ment and anti-gentrification strategies to support social cohesion and avoid social segregation. → Invest in high-quality public goods: Progressive forces should prioritise the improvement of public goods pro­vided to citizens. Citizens must enjoy high-quality public infrastructure and a functioning state to(re-)build trust in the state. → Protect and regulate platform work: Progressive forces must ensure that all workers enjoy the same level of protection, rights and income opportunities. Unequal working conditions for platform work prevent citizens from engaging in democratic decision-making. → Empower labour unions: Progressive forces must sup­port trade union organisations and strengthen demo­cratic co-determination in companies, which are crucial for safeguarding the collective interests of workers and employees. → Embed the measures in a new progressive project: These concrete measures should be embedded in a new progressive vision for work and welfare in the 21st centu ­ry. It should include a new industrial agenda, linking job creation through green and digital transitions with dem­ocratic participation, fair working conditions and social safeguards. Session 3: The European Democracy Shield and the struggle against radical right disinformation Scale up defence against FIMI Foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) is a major threat to democracies as malign for­eign actors and right-wing extremists join forces. The far right is using the latest online and media tools, includ­ing AI, to spread disinformation and to manipulate vot­ers. For third-country actors, such as Russia, FIMI has become a crucial element of their war strategies. This is only possible as very large online platforms, owned by tech oligarchs with a political agenda, enable anti-dem­ocratic forces with the digital tools to pursue effective campaigns. The design of these platforms, including recommendation systems, virality loops and opaque moderation, systematically amplifies extremist content, while legal regulations are only reluctantly enforced. The Digital Service Act is a good start, but companies are reluctant to control FIMI or even enforce existing le­gal rules. Therefore, the structural aspects of very large online platforms need to be addressed. FIMI does not import new political polarisation into democracies, but exploits existing tensions within societies. These cam­paigns are only effective when they can fuel pre-existing culture wars. As a countermeasure, fact-checking has a limited impact, as these campaigns use misinformation to fuel emotions, which cannot be countered with ra­tional arguments. To address these challenges, the dis­cussion made the following concrete recommendations: → Regulate online platforms and enforce the rules: The EU should close the existing enforcement gap and sys­tematically sanction non-compliance, resisting pressure from foreign companies. The platforms must become more transparent, most notably with recommendation systems being an opt-in, rather than an opt-out, feature. The rules should be the same both on- and offline. → Build a European digital infrastructure: The EU should end its dependence on US- and Chinese-owned very large online platforms and AI technology. To become strategically autonomous, it should build its own digital infrastructure, which should also become part of its new industrial strategy. → Hybrid warfare requires a hybrid response: The EU should understand FIMI as an element of hybrid warfare and invest in digital defence as much as in traditional weapons. All member states should establish well-fund­ed anti-FIMI situation centres, which can effectively take countermeasures against hybrid warfare. → Fund high-quality media: The business models of high-quality media are no longer sustainable. However, reliable information is a public good and a crucial pre­requisite for the functioning of democracies. Therefore, the EU should establish sustainable funding for high-quality media, granting every citizen access to reli­able information. → Invest more in media literacy: Media literacy must be­come a priority in both formal and non-formal educa­tion. Funding should be increased for projects raising awareness of FIMI and the risks of social media, as well as for programmes that improve media literacy and fact-checking. Session 4: Rethinking(social) democracy: where can we find a new democratic vision? Revitalise democracies with a positive vision for civic engagement The world is currently facing a wave of democratic re­gression, which has now reached Europe and the USA. However, anti-democratic actors claim to be democrats themselves and to solve the deficits of existing democ­racies. This universal claim of everyone being a demo­crat has hollowed out the concept of democracy, mak­ing it difficult for citizens to understand its essence. This requires not just educational efforts to teach citizens the definition of democracy, but a positive vision of what democracy means for the individual. This vision should, however, follow the American philosopher John Dewey’s