Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov met here Monday with the visiting US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Elizabeth Allen, the government said on its social media. “Bulgaria and the US are heightening their strategic partnership in combatting disinformation and hybrid threats,” the post says.
It recalls that the two countries signed a couple of months ago a memorandum of understanding on countering information manipulations.
Prime Minister Denkov said that Bulgaria is among the worst affected countries in the region by disinformation and the government is determined to address that, interacting both within the EU and with the US. “The aim is to increase public resilience to the disinformation circulating mainly on the internet and to reinforce the understanding that reliable information can only be obtained from verified sources.
The two sides expressed a shared wish to continue cooperation in the field of culture, education and science. Opportunities will be sought to intensify the programmes for exchange in these area so that more people benefit from them.
The Under Secretary's trip to Bulgaria is part of her European tour from October 27 to November 3, which also includes Norway and Czechia. The visits are aimed to deepen Transatlantic cooperation on shared priorities, including the support for Ukraine, security in the Arctic and Black Sea regions, and countering foreign malign influence, the US State Department said on October 27.
Her Bulgaria agenda includes meetings with Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mariya Gabriel, launch a nearly USD 900,000 US government-funded programme, in collaboration with the Poynter Institute, aiming to advance media literacy, and a trip to the coastal city of Varna to discuss Black Sea security issues with Bulgarian Naval leadership and visit a US-supported centre assisting displaced Ukrainian refugees.
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