminating socio-economic barriers and providing disadvantaged groups with better access to public services, education and job opportunities. Furthermore, AI can enhance the protection of human rights, improve the efficiency with which public administration delivers services to citizens and detect the malicious use of other AI tools.
5In this context, the Assembly believes that Europe should not restrict itself to a regulatory role, while cutting-edge AI developments are mostly taking place in the United States and in China. Guided by the values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, Europe should take the lead in shaping the development of new AI applications, placing strong emphasis on their human dimension. The risks associated with AI technologies must be effectively identified, addressed and mitigated. In this regard, the Council of Europe has a critical responsibility to ensure that the relationship between humans and AI remains firmly oriented towards the common good.
6AI technology relies on large datasets to train its systems and produce outputs. Sensitive personal data, often collected infringing on citizens’ privacy, can be exploited by malevolent individuals, companies or governments, for mass surveillance purposes, predictive policing, risk and social scoring, and censoring political opinions. This has chilling effects on civil participation.
7The datasets used to train AI systems can be polluted by politically based disinformation content. They can also contain biases, as they might reflect or even amplify inequalities already present in societies in the outputs produced. When AI is used for policy-making purposes, these biases can lead to ill-informed decisions or discrimination against certain groups, such as women or minorities. Additionally, AI systems can sometimes “hallucinate”, generating incomplete or misleading information.
8Personal data can be misused to create fake identities or produce synthetic content, such as deepfakes in the form of texts, images, audio files or videos, which essentially impersonate others for the purpose of harassing, scamming, blackmailing or committing other frauds.
9Deepfakes and other synthetic content can also be used to spread fake news, hate speech, and divisive content. Even with limited time and resources, well-co-ordinated disinformation campaigns can be launched on a large scale to interfere with political debates and elections. Through “bot farms” and “troll farms”, namely networks that create fictitious profiles programmed to automatically spread disinformation, these operations can reach a wide audience extremely quickly, in stark contrast to the time and resources needed to “debunk” them.
10Malevolent agents, including foreign actors, are increasingly exploiting these opportunities as hybrid methods to interfere with democratic processes and institutions in Europe. The Assembly therefore welcomes the ongoing work of the Committee of Experts on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference, particularly with regard to the feasibility study on the possible elaboration of a legal instrument on foreign information manipulation and interference, including disinformation.
11An increasing number of citizens are relying on social media platforms as their main source of information. In turn, data gathered from citizens is also used to profile them, identify their preferences and micro target them with specific content, ultimately with the aim of manipulating their opinions. Micro targeting contributes to the creation of echo chambers, in which users are exposed to a limited range of ideas and beliefs and do not have the opportunity to engage in a meaningful political dialogue with people who hold different opinions. Chatbots, which are software designed to simulate a conversation, can also be programmed to censor specific content and provide biased answers, thereby further contributing to the manipulation of citizens’ choices and beliefs.
12The business model of large social media platforms aims to monetise user engagement through advertisements. This leads to algorithms prioritising controversial and polarising content. Although most of these platforms include fact-checking and moderation tools, these are not always efficient or quick enough to prevent dangerous content from being disseminated. In addition, polluted information ecosystems and biased AI outputs can erode citizens’ trust in traditional media and in democratic processes and institutions, further contributing to democratic backsliding.
13In the near future, AI systems may be entrusted with more decision-making responsibilities, which could lead to misjudgements regarding AI capabilities, lower human cognitive standards, and limit diversity of perspectives. New developments could even lead to the creation of a “super” AI, which would surpass human abilities, potentially develop its own consciousness and escape human control, with disastrous consequences.
14Controlling large datasets, energy grids, computing capacity and the human skills needed to develop and deploy AI systems has become a crucial strategic geopolitical asset. This control can lead to dangerous concentrations of power in the hands of a few private actors and to increased global inequalities and tensions between competing States.
15In line with these considerations, the Assembly affirms that democratic oversight must be maintained throughout the entire lifecycle of AI systems, from development to deployment, to safeguard human dignity, transparency and accountability. This must be achieved in collaboration with all the relevant stakeholders, starting from the private actors operating in the field of AI, to ensure that AI systems are truly human-centred and empower humans without replacing them.
16To this end, the Assembly urges member and observer States of the Council of Europe to sign and ratify the Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law (CETS No. 225) in order to allow its rapid entry into force and encourages non-member States worldwide to request to accede to this international treaty, the first of its kind in this field, as soon as they have the opportunity to do so.
17Furthermore, the Assembly calls on member and observer States of the Council of Europe to:
17.1engage in a comprehensive reflection on the need to regulate the development and deployment of all new AI technologies, including those specifically intended for national security and defence purposes, while at the same time eliminating the barriers to innovation in Europe;
17.2take active action in response to threats of foreign interference and to strengthen resilience against disinformation and misinformation, in line with Assembly Resolution 2593 (2025) and Recommendation 2292 (2025); this should include adopting specific measures to counter the misuse of AI tools for spreading deepfakes, for example by introducing mandatory content fact-checking, debunking and watermarking on social media platforms;
17.3strengthen the transparency, explainability, accessibility and inclusiveness criteria required by AI technologies, including those used by the public sector or to deliver public services, as well as the algorithms and content moderation tools used by social media platforms;
17.4encourage the use of diverse languages in the development of AI technologies, to ensure their diversity and representativeness;
17.5support and promote the development of open-source environments;
17.6ensure that AI developers, providers and social media platforms are held accountable for any harm caused by their services;
17.7establish clear, effective and appropriate redress measures that are easily accessible to victims of harm caused by AI;
17.8incorporate risk and impact assessment and mitigation procedures throughout the entire lifecycle of the AI systems, focusing on human rights, democracy and the rule of law, for example by involving national human rights institutions, and adopting the Methodology for assessing the risk and impacts of artificial intelligence systems from the perspective of human rights, democracy and the rule of law (HUDERIA) of the Council of Europe;
17.9strengthen AI and media literacy at all levels of education, including informal education, for all age groups (with a specific focus on older people), to enhance pre-bunking skills, coding capabilities, ethics, critical thinking and general knowledge of how AI technologies work, ensuring that no one is left behind in the digital transition;
17.10dedicate sufficient resources to ensure that civil society and citizens participate in all debates around AI technologies, and that all relevant stakeholders, particularly young people, participate in co-developing new regulations, standards and oversight mechanisms;
17.11tackle discrimination and bias against women generated by AI and ensure equal opportunities for women and men in the development, deployment and use of AI technologies;
17.12dedicate resources to foresight and research into the multi-layered impact of new AI technologies on individuals’ psychology, information ecosystems, democratic institutions and processes, energy production, the environment and society at large, to be able to respond whenever necessary through regulation, oversight and other preventive or mitigating measures;
17.13define clear frameworks for their relations with big tech corporations, so that their influence on democratic societies can be properly scrutinised and regulated whenever necessary, including through appropriate antitrust laws to prevent oligopoly formation and concentration of power;
17.14consider defining clear red lines on the development of certain technologies and a moratorium on the development of super AI.

23 June 2026

Tabled by Mr Fabian MOLINA, Ms Saskia KLUIT, Mr Ivan RAČAN, Mr Mattias JONSSON, Mr Max LUCKS

In the draft resolution, after paragraph 17.14, insert the following paragraph:

"ensure that there is no protection gap between approaches to regulating AI and approaches to regulating online platforms with respect to the increasing integration of generative AI tools into social media platforms and search engines, as well as the increasing de facto usage of generative AI tools as search engines."

18To fully harness the potential benefits of AI and strengthen democratic security, the Assembly also calls on member and observer States of the Council of Europe to:
18.1explore all possible uses of AI technologies to strengthen democracy, particularly to improve the delivery of public services, increase the protection of human rights and reduce all forms of discrimination;
18.2encourage and support the development of innovative ways to engage citizens, particularly through large-scale AI-powered consultations on difficult issues, to strengthen their involvement in policy- and decision-making processes;
18.3encourage and support the development of AI-powered tools to detect, investigate and eliminate AI-generated malicious content and cyber-attacks.

23 June 2026

Tabled by Mr Fabian MOLINA, Ms Saskia KLUIT, Mr Ivan RAČAN, Mr Max LUCKS, Ms Azadeh ROJHAN

In the draft resolution, after paragraph 18.3, insert the following paragraph:

"ensure the coherent and effective implementation of the Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law (CETS No. 225) by strengthening co-ordination efforts across signatory States."

19To strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty and reduce the continent’s dependency on external providers, the Assembly calls on member States of the Council of Europe to:
19.1adopt robust cybersecurity measures to protect European algorithms, models, applications, relevant networks, datasets and critical infrastructure from malicious hackers;
19.2focus on education, upskilling, as well as retaining and attracting talent to create the next generation of leaders and innovators knowledgeable about the latest technological developments and capable of achieving sustainable socio-economic growth through them;
19.3develop pan-European, structured “sandboxes” in which to conduct stress tests for new technologies and tools in safe, closed environments, under strong governance frameworks;
19.4identify areas in which Europe still has a comparative advantage (for example quantum computing, green technology, or the development of specialised applications) and exploit these by allocating sufficient financial resources and incentives, streamlining the regulatory framework and strengthening innovation ecosystems (universities, research centres, start-ups) and infrastructure (data centres, sovereign clouds, high-performance computing, and chip production);

23 June 2026

Tabled by Mr Márton HAJDU, Ms Andrea EDER-GITSCHTHALER, Mr Branislav BORENOVIĆ, Ms Nađa LAKOVIĆ, Ms Albana VOKSHI, Ms Natalia DAVIDOVICI, Ms Regina BASTOS, Mr Gerardo GIOVAGNOLI, Mr Serhii SOBOLIEV, Ms Carmen LEYTE, Mr Siegfried WALCH, Ms Agnieszka POMASKA, Mr Marko PAVIĆ, Mr Christophe BRICO, Ms Octavie MODERT, Ms Ivanka VASILEVSKA, Ms Maria SYRENGELA, Mr Johannes VOLKMANN, Mr Georgios STAMATIS, Mr Iulian BULAI, Ms Denitsa SACHEVA, Ms Elvira KOVÁCS, Mr Zsolt NÉMETH

In the draft resolution, after paragraph 19.4, insert the following paragraph:

"recognise that building strategic European AI technologies and infrastructure is essential for the continent’s democratic security and autonomy, and take concrete steps to prevent unilateral technological dependency on foreign or private providers, while ensuring secure and equitable access, particularly for smaller member States, public-interest research institutions and small and medium sized enterprises."

Explanatory note

AI is becoming critical infrastructure for Europe’s democracy, resilience and autonomy. The amendment aims to reduce one-sided dependency on foreign or private providers and ensures access for smaller States, researchers and SMEs

19.5scale up responsible innovation, through the involvement of all stakeholders, and strengthened public-private partnerships, in parallel with regulation;
19.6stimulate a cultural shift towards greater tolerance of controlled risk-taking.
20Acknowledging the global nature of the challenge posed by the rise of AI technologies, the Assembly calls on all States worldwide to consider establishing a multilateral body dedicated exclusively to overseeing AI technologies. This body could define a common language, standards and a regulatory framework, involving all interested stakeholders, and co-ordinate the various ongoing initiatives launched by different multilateral organisations.
21Furthermore, the Assembly calls on private companies to co-operate in good faith with multilateral organisations, national and local governments, civil society and academia, in ensuring that the development and deployment of AI technologies, in all fields, are guided by the respect of democratic principles, human rights and the rule of law.
22The Assembly also encourages national parliaments to prioritise AI in their deliberations. This should not only include legislation and regulation, but also fostering general debates on its uses and keeping up with relevant societal and institutional changes. One way to achieve this could be to establish and institutionalise dedicated parliamentary committees on AI.
23Finally, the Assembly resolves to continue working on this matter, through the reports prepared by its different committees and by organising dedicated events on AI, also in relation to the New Democratic Pact for Europe.