The Commissioner for Values and Transparency, Věra Jourová, visited Prague on Thursday 22 September for the first anniversary of the Central European Hub of the European Digital Media Observatory (CEDMO). The conference brings together experts, academics, think tanks and journalists to discuss various topics related to disinformation from 22 to 23 September.
“The unprecedented war of aggression of Russia against Ukraine is accompanied by another weapon: the weapon is disinformation, manipulation of information or foreign interference”, Mrs Jourová said at the opening session. “With the mobilisation we saw yesterday we can now expect that we will see further mobilisation of the disinformation soldiers. So we will have to do more” (see EUROPE 13026/7).
The Commissioner also recalled that the EU has several strings to its bow to respond to the “complex threat” of disinformation: the European Democracy Action Plan (see EUROPE 12615/1), the Digital Services Act (DSA) (see EUROPE 12986/3) and the Code of Practice for combating online disinformation (see EUROPE 12973/10), as well as the Media Freedom Act (EMFA) (see EUROPE 13023/1). The legislative package on the defence of democracy, announced during the State of the Union speech (see EUROPE 13021/4), will complete the arsenal, she said. (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)