00:02So let's talk about GLOBSEC, the work that you do and the activities that your institution is now enacting.
00:14So GLOBSEC is a civil society organization that was founded in 1993 in Slovakia and that tried to promote Euro
00:22-Atlantic values in the times when Slovakia was going under the democratic changes.
00:30And I work for the Center for Democracy and Resilience which was founded back in 2015 because really after the
00:36annexation of Crimea in Central Europe where I'm based, I'm based in Slovakia,
00:40we really saw that some of the actors, some of the outlets started to peddle propaganda from one day to
00:46another.
00:46So we had websites that previously focused on sports results from one day to another started to peddle propaganda and
00:53completely changing the articles, the focus,
00:57the issues that they were reporting on. And what we're observing is that there are a large part of societies
01:04in various countries, including Central Europe,
01:08but also all around the European Union that believe various pro-Kremlin narratives that are vulnerable because they do not
01:16trust public institutions.
01:18They believe there are lots of polarizing narratives that are being spread in our information space.
01:23We've been monitoring these vulnerabilities, let's say, by conducting very specific public opinion polls titled GLOBSEC Trends since 2016.
01:33Just in October, we're going to be launching our newest latest reports covering 14 countries.
01:39But what we really see is that there are a huge part of societies, you know, in some countries like
01:45Bulgaria, Slovakia, Romania,
01:48there's, you know, one third to 40% of population that are vulnerable, that very much distrust institutions,
01:55that is vulnerable to various polarizing narratives that are destroying not only the societal cohesion,
02:04but also destroying the trust in democratic processes, trust in the electoral process.
02:10that is the core of our democracy. And, yeah.
02:15Yeah, so we're in Rome today and there has been this conference with many speakers from different parts of Europe
02:23and different institutions. How are we now on cooperation, on sharing of information?
02:30What is the situation now and where maybe can we improve this side of things when we talk about FIMI
02:37and this information?
02:37I think that for the past years, researchers all around the Europe have been doing a great job on showcasing
02:46and providing evidence of all these malign activities, whether it's, you know, information operations or kinetic attacks,
02:53because really like within past years, for example, GLOBSEC mapped out that between February 2022 and 2024 and February 2026,
03:02there have been 151 kinetic attacks all around Europe that have been part of the Russian, you know, hybrid warfare,
03:14let's say.
03:15And it's, and then definitely they have been amplified by disinformation spreading around those kinetic attacks.
03:23So what we need to do is, we need definitely better cooperation.
03:28One attempt that we see at the European level is now the establishment of the Center for Democratic Resilience.
03:34But at the, as we've seen, you know, a lot of processes are still in the development.
03:39And as it is, for example, the enforcement of Digital Services Act, you know, it's a process.
03:45And the process has been running up for several years.
03:48And only if we really start implementing the enforcement and only after all the tools within the Digital Services Act
03:56are in the place
03:57and are properly enforced and tested out whether they work, we can say that certain things have impact or not
04:03and whether we can and need to amend the policies.
04:06But the willingness to cooperate is there.
04:09I mean, there's the Center, there's the European External Action Service that is very active.
04:15DG Connect is very active with the enforcement of the Digital Services Act.
04:22The civil society organization, researchers, fact checkers are, before the elections, part of the rapid response system
04:30where they can showcase various influence operations and coordinated behavior prior to the election.
04:37So there's lots of things that are happening.
04:38Definitely there's always and there will be always a room for improvement because as the situation develops,
04:47our adversaries are become much more faster with the AI and AI generating content.
04:54We definitely have seen various videos just recently during the regional elections in Germany
05:03where you had AI generated video of German Chancellor Merz saying that he's going to be resigning.
05:09There have been a lot of AI generated videos attacking various political representatives,
05:15accusing them of murder or various sexual scandals.
05:18So we see that with the development of AI and various communication tools, we cannot just relax.
05:28This is a never-ending battle. You cannot build resilience of democracy,
05:33whether at the Member States level or the European level, from one day to another.
05:39It's a long-term process. It's a whole of government and whole of society process.
05:44And every single person, whether they're the representatives of the European Commission, Member States,
05:49or they're just an ordinary citizen, can contribute to that.
05:52So, one final question. We are going to have a lot of elections next year in Europe, Italy, France, Spain,
06:02Bulgaria.
06:03There's a lot on the plate. Do you think we're ready for the next electoral cycle to confront and to
06:12face this kind of threat?
06:16We're never going to be 100% ready because of the fast-paced changes, fast-paced development of technologies that
06:24our adversaries are using.
06:27Somebody said today that we're, you know, we're fighting this new fight with the weapons from yesterday.
06:36So, democracy, in a way, is a bit slow because it relies on debates, relies on drawing the, you know,
06:46joint resolution.
06:49While our partners, who are oftentimes coming from authoritarian countries, they just take decisions just like that.
06:56So, we need to be ready. We know that there's a lot of things that we can expect. And we
07:07need to react faster, exchange information faster,
07:11integrate all the actors to make sure that they're all sitting behind one table, whether they're from public institutions,
07:18civil society, but also private companies because they play a big, big role in, you know, protecting the democratic resilience.
07:26Thank you.
07:27Thank you very much.
07:28Thank you very much.
Commenti