In a debate led by Vessela Tcherneva, Deputy Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, panelists spoke about the everyday threat of hybrid warfare in Europe.

Participants agreed that European unity and closer combination were the way forward, as well as that new methods of defence are necessary, including against the misinformation campaigns perpetrated by the Russian regime. Serbian youths, panelists shared, are part of this defence, as they defend not only Serbia but all of Europe.

Mihaela Sirițanu, a public policy expert at Watchdog Moldova, spoke of the year-long Moldovan election in which 30,000 votes were swayed using laundered money and cryptocoring.  “We came out the other way stronger and better”, she said, “but the danger was significant”. She pointed out the methods of coercion that Russia uses, such as “cutting off gas last year as a warning that “if you don’t do as we want, we’ll punish you”. She shared her happiness with how much the EU has stepped up after the situation in Georgia turned into “a cautionary tale” for Moldovans, but stressed the importance for unity and cooperation. “It’s great to see that the EU is stepping up” she said, “but the fight is far from over”.

“The biggest foreign influence tool for Russia is corruption” said Kiril Petkov, Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Bulgaria and Co-Leader of We Continue the Change. Petkov spoke of the ways in which oligarchs abuse their wealth and power to depose and jail opposition leaders. “It’s not a coincidence”, Petkov observed, “that Russia controls both the refinery of Serbia and the refinery of Bulgaria”. He added that “we have to recognise each of the situations in each country is part of the common threat”.

“We are not at peace any longer in Germany, we are not at war, either”, observed Thomas Röwekamp, Member of the German Bundestag and Chairman of the Defence Committee. The answer to hybrid warfare, according to Röwekamp, is more – more soldiers, more support for Ukraine, and more defence capabilities. Röwekamp also commented on the European Democracy Shield, saying that it’s a good start but not nearly enough. “We were not prepared for a war so we do not have the structure”, he said.

Frédéric Petit, Deputy Secretary General of European Democratic Party and Member of the French Parliament, observed that “there is justice or justification”. Petit added that “in most countries, we are not on the front of these information wars” and that the fight for democracy is larger than any one country or any one election. “It is a fight every day”, he said. Stressing the importance of what the Serbian youth is doing, he added that he is “certain that in some years Serbian democrats will have something to teach the European democrats”.

Enrico Borghi, President of the Institute of European Democrats, noted that yesterday, for the first time, the Supreme Defence Council met to speak on the issue of hybrid threats. Despite “a political landscape characterised by division”, the Italian Senate recently reached a consensus on a topic “promoted by both majority and opposition forces and formally recognised as needed to address hybrid warfare”. Borghi stressed that it is “our common destiny, our ethical principles, that are at stake” and that regulating big tech was of high importance.

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