Secretary General Mantas Adomėnas participated in the Informal Meeting of the Human Rights Working Party (COHOM) of the Council of the EU , held within the official calendar of the Polish Presidency of the EU. The event brought together EU representatives for strategic discussions on current human rights challenges.

The SG took part in the panel discussion on Countering the negative impact of disinformation on human rights and democracy. He introduced the Community of Democracies as an effective and flexible political format to counter disinformation and  presented “A Pilot Study on Russia’s Worldwide Information Manipulations on Telegram and X”, developed by the CoD, with support of Poland, in cooperation with London King’s College War Studies Department and University of Calgary’s experts to equip diplomats with innovative tools to navigate and counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI). The Pilot Study as well as the Counter FIMI Toolbox for Diplomats  were recently presented during briefings and workshops held in Geneva, London and Vienna, encouraging conversations on how to increase the resilience of democracies and counter Russian disinformation among different stakeholders.

 In his speech, the SG underlined that the community of democratic principles is still present and must uphold itself. “Disinformation affects fundamental values but at the same time its spread is facilitated by the erosion of the governance based on these values”.

Key highlights from the SG intervention: 

• It takes a network to win over the network. We need not only focus on countering disinformation but consider carefully what do we put into the network. Effective disinformation countering requires mobilizing the societies – and as now societies seem more susceptive to narratives we need to seize the moment for to implement strong, positive and viable narrative to replace disinformation.

• In countering disinformation, we need to:focus more on treating disinformation as a the main threat to the political order, and not a side disruption; develop longterm, yet flexible approach that can be  adjusted swiftly to the current needs, because disinformation develops and spreads faster than we are ready to respond; provide democratic trainings for all stakeholders – we cannot consider our democratic knowledge and skills as eternal.

• Resilience will be gained through bottom-up approaches to strengthening both democratic governance and narrative. Preemption, not only reaction is crucial.