The President of Latvia: deepened cooperation between NATO and the EU in strategic communication should be one of our priorities

“I believe that deepened cooperation between NATO and the EU in strategic communication should be one of our priorities. This is especially important in the context of NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence in the Baltic States and Poland. We have already seen targeted disinformation campaigns aimed at the participating nations. These actions should not be allowed to hide behind the democratic freedoms of speech and of the press,” stressed President of Latvia Raimonds Vējonis when opening “The Riga StratCom Dialogue. Perception matters” on Wednesday, 5 July 2017.

 

The President of Latvia indicated that in the past three years, we have witnessed great geopolitical changes related to both the disinformation and propaganda activities of Russia and an intensive Da’esh information campaign to recruit new terrorist fighters and plant fear in our minds.

 

“We have decided to safeguard the features that distinguish democratic communities from others. We have chosen not to engage in counter-propaganda. Together, we agreed to build our resilience, invest in media professionalism, to strengthen critical thinking in our societies and to deconstruct lies. We chose the truth instead of lies,” outlined Raimonds Vējonis.

 

“I am confident that our efforts will prevail and outlive the era of “post-truth” and “fake news”.  We have understood the threat, raised awareness and, most important, we are now working on the solution,” stated Raimonds Vējonis.

 

Speach of President of Latvia Raimonds Vējonis at the Riga StratCom Dialogue 2017, 05.07.2017.