While more information was supposed to mean more freedom and a more informed debate, the abundance of information also facilitated the emergence of new and more subtle forms of subversion. We live in a world in which the means of manipulation have gone forth and multiplied: troll farms, bots, dark ads, fake news, all these new methods are being used to challenge the outcomes of political processes and our democratic system of values. Online propaganda and disinformation have increasingly poisoned the digital sphere, while the uncontolled collection of personal data is breaking down traditional notions of privacy.

Large-scale disinformation campaigns are a major challenge for Europe and require a coordinated response from the EU and non-EU countries alike, EU institutions, social networks, news media and citizens themselves. Although the Commission has developed a number of initiatives to tackle disinformation, the European Union’s anti-disinformation efforts face serious obstacles when in comes to bridging the gap between ambition and implementation.

In order to compliment the EU’s efforts and consolidate the CEDC states individual efforts in combating fake news and disinformation campaigns, on 8 June 2021 the Croatian CEDC Presidency successfully conducted the first part of the Experts StratCom Workshop series in the CEDC format. The experts discussed the ongoing efforts to combat fake news and explored the opportunities on pooling the CEDC resources together to augment the EU’s efforts on tackling disinformation.

As the Experts StratCom Workshop series was envisioned as a first step that would kick-start the efforts towards building wider regional resilience to challenges posed by the current “infodemic”, at the second part of the Workhop, the CEDC experts were joined by their Western Balkans counterparts.

Beside keynote speakers, Mr Gordan Akrap, President of the Hybrid Warfare Research Institute, the Republic of Croatia and Mr Tomislav Levak, Lecturer at Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek, the Republic of Croatia, the Workshop also featured distinguished professionals, researchers, experts and practitioners from the Central European and Western Balkans states, NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence and European External Action Service.

During panel session entitled “Communication through the mass and social media in response to disinformation campaigns”, StratCom experts discussed various aspects of the prevalence, impact and diffusion of disinformation through mass and social media, concluding that disinformation campaigns on social media will likely increase over the coming decade as disinformation techniques and countermeasures continue to evolve at the same time.

After comparing policy actions, communication strategies and country-specific communication activities, the CEDC and the Western Balkans StratCom experts expressed their ambition to establish a regular dialogue in order to support the development of a comprehensive and forward-looking policy to combat disinformation and hostile interference in the information space.

Objava CEDC and Western Balkans StratCom Expert Workshop: “Combatting Fake News and Disinformation Campaigns” pojavila se prvi puta na MORH.

The meeting was attended by the Defence Policy directors and senior representatives of the CEDC member countries (Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland and senior representatives of southeast Europe countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo and of North Macedonia).

The meeting was opened by the Defence Policy Director Dunja Bujan, who presented the priorities of the Croatian CEDC chairmanship, hat are closely related to the conclusions of the Zagreb Summit of the EU and Western Balkans in May 2020, especially with regard to increasing the resilience of the region to current security challenges arising from misinformation and other hybrid activities.

The Republic of Croatia took over the annual chairmanship from the Republic of Slovenia as of 1 January 2021, during which time it will host a number of activities and workshops aimed at strengthening the capacities of response to misinformation campaigns and false news, which have intensified after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The participants welcomed the programme of the Croatian chairmanship and the continued dialogue and strengthening of the partnership between the CEDC and southeast European countries, and also emphasised the need for continued reforms in order to step up the enlargement of the EU and of the continued cooperation in combating the common security threats.

“The countries of Southeast Europe are our allies and partners and not just the objects of the enlargement process. Today’s meeting and the future ones to be held during the Croatian chairmanship constitute an important step towards the common European and Euro-Atlantic future”, said the Croatian Defence Policy Director Dunja Bujan.

The member countries representatives exchanged views on new security and defence initiatives of the EU, with the emphasis on the Strategic Compass and the European Defence Fund, which opens numerous opportunities for intensified cooperation of defence industries of central European countries.

The Central European Defence Cooperation (CEDC) is a regional security and defence initiative, incepted in 2010 to gather the central European countries (Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, with Poland attending as observer).

Objava First high-level meeting in the year of Croatian chairmanship of CEDC pojavila se prvi puta na MORH.