Foreign Influence Operations in the EU (EPRS_BRI(2018)625123)

Bentzen's 2018 EPRS briefing is a foundational document in the development of EU institutional awareness of foreign influence operations. Published before the FIMI framework existed, it maps the threat landscape that would subsequently drive EU counter-disinformation policy — Russian disinformation targeting European democratic processes, the exploitation of social media platforms, and the inadequacy of existing regulatory tools to address covert political manipulation.

Read retrospectively, the briefing is valuable for two reasons. First, it captures the state of institutional understanding at a formative moment — the threat vocabulary, the attribution assessments, and the policy gaps identified in 2018 directly shaped the legislative agenda that produced the European Democracy Action Plan, the Digital Services Act, and the EEAS FIMI framework. Second, it provides a baseline against which progress can be measured: the threats it documents have intensified, but the EU's analytical and regulatory capacity has also developed substantially. For researchers tracing the intellectual genealogy of EU counter-FIMI policy, this briefing is a primary source.