On April 4th, DRI held an online exchange (90 minutes) with EU institutions, platforms, international organisations and NGOs to assess risk to the information space before this year’s European Parliament elections. The 34 participants represented DRI, the European Commission (DG Connect), the European External Action Service, the Secretariat of the European Partnership for Democracy, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, International IDEA, Council for Media Services, Aspen Institute Germany, Global Disinformation Index, Expert Forum Romania, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, GlobeSec, Demagog, Das NETTZ, Arcom, EDMO, DigitalHub, AI Forensics, TikTok, and YouTube.
After a brief introduction, we divided the attendees into breakout group discussions, each focusing on a separate online threat. Participants were encouraged to share their thoughts, observations, and predictions about each topic in the context of the EP elections.