Abstract
Using the European Endowment for Democracy, European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services and EUvsDisinfo platform case studies, this chapter analyses the complexity and effectiveness of European Union strategy to safeguard Europe’s and neighbouring information environments as a common, security-driven policy domain. The chapter concludes that the power of economic sanctions is Europe’s most credible deterrent and should be better used. The challenge is that some Union member states still allow adversaries to undercut Europe’s willingness and ability to counter hostile influence more coherently and effectively.
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Notes
- 1.
Most commonly, a term in the Kremlin’s geopolitically motivated language referring to the 14 successor (or so-called ‘post-Soviet’) states, other than Russia, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
- 2.
Officially the East StratCom Task Force (ESCTF).
- 3.
According to Council Directive 2008/114/EC, critical infrastructure is any that is vital for societal functions such as safety, health, security, economic or social well-being, and whose disruption or destruction has a significant impact. By addressing the direct link between protecting critical infrastructure and democratic resilience, the EU Security Union Strategy widens critical infrastructure protection to good governance in functioning democracies.
- 4.
Spetssluzhby are security and intelligence agencies, as Western democracies would understand them, but in the Russian context this implies a far wider role overseeing assassination, political-psychological warfare and other ‘special’ duties.
- 5.
The RAS is one of the key elements of the EU Action Plan Against Disinformation (JOIN/2018/36 final) of 5 December 2018. The tool to enable exchange of information about ‘fake news’ campaigns was set up in March 2019.
- 6.
North Macedonia, Norway and Serbia are also ERGA members.
- 7.
The seven ‘best practice’ principles are: role clarity; preventing undue influence and maintaining trust; decision-making and governing body structure for independent regulators; accountability and transparency; engagement; funding and performance evaluation.
- 8.
For example, the 3Ds: Disrupt, Displace, Deter.
- 9.
The FVEY members are the USA, Australia, UK, Canada, and New Zealand. Britain has reportedly invited Japan to join what would become known as SXEY.
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Ramon Loik is a Research Fellow at the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS). E-mail: ramon.loik@icds.ee. Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed here are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the position of the ICDS. The corresponding author declares that there is no conflict of interest.
Dr. Victor Madeira is a Contributing Author to The Cambridge Security Initiative (CSi). E-mail: victor.madeira@cantab.net. Disclaimer: Views expressed here are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect CSi’s position. The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.
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Loik, R., Madeira, V. (2021). European Union Strategy and Capabilities to Counter Hostile Influence Operations. In: Mölder, H., Sazonov, V., Chochia, A., Kerikmäe, T. (eds) The Russian Federation in Global Knowledge Warfare. Contributions to International Relations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73955-3_13
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