{"id":14798,"date":"2020-05-14T07:57:35","date_gmt":"2020-05-14T06:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/?p=14798"},"modified":"2024-02-13T23:13:57","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T22:13:57","slug":"the-eu-nato-and-the-usa-key-partners-of-the-western-balkans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/news\/the-eu-nato-and-the-usa-key-partners-of-the-western-balkans\/","title":{"rendered":"The EU, NATO and the USA \u2013 key partners of the Western Balkans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Russia is trying to slow\ndown the integration processes on the Western Balkans and surpasses the other\ncountries in interfering in the internal and foreign political course of the\nregion, assessed the participants of the online conference organized by NATO<\/em> Strategic Communications\nCentre of Excellence (StratCom) from Latvia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The participants of the\nconference were Milan Jovanovic from the Atlantic Council of Montenegro and\nDimitar Bechev, professor at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, who presented the report \u201eRussia’s\nFootprint in the Western<\/em> Balkan Information Environment\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jovanovic reminded that\nthe Atlantic Council of Montenegro is one of the co-authors of the report\npublished by StratCom, stating that more than 11,000 articles published by\nSputnik Serbia were analyzed during 12 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201eWe detected nine main narratives. The West is\nusually depicted in a negative context while Russia is presented as a savior\nand defender of Orthodoxy in the region. NATO is presented as an aggressive\norganization, which is expanding its presence near Russia’s borders. Sputnik wants\nto rewrite Montenegrin history, presenting the decisions adopted on Podgoricka\nSkupstina (Podgorica Assembly) from 1918 as legitimate and the expression of the\nwill of the majority of the citizens\u201c, Jovanovic specified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Russia, as he added,\ncannot accept the Euro-Atlantic aspirations in the region, therefore, it is\nstriving to hinder the integrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201eThat is why the stronger presence of the EU,\nNATO and the USA is needed in the following period, in order to prevent the malign\ninfluence of Russia and China\u201c Jovanovic said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bechev assessed that\nRussia perceives the Balkans as the \u201esoft underbelly of NATO\u201c, through which it\ncould harm the West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201ePolitics of the West is directed towards the\nEU and NATO integration of the Balkans. Russia doesn’t have a successful\npolitics to prevent that, it only creates obstacles by influencing certain\nleaders and political parties in the Balkans. The main Russian goal is to slow\nthe integration process\u201c, Bechev said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The participants of the Conference agree that\nRussia uses the coronavirus pandemic to strengthen its presence in the Balkans,\nbut they also assess that other countries are much more successful at this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201eRussia tried to use the coronavirus, but\nothers did it much better, China first of all. When it comes to fighting the\ncoronavirus, Russia doesn’t provide good results within its borders, and this\nis the reason why it couldn’t launch such a narrative. Contrary to Russia,\nChina is present everywhere in the world, but Beijing doesn’t openly interfere\nin regional security issues, such as Kosovo. China opposes Kosovo’s\nindependence, but it doesn’t express it as loudly as Russia\u201c, Bechev stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he said, NATO and the EU above all are the\nWestern Balkans’ key partners in fighting the Russian influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201eThe Union must increase its economic\nassistance and the number of development projects for the region, because\nRussia can’t be its competitor in that field. With the new economic crisis, the\nBalkans are about to face after the pandemic, it is necessary that the EU\nadopts such stance\u201c, Bechev said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, Jovanovic assesses that\nstrengthening media literacy is the best way to strengthen a country’s\nresilience against the foreign influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201eThe\nbest way to prevent fake news spreading is to be media literate, and the\nexcellent example of that can be found in the Baltic states, which introduced\nmedia literacy as a compulsory subject in their schools\u201c, Jovanovic said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russia is trying to slow down the integration processes on the Western Balkans and surpasses the other countries in interfering in the internal and foreign political course of the region, assessed the participants of the online conference organized by NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (StratCom) from Latvia. The participants of the conference were Milan Jovanovic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14783,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29,30,31,17,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dogadjaji","category-events","category-featured","category-istaknuto","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19131,"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14798\/revisions\/19131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}