The EU Delegation welcomes Western Balkans journalists to London to discuss the importance of independent media
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The participants will debate the role of domestic actors, including political parties, business lobbies, pro-government media, and social and religious groups, and of foreign actors, primarily Russia in this. Disinformation often aims to weaken societal cohesion, spread intolerance, and undermine confidence in democratic processes. Foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) has become a growing challenge to democratic societies around the world. The EU was among the first jurisdictions to recognise this threat and start analysing it in order to identify strategies to counter it. This discussion about the importance of independent media in the Western Balkans is part of the ARTICLE 19 campaign #CheckitFirst, which includes the Ethical Journalism Awards. The winners from Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro are visiting the UK for a series of meetings in addition to this public event. The EU Delegation will host them for an informal session on its work with media and on the EU’s initiatives in the areas of human rights and climate and environment policies.
Background The EU Delegation organises annual forums on countering FIMI. In 2022, the focus was countering the Kremlin’s information manipulation in the context of the war in Ukraine (you can still catch up with session one and session two). It brought together leading experts in countering FIMI from the European External Action Service (EEAS), the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), as well as practitioners from Ukraine. It highlighted the EU’s response to FIMI in the work of its East StratCom Task Force, created in 2015, and the EUvsDisinfo website and social media. Last year, the forum discussed collective responses Leading experts from the EU, UK, Canada, Japan, Latvia, and Ukraine, and top researchers specialising in combating disinformation shared best practice and expertise. The main topics included: cooperation in the context of the war in Ukraine, the EU’s and the UK’s approaches to countering FIMI, audiences’ exposure to this threat, solutions for countering disinformation and future cooperation between like-minded partners. Background on disinformation: |
