The European Centre for Democratic Resilience takes a significant step by extending its cooperation activities on democratic resilience to candidate and potential candidate countries. This initiative broadens the Centre's practical cooperation beyond the EU's borders, creating opportunities for sharing expertise, building joint capacities, and working together on common challenges, as envisioned in the European Democracy Shield.
At a meeting of the General Affairs Council in Luxembourg, Member State Ministers discussed collaboration avenues with their counterparts from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Ukraine, as well as Kosovo. At the invitation of the Member States, enlargement partners will now be able to participate in various ongoing joint projects. These include theoretical crisis management exercises and the development of common concepts and methodologies for detecting information manipulation and interference by foreign actors.
Further projects encompass methods for measuring democratic resilience and supporting the security of democratic life through specific training actions focused on protecting journalists, civil society organisations, fact-checkers, and politicians.
The Centre was officially launched on February 24, 2026, within the framework of the General Affairs Council. It is already undertaking concrete projects with Member States, such as a 'train-the-trainers' capacity-building programme, which successfully delivered its first edition in September 2026. More information is available on the Centre's official website.
