European Union institutions are pulling out the big guns over TikTok’s handling of election content.

The European Commission on Tuesday announced a formal investigation into the platform’s handling of election risks, particularly in Romania, while the European Parliament will hold a three-hour debate on TikTok, X and the election later.

TikTok’s alleged breach of the Digital Services Act follows Romanian authorities’ accusations of “irregularities” on its platform, following the shock victory of ultra-nationalist, pro-Russian candidate Călin Georgescu in the first round of Romania’s presidential election in late November . The Romanian Supreme Court later annulled the election.

“After from serious indications that foreign actors interfered in Romania’s presidential election using TikTok, we are now thoroughly investigating whether TikTok’s platform violated the Digital Services Act by failing to address such riskssaid Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. This is a rare public comment from the head of the EU on such an investigation.

The Commission will specifically investigate TikTok’s recommendation systems for “coordinated inauthentic manipulation or automated exploitation of the service;,” as well as the platform’s policies on political ads and paid political content, the commission said in a press release.

Investigations by local and international organizations have shown that lobbying campaigns and boots supporting Georgescu in the application were not handled properly.

The TikTok has denied mismanagement the risk. “We have protected the integrity of our platform through more than 150 elections worldwide and continue to proactively address these industry-wide challenges,” said a TikTok spokesperson. “TikTok has provided the European Commission with extensive information about these efforts and we have transparently publicly detailed our robust actions».

The spokesperson added that the app did not accept paid political advertising and “proactively remove content for violating our policies on misinformation, harassment, and hate speech».

Earlier in December, the Commission ordered TikTok to retain all data related to election risk management for four months, starting November 24. The platform also answered official questions about the December 16 election.

This is TikTok’s third survey. One remains open, while the other was closed after the platform made commitments to the Commission.