The European Union is continuing its considerations on the fight against disinformation in an electoral context. During a high-level conference organised by the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU and the European Security and Defence College on Monday 1 stApril, participants stressed the need to act in an informed and coordinated manner to ensure free and fair elections.
The focus is on the fear of a new Cambridge Analytica scandal, named after the British company that played a major role in the US presidential campaign and the Brexitreferendum. “We must fight or mitigate disinformation, campaigns of manipulation, hybrid threats or cyber security incidents”, said the Romanian ambassador, Luminiţa Odobescu, as an introduction. “We have a moral obligation to create countermeasures”, she said.
The conference was mainly used to draw up a list of initiatives already taken and to discuss the remaining actions. For example, Sebastien Bay of NATO's Centre of Excellence for Strategic Communication recommended establishing a coordination mechanism, mapping challenges while producing a national assessment, practicing, building a network of partners and involving as many stakeholders as possible.
For its part, the Commission welcomed the fact that the rapid alert system has been operational since 18 March and that the European cooperation network is holding its third meeting this week. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)