Organized by the EEAS in Brussels, an important conference was held last Tuesday with numerous international experts on the subject of information manipulation and foreign interference. On that occasion, I underlined the importance of the fight against Putin's "industry of lies" for the future of peace and democracy, not only in the EU but throughout the world.
In times of the return of war to the European continent, when Ukraine counts tens of thousands of victims and millions of refugees, we are doing everything in our power to help Ukraine defend itself and regain its full sovereignty. Ukraine's struggle for freedom concerns not only Europeans, but all people on the planet. It is a fight in defense of international law and fundamental values that all countries accepted by signing the United Nations Charter.
Not only did Putin start the war, but he also created a powerful industry of lies.
In this context, we must protect the EU and the world from Putin's deception industry. Putin not only started the war, but also created a powerful industry of manipulation to make it impossible to understand what is really happening and make people doubt everything and shift the blame. The Kremlin's efforts to manipulate information are global in nature and enormous in scale. It is the key instrument of this war. Putin's bombs are taking lives in Ukraine, while his information manipulation industry invades the minds of people in Russia and around the world, trying to mislead them about who is responsible for the murders, for the electricity bills they can't pay, the economic hardships they face and for the famine made worse by the war Russia had started. Putin cynically wants to trick people into believing that "the stronger is always right" and that the atrocities of autocrats can go unpunished. Africa is one of the main targets of this "industry of lies", but I also see it when I go to Latin America and Asia.
We discussed these issues at the "More than disinformation" conference, which the European External Action Service organized to bring together leading international experts to discuss how best to respond to the threats of information manipulation and foreign interference.
We have already taken numerous steps to protect against this threat. The EU has introduced restrictive measures against the Kremlin's deception industry active within the European Union. The media that the Kremlin has formed and mobilized as part of its war effort do not act in accordance with the international ethical code of journalism but in the service of propaganda. Real, professional, independent journalism is and will always be protected within the EU. And we will continue to support it everywhere in the world.
Accurate information is the fuel of democracy. Democracy is weakening and the electoral process is difficult without access to facts and independent media. That is why we should not treat this as a communication but a political issue that we should resolve politically, at the highest level, as I emphasized in my speech. At the conference, I presented the first EEAS report on the manipulation of foreign information and threats of interference, which we have just published. The report shows precisely how Russia has mobilized resources to systematically distort reality, shift blame and divert attention from its military invasion of Ukraine. It also confirms that there is a new wave of disinformation techniques and documents worrying cooperation between actors like Russia and China.
In close cooperation with EU institutions, member states and international partners, the European External Action Service has been quite active since 2015 on these issues. However, we need to go further with better analytics and more accurate answers. For this, we will establish a Center for the exchange and analysis of information for the purposes of collecting information on disinformation and foreign threats of information manipulation. This will increase our capacity to share best practices and ensure that we can protect our democracies more effectively.
Closer cooperation with our partners around the world and a more active presence in local languages in different parts of the world is also really needed.
I am also considering options to ensure that the voice of the EU is better heard.
The author is the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
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