The Experts for Security and Global Affairs Association, Bucharest, and its partner, Ukrainian Foreign Council ”Prism”, Kyiv, is launching a new project with the title
” The Romanian – Ukrainian Civil Society Forum for Dialogue and Cooperation”.
The project is supported by the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation, a project of the German Marshall Fund.
The development of formal discussions between Romanian and Ukrainian experts in an organized form – a bilateral Civil Society Forum for Dialogue and Cooperation, aims to provide continuity of the dialogue among different actors interested in the development of the bilateral partnership on specific, pragmatic and relevant issues for both sides.
For the first meeting we have chosen to debate a topic with a high-level priority:
”Perceptions of Hybrid Threats and Informational Warfare in Romania and Ukraine. How to Align Interests and Options?”
Our aim through the first edition of the Forum is to address threats and common challenges to our national interests.
The strategy for developing the Romanian – Ukrainian Civil Society Forum for Dialogue and Cooperation is based on two elements:
- The constant meetings of a working group consisting of experts who deal in their analyzes with the Romanian-Ukrainian dialogue, which will have the mission to identify solutions and recommendations for common challenges;
- To organize public thematic meetings, depending on the priorities of the bilateral dialogue, identified as such by the working group.
The third element relates to the external work of this working group, namely, to communicate transparently to the interested public new elements of the bilateral dialogue, as well as to positively influence the cooperation between the public institutions of both states.
The Project goal is assistance in the increase of the potential of cooperation and political influence/role of expert community and civil society actors, elaboration of common perception of goals, objectives and threats (including hybrid threats and informational warfare) in the region, further strengthening and widening of the contacts between the experts and civil society activists and sharing best practices in tackling the aforementioned issues by reloading the format of the annual bilateral Romania-Ukraine Civil Society Forum in Bucharest and its regional side event in Iasi.
Bearing in mind the goal of the Project for the first meeting (that will take place in Iași and Bucharest) the following objectives are to be reached:
- To draw attention of the representatives of civil society actors to the emerging hybrid challenges and threats including informational warfare through two public events organized with the participation of experts from Romania, Ukraine and Republic of Moldova, and to create the platform for exchanging experience, sharing good practices and lessons learned in the field of information security, combating disinformation, preventing the spreading of the fake news; to highlight the mentioned issues at the sessions of the bilateral Romania-Ukraine Civil Society Forum and its side event in Iasi;
- To prepare 2 country policy papers through which we intend to raise awareness of the civil society representatives and activists on the current priorities of the political process in Romania and Ukraine as well as in the Republic of Moldova (where the upcoming elections will have impact on the future of the country and its foreign policy priorities and relations with Ukraine and Romania); to discuss these issues at the sessions of the bilateral Romania-Ukraine Civil Society Forum and to elaborate shared commitment oriented approach regarding counterweighting the potential negative scenarios;
- To assist direct contacts between the politicians, governmental officials, experts, researchers and journalists from Ukraine, Romania and the Republic of Moldova, who support bilateral cooperation and further cooperation in the region of Central Eastern Europe and the Black Sea with the support of a medium-term press monitoring mission established within the project for the main issues of the bilateral relationship and the development of useful analyzes.