EU Must Confront Transnational Repression of Human Rights Defenders, Lawmakers Say

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Nov 14, 2025 - 10:58 Updated: Nov 14, 2025 - 10:54
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EU Must Confront Transnational Repression of Human Rights Defenders, Lawmakers Say

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Members of the European Parliament on Nov. 13 backed a call for the EU to tackle the growing number of transnational repression cases within its borders.

The report, backed by 512 members of Parliament (MEPs) and voted against by 76, is not binding but aims to put pressure on the EU executive branch and member states to confront authoritarian regimes that attempt to extend their domestic political control overseas.

The report said “state-sponsored transnational repression is taking increasingly insidious forms,” including physical harm, surveillance, legal pressure, defamation campaigns, abductions, forced repatriation, threats against family members, and even “unlawful killings.”

Authoritarian regimes have been found to exploit consular services and Interpol’s red notices system to exert pressure on their targets. In the digital arena, regimes and their proxies have increasingly resorted to artificial intelligence-powered technologies, spyware, hacking, and doxing to surveil and hunt down their targets, according to the report.

The victims of these oppressive tactics include journalists, lawyers, and members of diaspora communities who shed light on the human rights abuses committed by these regimes.

“It is time to put an end to it,” Chloé Ridel, a French MEP who drafted the report, said in a statement. “Europe must remain a safe haven for those fighting for freedom and democracy.”

This is the first time the Parliament has adopted a detailed definition of transnational repression, paving the way for further actions to protect residents from oppressive regimes, particularly from countries such as China.

About 80 percent of known transnational abuses over the past decade were perpetrated by just 10 regimes, the resolution said, citing a study by Freedom House, a Washington-based nonprofit. The Chinese communist regime is identified as the worst offender, followed by the governments of Turkey, Tajikistan, and Russia.

In response, lawmakers called for a systematic strategy to fight transnational repression across the EU, including the introduction of human rights clauses in agreements with non-EU countries, according to the report.

MEPs called on EU institutions and member states to address digital forms of transnational repression, ensuring that the private sector, particularly technology companies, is held accountable for enabling such abuses. They pushed for the production of transparency reports and to establish “effective grievance mechanisms” that would be accessible to human rights defenders and other at-risk individuals, according to the report.

Another key proposal, according to Ridel, is to implement strict market oversight across the bloc, barring spyware technology from being exported to countries with records of committing transnational repression or human rights abuses.

“We have to say to our European companies, if you produce spyware technology, you cannot export them and sell them to those who want to harm us. It’s a question of European sovereignty,” Ridel said at a press conference on Nov. 12 before the plenary session.

The report also advocates setting up tracking and reporting mechanisms to improve the documentation of transnational repression cases across member states, which would facilitate swift responses and investigations. These databases should be accessible to non-governmental organizations, allowing their contributions to be properly recorded, the report said.

Lawmakers also pushed for the EU to hold accountable the regimes and individuals responsible for transnational repression by imposing targeted sanctions.

The adoption of the report came amid growing concerns over the repressive tactics against dissidents living in Europe by authoritarian regimes, particularly by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Freedom House characterized the CCP’s repression campaign overseas as the most sophisticated and comprehensive in the world. A series of reports published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in April revealed that the CCP’s targets range across EU member states from Ireland to France and Serbia, but that the EU’s response remains “ineffective and lacks coordination.”
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“The EU must set clear red lines, backed by criminal investigations, sanctions, and diplomatic consequences, to show that fundamental rights are not negotiable,” Hannah Neumann, a German MEP, told ICIJ.
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A June study commissioned by the European Parliament’s Human Rights subcommittee found that transnational repression “negatively impacts every level of society, from individual rights to national security and democratic institutions.”
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