site.btaBulgaria-Netherlands Cooperation in Countering Foreign Information Manipulation Explored at Expert Roundtable

The potential for cooperation between Bulgaria and the Netherlands in establishing interinstitutional coordination to counter foreign manipulation of information and interference was the topic of an expert roundtable in Sofia organized by the Diplomatic Institute under the Bulgarian Foreign Minister, the institute’s press service said on Friday.

The roundtable was opened by Tanya Mihaylova, Director of the Diplomatic Institute, Irena Dimitrova, Ambassador-at-Large at the Foreign Ministry, and Luuk van Os from the Netherlands Embassy in Bulgaria.

During the roundtable, experts from the Netherlands Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Interior, and Education, Science and Culture talked with more than 30 representatives of 14 Bulgarian state institutions. They shared Dutch experience in interagency coordination on countering disinformation, building resilience against hybrid threats, and promoting media literacy among the population. The Bulgarian experts, in turn, presented the activities of their institutions in the field of strategic communications and the fight against disinformation and manipulative online content.

Further bilateral cooperation between Bulgaria and the Netherlands in this area was also discussed, including the organization of joint training programmes for Bulgarian state and diplomatic officials with the involvement of the Diplomatic Institute in Sofia, and partners from the Netherlands.

The roundtable is part of the systematic efforts of the Diplomatic Institute, as one of Bulgaria’s state institutions, to build systemic capacity in countering disinformation through a series of specialised trainings and expert events.