Dear readers,
It is our pleasure to introduce to you a new monthly newsletter aimed at summarizing the latest policy developments and non-governmental activities in the area of monitoring, exposing and countering hostile foreign influence in the Western Balkans.
The region of the Western Balkans has been a subject of ambitions of several foreign authoritarian regimes which use different means and tools to manipulate the opinion of the local citizens with disinformation, project influence via politically motivated economic operations and ally with local policymakers.
Despite those developments, the debate in the region about hostile foreign influence is only in the starting point. International attention and assistance, sharing experiences, lessons learnt, and best practices are needed to turn the situation around.
This is why we decided to launch this new product, which was possible due to the financial support of the International Visegrad Fund. Monthly, you will be provided with news on new developments in the non-governmental as well as the governmental and political sector from the Western Balkans region. The contributions are provided by the most distinguished local organizations: Center for Democratic Transitions, Institute for Democracy 'Societas Civilis' – Skopje and Zašto Ne.
We are hoping that this information service will encourage more attention to the situation in the region and perhaps also incite future activities and projects.
Sincerely,
The Team of the European Values Center for Security Policy
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