Changes from plenary report to adopted text

25. Highlights the needs for prevention, protection, stabilisation, accountability and deterrence, and the need to address existing protection gaps, including access to legal and administrative assistance, and psychosocial support; further stresses the need to develop rapid response capabilities within the competent authorities;

26. Highlights the serious psychological, social and security consequences of TNR for victims and their families; calls on the Member States to recognise psychosocial harm as an integral feature of TNR and to ensure access to multilingual, and trauma-informed mental health support; recalls in that respect the consequences and psychological burden caused by strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) on journalists or legal pressure on academics;

27. Calls on the Member States to recognise the abuse of legal systems as a form of TNR and to ensure that victims of TNR have access to specialised legal assistance, as well as effective, proportionate and enforceable remedies and reparations, including compensation and reimbursement by the perpetrators, of legal costs resulting from abusive or vexatious proceedings;

28. Calls on the Member States to provide targeted support enabling persons targeted by TNR to continue their professional and civic activities, and to ensure effective and timely protection for those who choose to publicly document or report abuses; welcomes, in this respect, the EU anti-SLAPP directive; is of the opinion that similar measures should be taken to protect academic freedom from external pressure;

29. Calls on law-enforcement and security authorities to establish sustained outreach and trusted communication channels with communities affected by TNR and community liaison structures, in order to raise awareness, facilitate safe reporting and improve understanding of evolving TNR patterns, including conduct falling below criminal thresholds;

30. Calls for the EU and its Member States to recognise and support affected individuals and communities as key first responders; recognises the role of exiled journalists as key allies in countering authoritarian propaganda and foreign information manipulation and interference; calls on the Commission to operationalise the EU Civil Society Strategy, and encourages better cooperation and information-sharing between civil society and EU institutions and Member States;

31. Calls on the EEAS to update the EU action plan on human rights and democracy and the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders to explicitly address TNR, including protection and support for human rights defenders in exile and diaspora communities;

32. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure predictable funding for such support for victims, including under the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument – Global Europe (NDICI), Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV) and Horizon Europe;

Preventing and responding to specific forms of transnational repression

Physical TNR

33. Calls on the Member States and the Commission to develop new or adapt existing mechanisms to address the cross-border nature of physical TNR, including surveillance, coercion, assaults, and attempted abductions, to ensure such acts are systematically identified, investigated, and treated as state-linked repression rather than isolated criminal offences;

Digital and technology-enabled TNR

34. Calls for the EU and its Member States to recognise, prevent and counter digital forms of TNR such as censorship, disinformation, smear campaigns, online harassment and intimidation, facilitated by mechanisms enabled by online platforms, including engagement-based recommender systems, fake accounts and bot networks; stresses the need to recognise the specific challenge of gender-based digital TNR and the particular consequences of this type of repression for women targeted by TNR; calls on the Commission and Member States to take TNR into consideration within the enforcement of the existing framework of relevant EU legislation, including the Digital Services Act, the AI Act, and the Dual-Use Regulation, to ensure robust enforcement, stringent export controls, and accountability mechanisms;

35. Urges digital platforms to take effective action to mitigate and address digital TNR threats; calls on the Commission to assess whether digital TNR fits the criteria for inclusion under activities that have negative effects on ‘fundamental rights’ as defined by the Digital Services Act; calls on the Commission to pay particular attention to the impact of TNR in the forthcoming revisions of the guidelines in relation to risk assessment and mitigation measures applicable to very large online platforms, including by investigating the systemic risks posed by platforms such as WeChat and TikTok;

36. Expresses grave concern about the use of AI by non-EU countries and their proxies as a tool of TNR, including through AI-enabled digital surveillance, deployment of spyware, phishing and hacking attacks, doxxing, automated online harassment and coordinated disinformation campaigns on social media; calls on the Commission’s AI Office to further assess the impact of AI on TNR and to propose concrete safeguards to prevent the misuse of AI systems in ways that enable surveillance, coercion or repression across borders;

37. Highlights that the right to secure and private communication is fundamental; strongly condemns the use of spyware and surveillance technologies by non-EU countries and their proxies against individuals in the EU; notes with concern documented cases involving private companies developing and exporting advanced spyware and digital surveillance tools used to commit TNR;

38. Recalls the report by its PEGA Committee (Committee of Inquiry to investigate the use of Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware), which contained recommendations on combating the illegal use of spyware, in particular intrusive spyware; laments that the Commission, to this date, has not taken the recommendations on board, even though issues prevail; calls, in that context, on Member States and the Commission to implement the recommendations of Parliament’s PEGA Committee, and to strengthen safeguards against spyware proliferation and abuse, and counter deficiencies in national legislation through better enforcement of EU legislation such as the Anti-Money Laundering Directive, procurement rules, and the Dual-Use Regulation; calls for the EU and the Member States to ensure strict oversight of spyware markets and effective accountability mechanisms and the criminalisation of unlawful data collection carried out on behalf of foreign states in violation of EU law;

39. Calls for holding technology companies and other private actors accountable where they facilitate TNR, including by failing to mitigate risks to the fundamental rights of individuals residing in the EU, particularly regarding the use of these apps for state-sponsored surveillance, the censorship of political speech, and the facilitation of TNR against diaspora communities; calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure that very large online platforms and search engines apply human-rights-based content moderation; calls on these platforms to establish rapid response mechanisms for individuals at risk, including priority reporting channels, timely human review, safeguards against arbitrary content removal, and effective responses to doxxing, account takeovers and coordinated online harassment;

Coercion-by-proxy and family-based repression

40. Recognises reprisals against family members of exiled individuals, whether occurring within the EU or in non-EU countries, as a distinct and serious form of TNR; calls for family-targeted intimidation, detention, property confiscation, travel bans and similar practices to be systematically addressed within EU monitoring, sanctions and diplomatic response frameworks;

41. Stresses that family reunification and other protective pathways reduce exposure to coercion-by-proxy;

Addressing the structures that enable transnational repression

42. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to identify, assess and mitigate structural vulnerabilities in EU and national administrative, legal and financial systems that may be exploited for TNR, including in consular services;

43. Encourages the EU institutions and the Member States to take measures to avoid the risk of their structures being abused by perpetrators of TNR, which could include the introduction of risk-aware safeguards, alternative procedures where necessary, and enhanced oversight of legal, administrative and financial infrastructure, including fundamental rights impact assessments, residency-by-investment schemes and anti-money-laundering frameworks, in order to prevent misuse by perpetrators and ensure accountability;

44. Urges Member States to rigorously vet – and where appropriate revoke – investment-linked residence permits and similar ‘golden visa’ arrangements for persons credibly linked to regimes or networks known to engage in TNR, in order to prevent perpetrators and enablers from acquiring EU residency rights that facilitate illicit activity;

Abuse of international cooperation mechanisms

46. Calls on the Member States to ensure that law-enforcement, judicial and other relevant authorities receiving Interpol data and implementing bilateral cooperation agreements with countries suspected of TNR are properly trained to identify and assess risks of abuse;

47. Stresses that addressing Interpol abuse requires affirming in domestic law and operational guidance that Interpol notices and diffusions are not subject to the same scrutiny as arrest warrants before they are issued and should not be treated as equivalent to arrest warrants; stresses that the conditions and assessments for Interpol corrective measures should be reviewed in the context of countering TNR;

48. Calls on the Commission to establish an EU-level appeal mechanism for abusive Interpol Red Notices, consider suspending cooperation in cases where due-process concerns exist or in-absentia verdicts are used, and withhold recognition or assistance for requests originating from perpetrator states until judicial independence is restored;

49. Calls on the Member States to push within Interpol for the publication, on an annual basis, of detailed statistics for each type of notice and diffusion, broken down by issuing state and indicating the number and reasons for approvals, refusals and deletions;

50. Calls for adequate reforms and resources to be put in place to provide long-term solutions that prevent politically motivated Red Notices and diffusion orders for arrest, including setting benchmarks preventing misuse of the Interpol notice system and enhanced scrutiny of governments with a poor human rights or TNR record;

Financial and administrative instruments of repression

51. Calls on EU financial regulators and relevant supervisory authorities to recognise that compliance with FATF AML/CFT and cybersecurity frameworks may be misused as a tool for TNR to target civil society and their donors, journalists and diaspora communities, business people and their entities, associates and individuals; calls on Member States’ law enforcement and judiciaries to cooperate with financial regulators to help prevent and address abuses of financial systems and travel databases used to facilitate TNR;

52. Calls on EU financial regulators, including the AMLA, to develop safeguards to prevent such manipulation, including pre-freeze verifications, and appropriate screening and data protection measures;

53. Calls on EU financial regulators to develop victim-centred redress mechanisms to remedy financial manipulation and long-term harm, including public correction mechanisms; calls for increased coordination between financial regulators, entities and relevant supervisory authorities with the relevant EU bodies addressing TNR;

54. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to establish mechanisms ensuring guaranteed access to basic banking services to individuals credibly at risk of TNR and emergency financial continuity or liquidity mechanisms where repression results in sudden asset freezes;

55. Calls on Financial Intelligence Units to identify and systematically analyse TNR-linked financial patterns and report relevant findings to national and EU TNR coordination hubs;

56. Calls on the Member States to ensure specialised training for law-enforcement, judicial, financial and cybersecurity authorities on identifying TNR-linked financial patterns, including the misuse of FATF, Interpol and travel database tools;

57. Calls on the Member States to provide guidance to financial institutions, ensure that their national financial regulators have the mandate to share the data available to them with law enforcement and judiciaries, and establish an effective national complaint and review mechanism;

Protecting asylum, migration and consular services from being abused by perpetrators of TNR

58. Highlights the denial of consular services as a form of TNR that can be linked to intimidation, surveillance or coercion; condemns the use of mobility controls by perpetrator states, including the revocation of passports, denial of consular services and other restrictions on movement;

59. Calls on the Commission to issue official guidelines on countering consular coercion, ensuring that persons targeted by TNR do not need to visit their national embassies or consulates abroad;

62. Calls on the Member States to strengthen preventive and accountability measures, including by vetting diplomats, official staff of the countries involved, interpreters, lobbyists’ representatives and other relevant actors for involvement in TNR prior to accreditation, and to impose appropriate measures — including expulsions, entry bans or suspension of accreditation – against individuals responsible for such acts; further calls on the Member States to share relevant information with partner countries to prevent re-accreditation or continued abuse; expresses the need to acknowledge the risks posed by TNR infiltration among democratic opposition groups abroad and to undertake coordinated, collective measures to prevent and counter such activities;

63. Calls for the EU and its Member States to monitor abusive use of judicial or law-enforcement mechanisms by perpetrator state or state-linked actors; calls for the EU and its Member States to, upon sufficient evidence, consider imposing cautionary measures on such states;

64. Calls on the Member States to ensure that their legal frameworks prohibit interference with rights protected under the European Convention on Human Rights, including when such actions are carried out on behalf of a foreign power, and that this involvement is considered an aggravating factor in sentencing for related offences;

65. Calls on the Council to explore the possibility of identifying TNR as a serious crime with a cross-border dimension in accordance with Article 83 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, with a view to establishing common EU rules on definitions and sanctions where appropriate; calls on the Commission to initiate legislation to harmonise the prohibition of foreign surveillance activities within the EU, in particular those activities falling under TNR;

66. Calls on law enforcement and judiciaries to investigate and prosecute acts of TNR that amount to crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute;

67. Calls on the Member States, in cooperation with the Commission and the EEAS, to integrate TNR risks into EU travel information and consular guidance, including through targeted travel advisories for countries where credible evidence indicates the involvement of state authorities or proxies in TNR;

68. Calls on the Commission and the EEAS to ensure that individuals and entities engaging in TNR are systematically considered for listing under the EU global human rights sanctions regime (EU Magnitsky Act), and to explicitly include TNR as grounds for designation under the forthcoming EU sanctions regime on transnational organised crime;

69. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to increase investment in forensic, financial and digital investigations related to TNR to identify, attribute and document TNR, and to support legal proceedings brought by victims;

70. Calls on the Member States to prioritise the investigation and dismantling of TNR networks, including proxy actors and links to organised crime, through enhanced coordination between security, judicial and financial authorities;

Positioning the European Union as a global leader in countering transnational repression

71. Calls on the Commission and the EEAS to systematically integrate countering TNR into EU external action, including political and human rights dialogues, engagement with non-EU countries and candidate countries, and public diplomacy, and to raise concerns publicly; calls on the Commission and the EEAS to include conditions preventing the abuse of multilateral and bilateral cooperation agreements in criminal matters for TNR in international agreements and cooperation frameworks, including the possibility of suspension;

72. Calls for the EU and its Member States to raise TNR cases, including coercion-by-proxy and family-based repression in bilateral relations with perpetrator states, and to call for the cessation of such practices;

73. Calls on the Commission and the EEAS to strengthen strategic communication on TNR, explicitly recognising it as a global threat, strongly condemning perpetrators, and signalling EU support for targeted individuals;

74. Calls on the EEAS to include TNR explicitly within the mandate of the EU Special Representative for Human Rights and to ensure that it is addressed in EU human rights reporting;