SAUFEX

Although the European Union's disinformation policy has significantly developed since 2015, Russia’s war in Ukraine has reminded us all of the urgent need to stay ahead of the curve in order to fortify our resilience against the ever-evolving threat of Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI). In the last year, Russia’s strategic use of FIMI in its war of aggression against Ukraine has brought an unprecedented response by those defenders who seek to safeguard universal values, democracy, and freedoms by exposing Russia’s efforts to manipulate global discourses. While governance, law, protocols, data exchange, and forensic practices should converge to address FIMI, they currently remain disparate and unaligned. This fragmented approach creates a significant hurdle in the fight against FIMI, hindering the ability of member states to prosecute, ban, attribute, or sanction FIMI actors or campaigns originating from state and non-state actors. To overcome this hurdle there is a need to better synchronise the interventions and harmonise our approach towards FIMI, as proven in the case of cyberattacks. Our consortium, SAUFEX (Secure Automated Unified Framework for Exchange), comprises of concerned stakeholders who possess significant expertise and hands-on experience with the current systems and structures concerning FIMI and are situated in the EU's Eastern regions, where FIMI incidents are frequently observed. We strongly understand the importance of consolidating and utilising available information to establish a collective comprehension of FIMI. To achieve this, our project proposes the creation of a FIMI data-space, which we will herby refer to as a FIMI knowledge database, as well as the establishment of a Resilience Council to act as an intermediary between state and non-state actors, specifically regarding interventions and FIMI attribution.