Professor Iztok Prezelj: The Balkans are influenced by external powers, Serbia serves as an entry point for Russia

Russia uses its media in Serbia to shape public opinion and influence the political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, especially among Serbs and Albanians, says in an interview with The Geopost, Slovenian university professor Iztok Prezelj. At a time when the security and integration of the Western Balkans remain among the most sensitive and challenging issues, Prezelj emphasizes the importance of combating disinformation and strengthening democracy.

He also says that Slovenia, as a member of the European Union and NATO, has played an important role in supporting the integration of the Western Balkan countries into Western institutions.

As one of the main organizers, Professor Prezelj also speaks about the "Balkan SAYS" conference (Security Architecture Youth Seminar), which was held in Slovenia, as a reference point for the region's youth and future leaders.

The full interview follows:

The Geopost: Professor, thank you very much for this interview with The Geopost. You organized a conference last week, Balkan SAYS, can you tell us a little about its impact and organization?

Pretzel: Thank you for the invitation. Balkan SAYS is a traditional conference for young people, future leaders from the region and future European leaders interested in the Western Balkans region. Balkan SAYS stands for “Security Architecture Youth Seminar”. Our focus is on discussing security issues and problems in the region, and we always try to address and discuss these topics within the framework of future cooperative security structures, future peace and future mutual prosperity. This is the purpose of this event. It is very important that the event is organized by the Youth Department of the Euro-Atlantic Council of Slovenia. They are very interested in organizing this event because they can grow through this mechanism.

You know, when you, as a student, organize an international conference where people from different continents participate and which is now sponsored by important institutions, then that means something in the lives of young people. And of course, on the other hand, we have the participants. We have done a very, always a very strict selection because we basically cover all the costs, and this year we had 106 applications and we selected about 40 people. So these selected people are the smartest, the most intelligent, people who have already achieved something, who are writing or have a new career, career enthusiasts in the making or something like that. And because of the high selection, we always have very interesting speakers here. We get former presidents, national security advisors, high-ranking officials from Slovenia or abroad or from international conference organizations. And these students always give them a hard time, which is actually fantastic.

We share common interests. So, we have great speakers and students. And that means, as I haven't mentioned, this is the 13th conference in a row. With this conference, we are trying to make a difference in the region. This impact is not huge, of course. We are not talking about a strategic conference organized by the government. Of course, we are not that well-known, but our impact in the region is visible through the future leaders, through the brightest minds who are in the process of evolving to become smarter, more responsible and, of course, ultimately, more influential, for the sake of peace in the region.

The Geopost: Some topics were about Russian influence in the Balkans from a Slovenian perspective and from the perspective of your organization. How do you assess this influence?

Pretzel: You know, I think the Balkans have always been influenced more from the outside than from the inside, but let me explain. So if you don't have a power, theoretically, if you don't have a power that prevents foreign influence, then Yugoslavia, for example, was a kind of power that created a certain stability and prevented that influence to a certain extent. When you have a lot of smaller states, some weaker than others, and a history of conflict, then, as we know, this is a very useful playing field for anyone from the outside to exert influence, to use and even abuse the region. And we have seen in the past that the region has been influenced from all sides: from the east, from the north, from the south and from the west. But when you talk about Russia, the situation is, of course, very clear. Serbia is in some ways divided or blocked on its path to the European Union.

Militarily, Serbia is trying to remain neutral. On the other hand, it is trying for the best possible relations with Russia and China. And, of course, Serbia is an important entry point for Russia, not only in neutralizing public opinion in Serbia, but also in the entire region. Russia does this through its media, which are legal in Serbia, and through these media, Russian influence also affects public opinion in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, on the other hand, is also a very divided country, including in terms of its potential for NATO membership, internal cohesion, political rivalries and things like that. And, of course, through the influence of the situation in Kosovo between Serbs and Albanians. So, the influence is there. It is very systematic. There is an influence.

The message, in a way, is that while there are many headlines or main objectives of this disinformation campaign, the main ones are actually the same as in Northern and Central Europe: that the EU is a weak actor, NATO is a bad actor, that fascism is on the rise in the West, and this approach was used not only now, but also during the Cold War. So that's it. This influence continues to divide the region politically and internally, and I think sometimes it's quite difficult for the local population to believe or know what the truth really is. Maybe about the war in Ukraine or something like that. Because with all the disinformation coming from all sides, the thing is that we all have these problems in the modern world. We call this world the post-truth reality, where our first problem is to find out what the truth is. And the Western Balkans is no exception. But yes, from the Russian side, we have seen quite extensive operations and efforts.

The Geopost: Slovenia is a member of the EU and NATO and we are very close. What can Slovenia do to help the Western Balkan countries in the areas of disinformation and EU integration?

Pretzel: Yes, well, the second part of the question is simpler. As a former Republic of Yugoslavia, Slovenia has always been very interested and very sensitive to the security and economic situation in the region. Slovenia has supported all cooperation processes in the region and has been a strong supporter of Montenegro and North Macedonia.

It has also always maintained a good dialogue with Bosnia and Serbia, not to mention close ties and contacts with Croatia. As a non-permanent member of the Security Council, Slovenia has always acted as a country that issues early warnings, gives recommendations, leads initiatives or assists with initiatives. This includes our concern and interest in the state of democracy in countries, freedom of the media in countries, as well as disinformation. Disinformation is a kind of disruptive factor in the information space, as its purpose is obviously to confuse people, which is not favorable for the region. So, Slovenia has always helped on a general level. In concrete terms, the level or extent of disinformation is difficult to understand from within, even from a Slovenian perspective. So, we have different ministries and the Government Information Office, we have several groups that are trying to combat disinformation in Slovenia.

And then we would expect other countries in the region to start setting up similar units. To deal with this, we also need to use more software, maybe even artificial intelligence-based solutions, to identify disinformation and implement them in the region as well, not just in Slovenia. But this is very difficult because the spread of disinformation is not mathematically symmetrical and it is not so clear that there are so many potential actors who simply take information and add something to it, so in the end, even the person spreading disinformation at the end of the chain and the person who can present this information do not know exactly what happens to this disinformation or information. So this is very difficult for Slovenia and also for the European Union. In the European Union, there is a kind of EU task force “East StratCom” (The East StratCom Task Force) that publishes the report on disinformation.

You can order this in the Western Balkans, and maybe we can communicate it well enough, but there is a report on disinformation published by the EU that is actually quite specific to each case, which means that they identify cases of disinformation, pull out the narratives, so that journalists, editors, responsible academics, or whoever, you and I, can look at it and say: Okay, this is what is happening now, and this information is not really true. This is an invention of someone with malicious intent. So let's say that Slovenia, through its influence on media freedom and democracy, will always keep an eye on what is happening in the region. As you know, the context is not good, the risks are high, so I think we need to do a lot more here to help the region, but of course, the region itself needs to do a lot more to help itself.

/The Geopost