Keynote speech by HRVP Kaja Kallas at the 2026 Conference on Countering Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference: ‘From Insight to Impact’

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Keynote speech by HRVP Kaja Kallas at the 2026 Conference on Countering Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference: 'From Insight to Impact'

17.03.2026

© European Union, 2026

Dear Guests,

Welcome to this year's conference.

It is tempting to think that the more freely information flows, the stronger our societies become. Because a fundamental component of democracy is that citizens and the media hold their governments to account.

But this is one of the greatest paradoxes of our time. As the information space has evolved, truth is vanishing.

Not so long ago, the methods to interfere with information integrity were rather primitive. China and Russia would pay for tens of thousands of fake social media profiles with bot farms pushing out destabilising, manipulative narratives. We have all seen these in our social media feeds.

Enter Artificial Intelligence.

AI has enormous positive potential in the world today. We see the benefit for our citizens through healthcare, in robotics, and more recently also in defence.

But there is also a flip side. AI tools can produce manipulative content at speed, scale, and low cost. Fake AI-generated videos and images have become the new norm. Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise did not have that fight on a skyscraper roof! AI has taken cognitive warfare to the next level - in the movie business and many other sectors, including our democratic space.

Take Romania in 2024. A Russia-backed disinformation campaign artificially boosted the online presence of a far-right, pro-Russian, fringe candidate.

Thousands of AI-powered bot accounts were used to flood platforms with deepfakes. This was matched by paid TikTok influencers promoting Russia's choice of candidate. Without Romania's constitutional checks and balances, Russia could have won in Romania's elections.

Democracy is based on trust. If we cannot tell what is true and what is not, we are easily manipulated. Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference - FIMI - is death to democracy by a thousand cuts.

We all feel the threat. Recent Eurobarometer data shows that:

• close to 80% of Europeans are concerned that voters are basing their choices on disinformation;
• over 60% worry about external pressure.

For more than ten years, Europe has developed real expertise in this field. We see the gun, we know what it's made of, and we know how it fires. But this is cognitive war. We must also shoot back.

There are three fronts.

First, within the European Union.

Foreign interference works because it pays off.

• Information manipulation is one of the most cost-effective tools of modern hybrid warfare.
• Last year, Russia and China alone invested up to 11 billion euro. But the global economic impact of disinformation is estimated at over 400 billion euro annually.
• There is now a marketplace for manipulation. Actors outsource it to intermediaries and contractors including private companies, influence-for-hire networks, and digital marketing actors.

To fight it we have to break the business model.

One way to do this is by sanctioning the perpetrators. Our current list includes many people and businesses spreading propaganda and conspiracy theories on Russia's invasion of Ukraine as well as anti-Ukraine and anti-Western narratives. But as fast as we are currently applying the sanctions, perpetrators can adapt.

So we must do more.

For example, we know that:

• perpetrators use payments in cryptocurrencies to lure young people into actions that undermine democracy in Europe;
• and that entrepreneurs are selling their technical know-how, influencer networks, and bot farms.

A logical step would be to increase tax probes and cyber investigations into crypto wallets and illicit flows of money. These can be coordinated at the European level where necessary.

We can also do much more to regulate the digital space.

The very least that social media platforms must do is to work with European authorities as they investigate perpetrators, with the aim of reducing their impact and preventing them from scaling up.

The best approach is to apply the rules already in place:

• The Digital Services Act and the EU's Code of Conduct on Disinformation require strong engagement from social media platforms and search engines to make the online space safer.
• We have developed tools to combat disinformation and act against the sharing of any content that is unlawful, misleading, discriminatory or fraudulent.

But in practice, when major platforms are abusing their market power, influenced by actors openly supporting specific political groups in our countries, we have a serious problem.

With many elections coming up in Europe this year and next, we have to muster the political courage to actually use our regulations and the tools we have developed to counter threats in our democracies.

The Democracy Shield was developed for exactly this purpose, to bring all the various angles together:

• From the Rapid Alert System which helps us to track disinformation;
• To the European Cooperation Network on Elections, which brings Member States together to share best practices.

There are difficult questions still to consider. For example, is it a mistake to entrust our democratic space to social networks that are controlled by large American and Chinese companies? I will leave you with this thought.

The second front in this war against information manipulation is in our neighbourhood.

The closer a country comes to the European Union, the more likely it is to become a target of foreign interference.

We saw it in Georgia and failed to fight it. We have seen this in Ukraine for over ten years and are tackling it. And we saw it in Moldova last year and by working with the Moldovan authorities, we defeated it. This battle can be won.

To understand the scale of what Moldova was up against, estimates put Russia's financial support for the pro-Russian voices between two and three hundred million euro. That's the equivalent of between 2 and 3 percent of Moldova's entire GDP. But Russia's interference didn't work because we fought back - together.

Ahead of the elections Moldovan authorities were extremely vocal and proactive about the risks of fraud and interference. They introduced prison sentences for vote-buying. They worked with the intelligence community to investigate and expose interference. Staff from the European External Action Service were instrumental in these investigations.

There was also a massive communication push to promote the tangible benefits of European Union membership for citizens. This happened across platforms and engaged a broad range of people: from TV stars to musicians, from NGOs to the Church. I would even dare to say that high profile visits from European leaders also raised the EU's profile in the country.

These efforts reduced the impact of attacks against the EU and highlighted what Moldova stood to lose by staying outside the EU.

But you also have to show and not just tell. By the middle of last year, most villages in Moldova had something tangible to prove what being part of the European family means. Be it a new park, a new playground, or something as basic as running water. When people can actually feel the improvements to their lives, their choice is clear.

That is also why the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans is important to rally support for enlargement prospects across the region.

In the immediate term, foreign actors will not stop trying to interfere in democratic spaces, of this we can be very, very sure.

Following their botched attempt in Moldova, Russia started targeting Armenia ahead of its own elections with the same playbook. Only this time, they started much, much earlier - more than a year in advance. We can see it now in Montenegro, which aims to join the European Union in 2028.

What countries can do is investigate, criminalise and prosecute parts of the interference - this goes for vote-buying as for information manipulation - and present the facts to citizens.

The EU will always support our friends in this fight. For example:

• Following a request from Armenia, we will deploy a Hybrid Rapid Response Team in April ahead of elections in June.
• Fighting FIMI was part of our first Security and Defence Dialogue with Montenegro in December.

This is an important first step towards establishing a Security and Defence Partnership, similar to those we already have with North Macedonia and Albania, and with a growing number of partners around the world.

Foreign interference is not confined to Europe or our neighbourhood or even to democracy. Which brings me to the third front: the international sphere.

Last year, over a hundred countries were attacked by FIMI, over a hundred individuals including heads of state, and close to two hundred organisations including NATO.

A major concern in the fight against information manipulation is the void left by the United States. The U.S. once led efforts against foreign interference but the State Department has now stopped the majority of this work. The withdrawal of US funding for information integrity has had a major impact on global efforts too. The G7 and NATO have both slowed down their own work as a result.

But the threat has not gone away. FIMI is only increasing while the global democratic space shrinks.

Europe must fill this void.

Wherever I travel to meet my counterparts across the world, the constant ask from partners is how to protect their own societies from attacks.

The European External Action Service provides a blueprint for others to detect, understand and respond to the threats. We look predominantly at Russian and Chinese-backed interference because these are our own challenges. But the same approach can be applied to threats coming from any country.

Fighting foreign information manipulation and interference is part of the Security and Defence Partnerships we have with many countries, a group that will soon include Australia, Iceland and Ghana.

But again, we must do more.

If you ask anyone anywhere, in a democracy or not, whether malign foreign interference in their country's information space is welcome, the answer is always no. Information integrity is a global public good.

That is why I want to build an international coalition to protect the information space. Along with maritime security and AI governance, this is an area crying out for a collective response. There are important issues to address, including how free media is suppressed.

Dear guests,

The infrastructure our adversaries use is built like a house of cards. Our 2026 report outlines this well. We know who is behind the meddling, how they operate, whom they target, and what their vulnerabilities are. By taking a more assertive approach, online and offline, we can blow the house down.

There is a role for everyone:

• Politicians and law enforcement must work together to break the business model and regulate the digital space.
• The European Union must keep supporting its neighbours, as we did for Moldova and will do in Armenia.
• Personally I will keep sharing our knowledge with our international partners and work on building a strong alliance of countries who want to fight for information integrity;
• And finally, there is a public duty to fight lies with the truth.

Foreign information manipulation and interference is an attempt to leave citizens confused and in the dark. It erodes the very foundation of our democracies. Without information integrity - without reliable and fact-based information - we cannot make informed choices about anything from our health to the education of our children to the people we vote for.

Yes, democracy is stronger on our continent than anywhere else in the world. Countries have safeguards that actually work - as we saw in Romania. And we have strength in our numbers. This worked in Moldova.

But every national election is now a target of interference. 2026 could be a perfect storm in Europe. We must all stay on top of this fight. So get out there and spread the truth.

Thank you.