Eastern Partnership and Information Security Issues

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Speakers of Parliaments from Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine reminded about the danger of misinformation, propaganda and other information security issues.

On 2 March, during a press statement, Speakers of the Parliaments of Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine undertook to promote common security policies. At the first Inter-parliamentary Conference ‘Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine: Eastern Partnership and Current Security Challenges’, held in Chisinau, Speakers of Parliaments from the three countries reminded about the danger of misinformation, propaganda and other information security issues. The conference was organised at the initiative of Speakers of Parliaments of Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia in partnership with Atlantic Council.

During the event, the three speakers made public the commitments they jointly undertook in several areas related to the promotion of the European values, including the fight against misinformation and external propaganda. The declaration stresses, inter alia, the joint concern over the various forms of disinformation that come from the outside by means of media, social networks and the Internet.

Against this background, the Speaker Andrian Candu also referred to the ‘Anti-Propaganda Law’, which, in his opinion, excluded the possibilities of misinformation of Moldovan citizens:

  • ‘We understand that we must ensure freedom in a democratic society. At the same time, we talk about a new type of threat, a hybrid warfare tool. The new types of threats undermine the system to a larger extent than others do. This is the reason why the ‘Anti-Propaganda Law’, recently adopted by the Parliament, ruled out the possibility of misinformation, mainly by certain Russian channels rebroadcast in Moldova. This is done to secure the information space in the Republic of Moldova’.

His Ukrainian counterpart, the Speaker of Verkhovna Rada in Kiev, Andrei Parubyi, also addressed certain aspects of the information war and stated that the three countries need to take joint steps to neutralise the ‘hybrid warfare’ coming in from the Russian Federation. Andrei Parubyi mentioned that Ukraine took several actions to ensure information security via media.

The Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, Irakli Kobakhidze, also mentioned in his speech the need for the three Eastern Partnership countries to join their efforts to fight against propaganda.

The conference was organised at the initiative of the Speakers of Parliaments of Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia in partnership with Atlantic Council.

Note that the extra-parliamentary and parliamentary opposition reacted differently to this event. Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) organised a flash mob in front of Radisson Blu Hotel, where the conference was held, so as to convey to participants the message that, besides security challenges from outside, ‘the democracy of the Republic of Moldova is threatened by a much bigger danger, that is the oligarchic system’. And the Communist Party announced one day before the conference that it would not participate in the event, since it was ‘directed against the Russian Federation’.

The article was contributed by Media Azi, website of the Independent Journalism Center in Chisinau.