The Bulgarian Government is Setting up an Anti-disinformation Unit

The government is setting up an anti-disinformation unit to work by the end of the month. The unit will be in the structure of the Council of Ministers and will be responsibility of a Deputy Prime Minister, reports Dnevnik, citing their own sources. Its creation is enshrined in the Joint Action Plan of the European Commission and the European Parliament adopted in December last year.

The Bulgarian Unit will be a "contact point" with the Rapid Response System, which will be led by the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs (currently Federica Mogherini, but in November the European Commission will have a new faction). It is not yet known whether and what kind of staff will this structure have, what technical and expert opportunities will be used and where it will be located.

The specific employee who will personally contact will also receive a lot of political information. Therefore, this is not just a clerical administrator. The government does not answer who the Deputy Prime Minister for Combating Disinformation will be, most likely Tomislav Donchev. In some of the European countries, strategic units have been established at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Rapid Alert System is part of the European Commission's Action Plan to Combat Disinformation and Federica Mogherini. It addresses attempts and threats from third parties to manipulate open discussions in EU member states, with "third countries" tacitly referring to Russia.

"Permanent targeted disinformation campaigns against the Union, its institutions and policies are likely to increase in the run-up to the European Parliament elections in 2019. This requires urgent and immediate action to protect the Union, its institutions and its...