Bojan Maricic(former Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs and former Minister of Justice of North Macedonia) delivered this address at the international conference “Defending Democracy:Horizons of Freedom.”
In his speech, Maricic emphasized the uniqueness of Europe’s legal and institutional architecture—particularly the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights—and warned that today these foundational values are under unprecedented pressure. He focused on democratic resilience in the age of artificial intelligence, disinformation, and hybrid threats, with special attention to the Western Balkans as EU aspirant countries and their role in Europe’s overall democratic security:
I believe that the European continent has developed a set of institutions and international legal instruments that are truly unique and unprecedented in other parts of the world. The European Convention on Human Rights, together with its Court and the broader structure of the Council of Europe, represents a singular achievement.
The very core of the Council of Europe—and I mention it deliberately first—is the protection of three fundamental values: the rule of law, democracy, and human rights. These values have been taken as a whole, and the entire corpus of legal definitions, instruments, and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights has become an integral part of EU law and EU values.
We already possess many tools. The challenge today is not to invent them anew, but to empower them, while demonstrating both resilience and determination to defend these values. We are entering a period in which we may have to fight for them across multiple battlefields and with different means—and we must be prepared.
These values were built over decades, especially after the Second World War, yet today they are being challenged. They are challenged from within the European Union and the European continent, and from outside, not only by traditional adversaries but also, at times, by traditional partners. This is a challenge that Europe as a continent—and the EU as a political structure—must face with seriousness and strategic preparedness.
When we speak about democratic resilience in the European context, especially in relation to artificial intelligence and modern technologies, several conclusions are unavoidable.
First, synthetic media is no longer a niche threat. Deepfakes and AI-generated content are now cheap, fast, scalable, and highly convincing. The greatest danger is not a single fake video, but the erosion of truth itself. Citizens begin to doubt everything. While healthy skepticism is essential to democracy, systematic doubt about all established facts undermines democratic foundations.
For the European Union, this represents a clear democratic risk. For Western Balkan EU aspirants, it is even more severe—it becomes a state capacity and credibility risk, because institutions already operate with lower baseline trust and fewer resources for rapid response.
Second, disinformation today functions as an ecosystem, not as isolated incidents. It combines synthetic content, algorithmic amplification, microtargeting, and monetization. These campaigns cross borders and are often linked to geopolitical interests. Western Balkan societies frequently serve as testing grounds for narratives later deployed within the EU, while having significantly weaker protective mechanisms.
Third, algorithmic manipulation shifts power away from citizens toward opaque systems. What people see online is shaped far more by platform design and recommendation algorithms than by genuine choice. The EU’s Digital Services Act attempts to address these systemic risks, but EU aspirant countries such as North Macedonia import the same platforms without equivalent regulatory leverage—making them more vulnerable to manipulation and polarization.
A shared reality has become a security issue, not merely a media concern. When societies cannot agree on basic facts, democratic decision-making, crisis management, and public debate begin to collapse. The EU increasingly treats information integrity as part of its critical democratic infrastructure.
Hybrid threats no longer rely primarily on military power. They exploit media platforms, algorithms, and networked influence operations. Their primary target is trust—trust in elections, courts, media, public administration, and democratic systems themselves. The objective is often confusion, fatigue, and cynicism rather than persuading citizens of a single false narrative.
Algorithmic systems also accelerate polarization and normalize what we might call post-truth and post-shame politics, where outrage is rewarded and accountability is diminished. While the EU responds through systemic regulation, Western Balkan societies absorb these dynamics without the same institutional defenses.
Closing the resilience gap between the EU and the Western Balkans is not optional—it is a security imperative. Information integrity must be governed as part of democratic infrastructure, not treated merely as a communication challenge.
Safeguards must move beyond reacting to individual lies and toward governing systems by design. The EU’s approach through the Digital Services Act, the AI Act, and the Media Freedom Act reflects this shift—focusing on transparency, accountability, and systemic risk mitigation rather than chasing individual pieces of disinformation.
Ethical and legal standards are increasingly converging around human rights and democracy, as reflected both in EU legislation and in the Council of Europe’s AI Convention. The goal is not to slow innovation, but to ensure that technological power does not outpace democratic oversight.
Finally, media freedom and pluralism remain core democratic safeguards, especially in smaller and fragile media markets such as the Western Balkans, where political and economic pressures can quickly erode public trust.
If the EU seeks genuine democratic resilience, the Western Balkans cannot be treated as an appendix. They must be fully integrated into Europe’s strategic thinking, policies, and defenses. A resilient Europe is impossible without a resilient Western Balkans.
This article and refined transcript were prepared by the author with AI-assisted language refinement and editorial support. The content remains fully faithful to the original video address. All responsibility for interpretation and publication rests with the author.
Watch the full video from the conference: