Teaching the Teachers of Counter-Disinformation

The European Centre for Democratic Resilience, working alongside Sweden’s Psychological Defence Agency, has delivered the inaugural session of its 'Train the Trainers' programme. Launched in September, the weeklong course brought together government officials from across EU member states. The objective is to convert national civil servants into instructors capable of teaching their own domestic colleagues how to spot and resist foreign cognitive threats, psychological manipulation, and coordinated disinformation.

Covert influence operations and fake news campaigns rarely respect national borders or stop at capital city limits. Rather than expecting every local municipality or ministry to figure out how to spot foreign interference on its own, the programme aims to build a standardized baseline of resilience across all levels of government. For ordinary citizens, stronger state preparedness means better protection for public institutions, election integrity, and civic trust.

Brussels has a natural affection for the 'train the trainer' framework—a classic administrative multiplier where one educated civil servant returns home to instruct fifty others, saving both time and European taxpayers' money. By partnering with Sweden, which maintains a specialized state agency for psychological defence, the project allows the EU to deploy practical operational expertise without having to create a brand-new, centralized anti-disinformation agency of its own.

With the first group of graduates now returning to their home capitals, national ministries will begin internal cascade trainings for domestic staff. The participating institutions are expected to evaluate the initial rollout before scheduling subsequent cohorts.