France, Germany, Greece, and nine other European Union countries are asking the European Commission to use its powers under the Digital Services Act (DSA) to protect the integrity of European elections from foreign interference, according to a letter signed by the 12 countries.

In the letter, the ministers of European Affairs of Greece, Germany, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Cyprus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Romania, Slovenia and Spain are calling on the Commission to deliver on promises to create a European Union body to tackle foreign information manipulation and foreign interference.

“The escalating threats of foreign meddling and disruptive interference in public debates during important elections represent a direct challenge to our stability and sovereignty,” the letter, seen by Reuters, said.

“Recent incidents call for urgent and united action to defend upcoming EU elections,” it added.

EU diplomats said the letter referred to the involvement of Russia and China in particular, but also to other cases.

Germany will hold early elections on February 23 and the country has set up a task force to counter any attempts by a foreign state to influence the vote after warning of espionage and sabotage by Russia.

Last week, Elon Musk, the owner of the social networking site X, appeared at a campaign event for the far-right German party Alternative for Germany (AfD) to endorse the party for the second time in two weeks.

In December, the European Commission opened an investigation against social media platform TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, as suspected of failing to curb meddling in the presidential election held in November in Romania.

Government officials in Poland, where presidential elections are due to be held in May, have warned that Russia is recruiting Poles to influence the election.

“We urge the Commission to take the lead in fully exercising the powers granted to it by the Digital Services Act (DSA),” the letter said.

Under the DSA, major internet platforms such as X, Facebook, TikTok, and others must moderate and remove harmful content such as hate speech, racist,m or xenophobia. If they don’t, the Commission can impose fines that can reach up to 6% of their annual turnover worldwide.