Once again, government communicators, journalists and members of civil society from Western Balkan countries gathered to address the challenge of disinformation.
The disruptive nature of disinformation requires a whole-of-society approach and cooperation among different sectors. All too often, members of government, journalists and civil society members work separately from each other, yet striving towards the same goal, which is to protect democratic institutions and diminish the space for disinformation.
It is for this reason that CEP initiated a project ‘Strengthening societal resilience and countering foreign perpetrated disinformation in six Western Balkan countries’. In the scope of the project, a conference took place in Bled from 22 to 24 November 2022.
The conference was attended by 37 participants from Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia). All of the participants deal with the challenge of disinformation daily – whether as government communicators, fact-checkers or journalists.
The conference was divided into two parts – in the first part, several discussions with the aim of understanding disinformation, why it is done and how it impacts our societies were held. At the second part of the conference, participants started working on their ‘Country disinformation reports’, where they applied the insights gained from the first part. This is not the last conference in the scope of the project. In the next editions, the participants will continue writing reports on disinformation and expand them with sections on tools and tactics to counter and prevent disinformation, as well as sections on coordination necessary among different sectors.
The project is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia through development cooperation funds.
Part of our Peace and Security team attended the final EUPCST Conference in Lisbon, Portugal. Between 22 and 24 November representatives of 23 Consortium partners and their coordinator, Royal Netherlands Marechaussee gathered to discuss past activities, the evaluation process and to officially close the project.
After three years (2019 – 2022) EUPCST project is nearing its end. During these three years Consortium members, comprised of national gendarmeries, police forces, and civilian organisations, trained 768 training participants. Among them 537 or 70 % were male and 231 or 30% were female, 50% had a police background, 25% were gendarmes, and 25% were civilians.
The overall aim of the project was to enable civilian crisis management mission and stabilization actions staff to work in a more efficient, effective, and sustainable manner to achieve their mandates. It facilitated capacity building within different organisations active in the security sector. It also allowed for international knowledge exchange, as members of different organisations trained together, and shared their expertise at international conferences and various workshops.
In the meanwhile, we were also busy preparing evaluation forms, gathering relevant information, and sharing it with relevant stakeholders within the Consortium as well as preparing yearly evaluation reports. The final task remains to draft the final evaluation report.
We are proud we were able to successfully contribute to equipping staff of police forces, gendarmeries, and civilians with the necessary skills for their participation in international crisis management operations of the European Union, the United Nations, the African Union, and other international organisations. We hope all will be able to use this knowledge and expertise to make the world a better place.
In the scope of the European Digital Diplomacy Exchange (EDDE) project, we will organize a training for North Macedonian government communicators, which will take place in person in Skopje, North Macedonia, on 28 November and 29 November 2022.
The training, which focuses on digital communication, will enhance both the theoretical knowledge and practical skills of government communicators through several interactive sessions and workshops.
The theoretical part will focus on the digital future, policy as lifestyle, influencer marketing, digital campaign development and social media analytics. Each topic will have a practical follow-up by local representatives, who will showcase the local application of the theory and selected case studies. In the practice part, we will boost photography, videography and graphic design skills and, finally, look at different tools and approaches to identifying and fighting against disinformation.
The project is a result of the cooperation between the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Embassy in Ljubljana and the Centre for European Perspective.
The project is partially financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia in the scope of the international development cooperation program activities.
Once again, stakeholders involved in the co-creation of the information environment from 6 Western Balkans countries are meeting at the Conference on countering disinformation which will take place next week, from the 22nd to the 24th of November 2022, in Bled, Slovenia. It will bring together government, civil society, and media from 6 Western Balkans countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia).
The conference is organised in the scope of the project “Strengthening societal resilience and countering foreign perpetrated disinformation in 6 Western Balkans countries”, which was launched in 2020. This conference is going to focus on identifying and understanding disinformation and its impact.
The speakers from across Europe and wider will join us and share their expertise with participants about the most recent developments in the field.
The distinguishing feature of the project is the whole-of-society approach, connecting governments, civil society, and media in each country and across all 6 Western Balkans countries. This collaboration is of great importance when addressing such a complex issue as disinformation and enhancing resilience to external influences. Other core activities of the projects are providing capacity building to governments in Western Balkans and helping to create a national mechanism for countering disinformation in each country, specialized trainings for stakeholders, and creation of a regional platform to exchange information.
The project is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia through development cooperation funds.
Workshops will be held in Serbia from 23 to 25 November 2022, concluding a two-year cycle of international development assistance of the Republic of Slovenia, in the framework of which the Serbian Police, in cooperation with the Slovenian Police, developed, established, and implemented a new patrol management system. The system is based on modern technology and EU standards. Its main purpose is to enable police officers to respond more effectively to the needs of people when their life, safety, or property is threatened while also ensuring the greater safety of police officers when performing their work in the field.
The patrol management system is now used by the organizational units of 14 of the 27 police directorates in the interior of the country, as well as by the organizational units of the Border Police Directorate.
The final workshops will aim to review the status, assess the increase in a patrol management capacity, and review the planning of further activities to maintain, expand and continuously advance the patrol management system.
The project is part of the program activities of international development cooperation, financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia and implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of the Interior and the Police of the Republic of Slovenia.
EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy, the Centre for European Perspective and the Atlantic Council sincerely invite you to join us for a debate titled
Strategic partnership for a secure and digital Europe: From words to action
Location: American Center, Tržiště 13/366, 118 00 Malá Strana.
Digitalization and digital policies will shape the future for decades to come. While the EU has much to offer – technological prowess, its vision of a free, open and human-centric digital future – the transatlantic partnership has been and remains the EU’s best option for securing its vision for the future. On the other hand, growing numbers of online threats and malign intentions by third countries and subsequent push by individual countries to mitigate the threats threaten to splinter the internet into disjointed networks.
How can we counter this growing regulatory divergence, move beyond mere words, and ensure working cooperation, coordination efforts, and concrete results? Is greater transatlantic alignment needed, or can we offer alternatives? What can we do to concretize transatlantic digital cooperation to ensure a tangible strategic partnership in the area of digital policy?
Joining us to discuss these questions are:
Representative from the Czech Republic (TBC)
Ms Susan Ness (non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council and former FCC Commissioner)
Mr Igor Zgrabljic, Public Policy Manager at Google
Sergiu Mitrescu, New Strategy Center (Romania)
Moderator: Jaka Repanšek, co-chair of the Strategic Committee for Regulation and Environment, Slovenian Digital Coalition
Join us for a discussion in person or on social media, as the discussion will be streamed on EUROPEUM’s and CEP’s Facebook pages.
How can we counter this growing regulatory divergence, move beyond mere words, and ensure working cooperation, coordination efforts, and concrete results?
Join us for a discussion in person or on social media, as the discussion will be streamed on