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Speech by Alain Berset, Secretary General of the Council of Europe

OPENING

President Sandu,
Ambassador Cujbă,
Ambassadors,
Excellencies,
 

Bună dimineața.

Good morning, everyone.

I. MOLDOVA’S EXPERIENCE

Madam President, it is an honor to join you for this conference.

The Republic of Moldova has made the response to disinformation a priority of its Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

For two consecutive years, your country has been under sustained pressure from foreign information manipulation and interference.

And it has resisted.

We have a lot to learn from that experience.

Moldova is not alone.

Armenia will hold parliamentary elections in June.

Other countries will follow.

And they will face the same pressure.

No one is immune.

II. A BRAVE NEW WORLD

When I was at Moldova State University last year, I told students that the challenge today is not access to information, but knowing what to believe.

They told me that disinformation campaigns spread the idea that their country would be dragged into war.

That their land would be taken.

That their future in Europe would destroy their way of life.

One year later, the war in Iran and the Middle East is taking this to another level.

The image from Minab has gone around the world.
Rows and rows of small graves, seen from above.

They are being dug for the young girls killed in a strike on a primary school in the first days of the war.

The image is real.

But when people asked AI, it said it was fake.

It even pointed to false sources.

Technology is rewriting reality, on screens and in our minds.

This is where we are now.

We doubt what we see.

But we do not question what the machines say.

III. OUTSOURCING JUDGMENT

AI systems are increasingly reshaping how we think and how we learn.

Children use them for homework.

Students for essays.

Whole segments of the population begin to outsource judgment.

And we are already seeing the effects.

Literacy declines.

Critical thinking weakens.

Instant reaction replaces reflection.

Shares and likes replace debate.

Worse still, anger gets rewarded.

As a result, the most extreme voices rise to the top.

Little by little, polarisation, division and outrage become the business model of democracy.

IV. CHEAP, FAST AND SCALABLE

This is fertile ground for foreign information manipulation and interference.

Here is what we need to remember.

It can be built fast, scaled widely, and at very little cost.

And now, almost anyone can do it.

As President Sandu highlighted at the Council of Europe in January, a small network of fake accounts can generate millions of views and interactions.

The objective behind this is clear:

To create the impression of overwhelming anger and social collapse, and discourage democratic participation.

All this within weeks.

V. POISONING democratic discourse

You no longer need to overturn an election to damage a democracy.

Deepfakes and disinformation flooding campaigns.

Voter databases breached.

Party servers hijacked.

These attacks do not need to steal a single vote.

They only need to poison democratic discourse.

And once that happens, what is left of democracy?

VI. far from powerless

It feels like we are always playing catch-up, while technology and manipulation keep moving faster.

But we are not without rules or tools.

And we are far from powerless.

The Budapest Convention on Cybercrime is one example.

So is the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence.

As the Republic of Moldova knows too well, information manipulation does not come alone.

On the eve of the September 2025 parliamentary elections, government systems faced millions of cyberattack attempts.

The Budapest Convention and its Protocols make it possible to investigate crimes, collect electronic evidence, and act across borders.

To respond faster.

To act together.

And to do so true to democratic values.

The Council of Europe has also built clear standards.

To protect journalism, media pluralism, electoral integrity and public trust.

They show where resilience is built.

In fact-checking.

In platform design.

And in media and information literacy.

VII. DEMOCRATIC SECURITY

In a world in rupture, where everything is framed as security, control over information becomes a question of democratic security.

Because a democracy that cannot protect its information space will not be able to protect its institutions for long.

Democratic security goes beyond the “hard” and “soft” security mindset.

It requires a security architecture that strengthens institutions people can trust and protects them against coordinated interference aimed at weakening them from within.

VIII. TOWARDS CHIȘINĂU

That is why the Council of Europe is working on a new legal instrument to address foreign information manipulation and interference.

This is part of our effort under the New Democratic Pact for Europe.

In recent weeks, important progress has been made in developing this instrument.

A feasibility study has been completed, and it confirms what many already see.

The threat is real.

It is evolving.

And it demands a structured response.

This response must respect freedom of expression and the rule of law.

Not to police debate, but to protect democratic choice.

This work will move forward in the coming days and weeks, as part of the process leading to the Ministerial Session in May here in Chișinău.

We need a response that matches the scale and the nature of the threat.

One that allows states to act — and to do it together.

CLOSING

When facts and lies compete for attention, the truth does not always win.

To change this, we need to go back to fundamentals:

Invest in fact-checking.

Support quality journalism.

And help people build resilience against manipulation.

The Republic of Moldova shows us the way forward.

What is at stake is our ability to think critically, question, and debate.

Because in the end, it is not about trolls or fake news.

It is about the kind of democracy we want to build together across our continent.
 

Thank you.