The Second Media Forum of the Eastern Partnership Will Address the Issue of Russian Propaganda

The second media forum of the Eastern Partnership Member States will be held in Kiev in September, and one of its topics will be Russian propaganda, said European officials at the 9^th meeting of the informal ministerial dialogue on Eastern Partnership (EaP), which took place Monday in Chisinau.

The European Union will keep supporting independent media in Eastern Partnership Member States, and, according to Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn, the second media forum will take place in September in Kiev: “We will keep offering support to independent media within the EaP and we will have the second media forum in mid-September in Kiev.”

At the same time, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Olena Zerkal noted that one of the topics to be discussed at the forum is Russian propaganda. “We are talking about threats to safety and about how to lessen the risks we face, such as cyber attacks and other threats, along with Russian propaganda. We hope that at the event that we will organize together with the EU in Kiev – I mean the media forum – we will further advance in the fight against propaganda,” the Ukrainian official said.

The first media conference of the Eastern Partnership countries took place in Riga on May 19-20, 2015, in the context of the Eastern Partnership Summit hosted by Latvia. The main discussions at the first conference focused on the challenges for press freedom, on good practices in promoting media integrity and on improving the situation of media in the region.

Russian propaganda is one of the main dangers reported by media experts. Recently, the Association of Independent Press (AIP) has presented a new report on monitoring five of the most important television stations from the Russian Federation that are retransmitted in Moldova by local broadcasters. AIP experts’ findings indicate that Russian televisions broadcast unilateral information, speculate about the idea of the imminent outbreak of a nuclear war caused by the USA, while Russia and its president Vladimir Putin are presented as the only true fighters for peace. Thus, they deliver propaganda and constantly manipulate public opinion.