New position paper calls for the inclusion of the Western Balkans in the EU Democracy Shield

The Anti-Disinformation Network for the Balkans (ADN-Balkans) has published the position paper “Bringing the Western Balkans into the EU Democracy Shield and the EDMO Ecosystem,” calling on the European Commission and the EEAS to formally include the Western Balkans Six in the operational architecture of the European Democracy Shield and to establish a structured pathway for the region’s integration into the European Digital Media Observatory ecosystem.

The position paper is the result of consultations within the ADN-Balkans network and builds on the discussions from the conference “Building Resilience to Election-Related Information Manipulation,” organised on 19 May 2026 in Skopje by the Metamorphosis Foundation in cooperation with International IDEA, as part of the project “Combatting Electoral Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI),” supported by Global Affairs Canada.

The paper argues that the Western Balkans should not be treated as an external neighbourhood in democratic-resilience terms, but as part of Europe’s democratic security perimeter. The region is directly exposed to foreign information manipulation and interference, election-related disinformation, anti-EU narratives, media-literacy vulnerabilities, digital-rights risks and cross-border information flows that also affect EU Member States, including through diaspora communities.

ADN-Balkans brings together civil society organisations, media outlets, fact-checkers, educational institutions and other stakeholders from the Western Balkans, Balkan EU Member States and other EU candidate countries, including Turkey. By bridging political, linguistic and institutional divides, the network supports regional cooperation against cross-border disinformation and promotes media literacy, critical thinking and professional journalism standards.

The position paper calls for the Western Balkans to be formally associated with the European Centre for Democratic Resilience, for the creation of a Western Balkans EDMO hub, and for regional early-warning data, including findings from the Western Balkans Anti-Disinformation Hub’s Disinfo Radar, to be connected to EU situational awareness mechanisms.

The position paper is available for download here.

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