POLICY BRIEF Time to reset! can we revitalise  European democracies? Brussels Democracy Paper 6/25 Time to connect the dots: how(not) to defend European democracy Alice Stollmeyer Like the climate crisis, the democracy crisis didn’t hap­pen overnight. Rather than a single tipping point, de­mocracy dies by a thousand cuts. And until recently, Eu­ropean institutions and democracies stood by and let it happen. Sure, in the past there were half-hearted efforts to pro­tect the rule of law, elections and press freedom. But the European Commission often failed to do its job as Guardian of the Treaties, and whenever it tried, EU Member States were quick to put on the brakes. Even worse, European institutions and countries, rather than standing up for our foundational European values, have been giving in to geopolitical pressure, whether from Hungary – Putin’s Trojan horse within – or from the Trump II administration. We can and must do better, before it’s too late. But let us first unpick how democracies are pressured from many sides, so that we can better strengthen and de­fend our democracy. Foreign threats to democracy Authoritarian regimes, in particular Russia and China, are trying to weaken democracies by using“hybrid threats”: harmful activities that are planned and carried out with malign intent, aiming to undermine a state or an institu­tion through a variety of(combined) means. These include cyberattacks, information manipulation, economic coer­cion, strategic corruption, covert political manoeuvring, co­ercive diplomacy, sabotage of critical infrastructure and threats of military force. Hybrid threats range from relative­ly light interference through to hybrid warfare. Under Presi­dent Trump, we now observe worryingly similar practices from the United States. Hybrid threats aim to restrict democracies’ political room for manoeuvre, including by undermining their citizens’ sense of security. They are designed to create fear or anxie­ty and sow distrust towards authorities and groups like mi­grants, minorities or activists. They target and exploit vul­nerabilities inherent in democracies and in the fabric of democratic societies, such as civil liberties and political