Foreign actors in the CEE and Western Balkans

One of the most significant challenges for the region of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Western Balkans has been the role of foreign actors and their interference in domestic political processes in both the CEE as well as the Western Balkans, which have both been deeply affected by the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine the same as by ambitions of third party actors to influence their next actions.

Among them, it has been the Russian Federation that was involved in conducting sabotages, sponsoring far-right and far-left (political) groups or realising cyber-attacks or operations in the hybrid domain, including most notably the information space. However, China and its communist regime was not far behind when it hacked into the internal databases of the Czech MFA, spied on its compatriots, continued stealing academic and other types of know-how or tried to organise its own police stations on the EU’s territory.

This all has been very similar to their activities and operations in the region of Western Balkans too, where both actors additionally tried to get access to valuable resources and critical materials as well as corrupt the local elites in order to follow their way with different levels of resistance towards their activities. The list of third parties also does not end here.

In that context, the biggest questions up to date are how to respond to these activities and what the state as well as its society can do to mitigate these risks and prepare their society to be more aware and ready to face these challenges.

The CEE, including Czechia, has a major advantage when being part of the EU and NATO with their own approaches, best practices and guidance on how to tackle the foreign influence and interference operations as well as the hybrid threats that come out of the current international situation. Both alliances also serve as a base for response that can be elevated to the level of EU27 or NATO 32, which serve as a powerful deterrence.

However, this is not always the case for the Western Balkan countries, which even more have to rely on their own resources, civil society, media or the business community to find the adequate solutions and tough responses when attributing these attacks and operations to the malign external actors and conducting reaction against them.

When having a look at the situation from the Czech perspective, the whole-of-society approach has been a good practice applied by the state towards these challenges, when the government of Petr Fiala launched new programs and opportunities for cooperation based on the strategic and conceptual documents, including on how to face the hybrid threats.

Another logic that has proved notable is closing the loopholes and focusing on domestic vulnerabilities that can be exposed and abused by the third-party actor. In Czechia, it has been the challenge of integration of Ukrainian refugees, making use of socio-economic division within the society or putting a wedge between the state and its elite on the one hand and the society at large on the other, in order to undermine the public trust and the institutions of the state in a wider sense.

And while there is a lot that still needs to be done to improve the societal resilience, Czechia as well as some of the other CEE countries, including most prominently Poland or the Baltic states, relatively succeeded in pushing back and calling out the malign actors and mobilize allies to show their solidarity and unwillingness to bend to their pressure.

This article was written in the framework of the project “Countering False Information in Kosovo: Experience-Sharing between V4 and Prishtina”, supported by The Visegrad Fund

Author: Pavel Havlicek, Research Fellow at the Association for International Affairs (AMO). His research focus is on Eastern Europe, especially Ukraine and Russia, and the Eastern Partnership. He also deals with questions of security, disinformation and strategic communication as well as democratisation and civil society support in the CEE and post-Soviet space.