EU pulls out of disinformation conference after US pressure

The European Union on Wednesday pulled its support for a disinformation event in Lithuania. They said some discussions did not match their official views.

The conference, #Disinfo2026, is an annual gathering of Europe’s counter-disinformation community. It usually attracts hundreds of researchers, journalists, tech experts, and policymakers to a hotel in Vilnius, Lithuania.

An independent non-profit based in Brussels, EU Disinfo Lab, organizes the event.

The event is set to take place in Vilnius on 7-8 October 2026. It has been advertised since at least April, and the program has been online since 9 September. This was well before the EU withdrew its support at the last minute.

The EU foreign affairs division, called the European External Action Service (EEAS), along with Canada and Lithuania, pulled support unexpectedly. They quickly covered sponsors’ logos on flyers and signs with paper strips.

“We were not comfortable with the framing of some of the discussions at the event. The organisers chose to frame some of the discussions in a way that does not align with the official positions held by the EU,” said EU spokesperson Christian Wigand to reporters in Brussels.

But, a report from the Guardian said the US State Department pressured the EU. This was because of a panel that framed the US as a foreign information threat.

The panel is titled “USA as a FIMI threat: adapt, acknowledge, push back.” FIMI stands for “foreign information manipulation and interference.”

The Guardian reported that the US contacted several governments about supporting the conference. State Department officials were concerned about the panel, which had three American speakers, including a former CIA officer. They wanted to discuss how Europe’s disinformation community could rebuild without Washington’s help.

The undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, Sarah Rogers, is said to have led the US action.

The Guardian noted that this conference might be the first to suggest the US could be a disinformation actor in Europe. It also quoted internal State Department documents showing officials thanked Lithuania for taking the US concerns seriously.

The report stated that the US was “grateful” to Lithuania. Meanwhile, Lithuania, the US, and Canada found the panel’s framing “reprehensible and surprising.”

Lithuania announced its decision to withdraw, saying, “several parts of the conference programme differ from the official position of the Government.”

Canada also stated, “It carefully assesses participation in, and sponsorship of, external events on a case-by-case basis.” They said that after seeing “changes to the framing of several panel discussions, it has decided to revise its participation in those sessions at the EU DisinfoLab 2026 conference.”