On Tuesday, 1 February, Sanda Svetoka from the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence advocated an EU sanctions regime against disinformation.
Reminding her audience that the EU had a sanctions regime in case of cyberattacks, Ms Svetoka believed, “a similar sanctions regime can be developed also in regards to those information attacks”.
“Because in Russia[’s] case, cyber[attacks] and information attacks are not that much distinguished, and, sometimes, there is [...] this technical element where there is this hacking operation but [a] very, very extensive psychological information operation afterwards. So, some kind of response in regards to those information operations would be very [welcome]”, she explained to the European Parliament’s Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation.
The Centre of Excellence expert also called for the resilience of society as a whole to be strengthened. Indeed, in her opinion, the Russian attacks do not only target military infrastructure and government systems but “are targeting the whole society”. Thus, there needs to be a “‘whole of society’ approach—so, basically, not only strengthening government institutions or military but also strengthening the whole society, cooperating with NGOs”, she explained.
For his part, Director of the Centre of Excellence Jānis Sārts emphasised cooperation with EU institutions. According to him, this cooperation is “a very important instrument to promote our work to counter the [effect of] disinformation”. He added, “We also see that it is very important that every element of the society [...] plays a role [...], increasing the resilience against disinformation”.
Cooperation in the fight against disinformation and cyberattacks are among the actions mentioned in the joint declaration between the EU and the Atlantic Alliance. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)