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The Western Balkans and EU-NATO cooperation: how to counter foreign interference and disinformation?

07 October 2021

On 7 October 2021, the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU, the Slovenian Ministry of Defence and the EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) co-organised an online conference to address disinformation and foreign interferences in the Western Balkans region.

The event covered two main issues. First, it sought to better understand how disinformation campaigns and foreign interference functions in the region. Second, it dedicated time to analysing what more the EU and NATO could do together to counter such harmful practices. Over 120 participants from Member States and EU institutions registered for the conference, and the meeting took place a day after the EU-Western Balkans Summit, held in Brdo on 6 October.

The event welcomed a number of high-level speakers from the Centre for European Perspective, the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, the European External Action Service, the European Parliament, the NATO Centre of Excellence for Strategic Communication, the Regional Cooperation Council and the Slovenian Ministry of Defence. The conference began with a keynote speech from State Secretary Uroš Lampret from the Slovenian Ministry of Defence, and the event closed with remarks by Uroš Zorko, Defence Policy Director at the Slovenian Ministry of Defence.